Dr. Dot Maver is the director of the National Peace Academy at Case Western University in Cleveland Ohio. She also directs Peace Partnership International, to forge alliances to co-create a culture of peace. It works in partnership with government, civil society, and business, including The Peace Alliance and its campaign for a US Department of Peace, and with the Global Alliance for Ministries and Departments of Peace. Dot served as the National Campaign Manager for the 2004 Dennis Kucinich for President Campaign. She founded the Vermont Peace Institute.
Notes from talk by Dot Maver:
We're facing "full systems breakdown." We're going through a chrysalis experience; we're in transition from individuality to community. We're part of the largest social change movement in the history of humanity, and it has no name.
Will we help to create the needed structures? Where is the breakthrough? The National Peace Academy is part of it. Now there is a National Peace Academy .
"Peace is living in right relationship with self, others, and the world around us."
The Peace Academy wants to act as "connective tissue", connecting inner to outer, and local to global.
Rita Marie Johnson, American citizen, is founder of the Rasur Foundation in Costa Rica , whose main project is the Academy for Peace of Costa Rica. She was instrumental in getting Rasur Foundation's BE PEACE program accepted by the Ministry for Peace, which is training all Costa Rican teachers and all K-12 students,in the practice of Be Peace. Rita Marie and Dot work closely together on a number of projects.
Notes from talk by Rita Marie Johnson:
Costa Rica abolished its military in 1949. How, she wondered, do they live in peace? Inspired by this, in 1993 Rita Marie moved to Costa Rica.
There she found a book: Rasur. It's an 85-page epic poem that talks about children being drawn into a mountain, every day, and being taught peace. The poem is prophetic; in 1948, Costa Rica abolished its army. In 2006, Costa Rica established a Ministry for Peace, integrated into its Ministry for Justice.
The idea is that Ministers for Peace in EVERY country would look out for EVERYONE, not just citizens of their own country.
In 2007, The Ministry for Education gets on board with teaching peace to every child in Costa Rica . The process is called "Be Peace." Students teach the process to others; the students are called "Razurs."
In Costa Rica , everyone grows up knowing the rules of soccer. And everyone grows up knowing the rules of peace. Be Peace can be summed up this way: Feel Peace, Speak Peace, and Teach Peace.
The ideas in the Feel Peace part come from the Institute of Heart Math. A technique is taught to control the emotions. The reason for this is that people process most of what they experience through the thalamus, a part of the brain that thinks abut things relatively slowly and logically
But if someone has been traumatized, this part of the brain is short-circuited and the amygdale is triggered. This leads to a fast but emotional response, which may not be rational, and may not be appropriate if peace is the objective.
The Heart Math Institute found that if people are frustrated, their heart rate becomes erratic: "incoherent." But there are things we can do consciously that make the heartbeat coherent and rhythmic. This has the effect of overriding the amygdale. So we don't have a direct way to control our amygdale, but we have an indirect way.
A volunteer from the audience is found, and a pulse measuring device is attached to his ear. He is given a stressful mental job (to count backwards by 8 from 100!), and we watch his heartbeat projected on a screen. The graph we see is - bumpy.
The volunteer is then released from his stressful job, and instructed to focus on his heart as he breathes, and to consciously feel appreciation. It helps to smile! Sure enough, the volunteer's heartbeat becomes smooth and rhythmic. We are told that this process, called "quick coherence," maximizes his ability to think clearly. The whole audience participated in the coherence practice.
This "quick coherence" technique can be practiced and perfected to give us a "peaceful heart." This is the "feeling peace" part.
The second part, "Speak Peace," is based on the work of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, author of the book Non-Violent Communication.
Rosenberg has four essential steps for dealing with conflict:
1) OBSERVATION - observe objectively (like a movie camera) what is actually going on.
2) Observe our FEELINGS. What is our emotional response to what's happening?
3) Figure out what NEEDS we have that aren't being met by
what's happening. Rosenberg observes that if we are angry, for example, it may be because we have a need to feel secure, or respected, that isn't being met.
4) Then make a POSITIVE REQUEST for remedial action. The intent is not to coerce the other party, and a negatively framed request (e.g. "Stop doing that!") isn't it.
If we can see that we have needs that aren't being met, and so does the other person, the stage is set for agreeing on win-win behavior. Be Peace teaches a path from conflict to peace.
By having the intent that everyone in the country be taught these simple (fundamental?) techniques for understanding and resolving conflict from childhood, Costa Rica offers the world a way to live together cooperatively.
Swadeshi Now
Two Women
