The Story of Anna Maria Elementary's Peace Day Celebration - as told by former school counselor, Cindi Harrison.
In the aftermath of the tragedy of 9/11, as school counselor, I felt it necessary to provide responsive services to our students, staff, parents, and our community for 2 reasons.
One, we were a small community school, located on Anna Maria Island where most of our students and families and much of our staff, lived and worked. Our “Little School by the Bay” as it had been fondly called for many years, was a sort of focal point on the Island. Everyone knew everyone and the whole community shared an investment in the education of our children. I believed that we all needed to help each other respond to the terror attack in a way that would calm our fears, give voice to our rejection of violence, and provide some way that we could mark this tragedy as a catalyst to promote the values we held dear.
Secondly, just prior to the attacks, we had enrolled two children from a school in Queens, New York, P.S. 69, where many of the families from that school lost family members, neighbors, colleagues, and friends in the attack. We were particularly concerned about these 2 students and their parents, and all the children and staff from their former school who had witnessed the attack from the 5th floor of their building that day.
Our school and theirs could not have been more different. We were small, located on a barrier island with a playground that looked out over the Intercoastal waterway. All of our students were English speakers. P.S. 69 was a five-story brick building, located in the heart of Queens, with an asphalt playground, a student population 4 times the size of ours with 40 different languages spoken there. But we had one precious thing in common. We both loved our students and now our school includes two of theirs. I felt the need to not only do something to help us, but also to help them.
I learned about Peace Poles and the “prayer” written by a Japanese writer, poet, and educator, Masahisa Goi, in response to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the post-war era, he saw a need to respond to violence by promoting peace. He dedicated himself in service to humanity and the attainment of global peace and harmony. In a moment of great inspiration, he wrote the “prayer” MAY PEACE PREVAIL ON EARTH. I learned that there were already over 200,000 Peace Poles bearing his words planted all across the globe in locations such as the Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, at borders between warring countries, at schools, universities, parks, neighborhood community centers, The United Nations, and several UNESCO sites around the world.
I thought if we could get one to plant at our school, it could be a symbol of our commitment to teach our children the value of communication, problem-solving, compromise and respect when difficulties arise, rather than succumbing to violence as a way to solve problems. It could become something that we celebrate each year on September 21st, the day proclaimed by the United Nations as “THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE”. The proclamation was written in 1981 established by a unanimous United Nations General Assembly Resolution to encourage all countries on Earth to lay down their weapons for just one day, every September 21st, in the interest of all humanity. I thought perhaps we could get a Peace Pole for our school and one for P.S. 69 and when the Island Rotary Club heard of my plan, they offered to fund it. Our very own Peace Pole Project was born!
We held an evening celebration for our students, their families, and our entire Island community which included the planting of our beautiful Peace Pole, adorned with 12 different language plaques from countries around the world that represented the heritage of our students, staff, and community. We had multiple activities that night that included dances performed by different ethnic groups, a parade of students carrying flags from over 50 countries, music of many genres, ethnic foods provided for sampling in our cafeteria. We had speakers from the Island Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs, elected officials, the Island Fire and Police department chiefs, and families speaking the words “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in the 12 languages represented on our Peace Pole. It was an evening that delivered what I had hoped for most....a response to a terrible tragedy that involved coming together, celebrating what we longed for, and collectively promoting peace in response to violence. What greater lesson could we teach our children?
We connected with the administration and staff of P.S. 69 in Queens proposing our offer to send a Peace Pole to their school and come to help commemorate their planting. My Principal and I had the wonderful opportunity to fly to New York and participate in the celebration that P.S. 69 planned for the planting of their pole. To me, it felt like the most significant experience of my 41-year career as an educator....the opportunity to respond to this terrible tragedy by proclaiming our wish that love could overcome hate, acceptance could overcome prejudice, and that peace could overcome violence.
Since the original planting of that very first pole, we have held Peace Day for 22 consecutive years in September with different themes each year, including literature, music, dancing, poetry, distinguished visitors from the Rotary Club, a proclamation written by our Island mayor, visits from business leaders in our community and leaders from our county school administration staff. We even received a letter from the White House in response to our invitation to President George Bush to join our first ceremony held soon after the 9/11 attacks. In his letter he thanked us for our kind invitation and then explained that, due to enhanced screening of all incoming White House mail since the attack, he did not receive our invitation in time, but said he appreciated our thoughtfulness in writing to invite him and sent his best wishes for our event. At the bottom of the card sent to us, there was a quote of the President's words:
“We will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail.” President George W. Bush 9.20.2001
We have chosen a different theme each year to guide our ceremonies with everything from constructing a giant dove from the pattern provided by the Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots program and then releasing live homing doves, to creating a human Peace sign that was filmed from a small airplane above us as we gathered on our playground. A second evening celebration for the entire community took place the year we opened our new school and received a new Peace Pole from the Rotary Club. The children created paper bag luminaries that lit our entire Peace Garden and the surrounding grove in the front of the school. We had two important guests for that celebration, the parents of a young woman who died in the towers that day, just doing her job. They released a fire balloon in her honor and we all felt both the sorrow and the renewal that could come from responding to violence with peace.
Every celebration since our first has been different, but one thing has remained constant... Our sustained commitment to the values our beloved Peace Pole represents.
“MAY PEACE PREVAIL ON EARTH”
-Masahisa Goi