Architects of Peace: Pathways and Unintended Pauses in the Landscape of Our Common Home

Gloria J. Brinkman, Visual Art, North Mecklenburg High School

Final Unit(pdf)   Implementing Teaching Standards(pdf)

Synopsis:

This curriculum unit will make a significant contribution to visual art courses while challenging students’ critical thinking skills through topics related to existential meaning and global sustainability. Peacemaking and peaceable living influence communities. The school community, as a small society, is a source of meaning for all its members. What we believe, how we treat others, what we love, and how we live create meaning in our everyday lives. Meaning provides stability. When stability is gone, such as through war, we feel empty and we struggle to retain meaning through memory. Some of the questions this unit will raise are, How can a ‘built structure’ serve as a metaphor for memory? How does our national identity manifest itself in a built environment? What is meant by common home? Is our common home, so filled with meaning, so precious, that we are willing to fight for it if we believe it is threatened, or does it motivate us to live peacefully? How will this relate to students’ lives now and in the future? In global context students will consider the right to environment as a motivation for peacebuilding.