Barnesville Students Come Together for International Day of Peace

This year’s United Nations theme, “Invest in Peace,” gave students an opportunity to think beyond peace as simply the absence of conflict and instead consider the relationships, choices, and actions that help create thriving communities.

The day began with an all-school introduction to the meaning of International Day of Peace and its connection to Barnesville’s ongoing social change work. Students then moved into Social Change Ecosystem groups, where they explored the different strengths and roles that individuals contribute within a community. Barnesville’s Social Change Groups are modeled off Deepa Iyer’s Social Change Map framework. Our ecosystem centers the values of joy, belonging, equity, and solidarity and encourages students to recognize that meaningful change requires many different kinds of contributions. 

The framework includes roles such as builders, weavers, storytellers, caregivers, healers, guides, experimenters, visionaries, frontline responders, and disrupters. Rather than viewing one role as more important than another, students learn that  each role is interconnected and that people may move between roles over time.

During the afternoon, students worked within newly paired groups to learn more about one another’s strengths, discuss the purpose of their roles, and begin creating symbols that represented their groups. The activity encouraged students across grade levels to listen, collaborate, and think about what each person can contribute to a shared goal. 

The work also builds on previous Barnesville Social Change workshops, in which students identified the roles they connected with most, discussed their groups’ strengths and core justice values, and participated in collaborative art and activism projects. 

By involving the entire school, Barnesville’s International Day of Peace celebration gave students a chance to put ideas such as belonging, equity, care, connection, and shared responsibility into practice. It was a day not only to talk about peace, but  to explore how each student can actively help build it within their classrooms, school, and larger community.