Day 3

In class today, we had the assignment of choosing 3 peace quotes and discussing the quotes we chose. From these three, we had to agree on what our definition of peace would be. 

My three quotes were: 

“A people free to choose will always choose peace.” — Bernice Johnson Reagon

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” — Desmond Tutu

“Peace is a willingness to question all your own abilities, your knowledge, to become humble”. -Loris Malaguzzi

I chose these three as they all interlinked for me. A free people will not choose to go to war. Free people have the opportunity to be humble and act in kindness. 

To me, the combination of our quotes meant very little. We took the key phrases of the quotes we chose and muddled them together for a definition. We came up with more jargon than was necessary and I thought it was too long to be an effective definition. This brought me back to my first day in class where the post was made to create our own definition of peace. I thought the assignment was for the day, so I completed it in minutes. My definition on the first day was, "Peace is where all parties always approach each interaction with true positive intent". I still believe this might just be true. Yes, I'm aware that I quoted yesterday that "hell is paved with good intentions", but this definition is different. 

And aggressor would never be an aggressor if they had good intentions. A defender would not exist if there were no aggressors. It's a fairytale of a definition, but so are all the rest. 

The second part of the lecture struck a deep cord when the"Just War" theory came into play. It became very clear, that every war throughout history was a just was on both sides of the spectrum. This gave me a great idea for a school activity. I'm still ironing out the kinks, but a "just punch" in the same manner the game was played with us, would be a very good activity to let learners see the perspective of the other students before a fight starts. 

Daily Peace Action:
I'll accept that not all the work I had planned out for the day won't be finished and I won't have the perfect day I had planned out. 

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