A FSP friend asked me this morning, "what is this thing, Parenting for Peace, anyway." It turns out, with all our great publicity for Sandra Steingraber, we failed to ever really explain the idea behind P4P in the first place. Here's my take -- official documentation to come.
Parenting for Peace represents FSP's commitment to engaging with our larger community, being of service as a learning community, and providing opportunities for inquiry and discernment for adults. Our topics are broadly about peacemaking, and about issues relevant to children and Quaker values.
We are beginning to create a model of having a fall event that is somewhat lower key, and then bringing a national speaker in the spring, offering a workshop for educators and a free evening lecture. We expect to work with coalition partners to pull off these events, and to deepen our work in the community. We have thus far funded the project through private donations, grants and sponsorship and hope to continue building community support for the program.
The series began with Susan Linn, from A Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. The 2009 -2010 theme was healthy children, healthy environment, and included a panel presentation in the fall with Dr. Berringer from Harvard Medical School, Kristine Jenkins from the Environmental Health Strategy Center, and our own Nicole Borrasso. We culminated with an exciting keynote by Dr. Sandra Steingraber. Fall 2010 featured David Sobel, author of Wild Play and in Spring 2011 Alfie Kohn spoke to more than 200 audience members.
We are thrilled to offer Anne Sibley O'Brien & Krista Aronson this fall, in a program entitled "Books as Bridges: Children's Literature and Anti-Racism Education" (see blog sidebar) and Michael Thompson on May 2, 2012, discussing his research on parent-teacher communication and kids social relationships (Best Friends / Worst Enemies).
This series is still young, emerging and organic. Your ideas, your participation on the planning committee, your energy, your feedback are all hugely welcome. We believe that shared inquiry is crucial to discernment, that discernment is key to positive action. We hope you'll join in!
