Joyful Noise

As a Union City teacher dealing with a larger class size, along with some serious behavior problems and a slew of students struggling to keep up with the academics, this year has been anything but peaceful.

After passing the Fremont Children's Peace Pavilion on the corner of Paseo Padre Parkway and Fremont Boulevard one morning on my drive to work, I thought that this might be the place to quiet my class down.

The Fremont Children's Peace Pavilion is a hands-on museum for children that focuses on teaching the elements of peace. The mission is to enrich children's lives through the pursuit of peace for everyone.

Opening in 2006, the Fremont location is a satellite of the Children's Peace Pavilion in Independence, Missouri. Both of these centers are the only children's museums in North America dedicated to peace education, according to Lord Cultural Resources, a museum management firm.

When my students showed up early Monday morning for the field trip I had scheduled, Diane Barnett, the Peace Pavilion's director, warned them of two rules before they entered: "You must play with everything and you must have fun." 

Barnett then sent them off to clamor through each of the facility's six rooms in small groups with adult helpers.

In the room named Peace for Me, the children settled down at a table to look at pictures of different emotions. They were then told to look in one of the colorful mirrors to really observe themselves and find one feature on their face that they love, conveying the message that your own peace begins with learning to love yourself.

The Peace for Us sent the message that you need to cooperate to find solutions to problems. One of the activities that the kids did was trying to put on and button a shirt while wearing gardening gloves. They are supposed to realize on their own that they need to ask someone else for help at times, and that others will need their help, too.

My favorite room is Peace for Everyone. It's got detailed replicas of living rooms from around the world, which gives the kids a peek into how we all live a little differently. The children can also choose from pouring over a variety of talking globes, or creating their own flags that show their ideas of World Peace.

Most kids said, "Ooh," as they entered the Peace for the Planet room. The room is decked out to look like a tropical rainforest in one corner, and the African savannah, Deep Ocean and Arctic regions in the others.

Students go on a mini safari in this room, finding endangered animals and learning that preserving the planet helps keep it a balanced, peaceful planet.

There are devoted volunteers in every area, explaining the interactive exhibits and driving each specific message of peace home to the wide-eyed girls and boys.

Edith Gilman loves helping out at the Pavilion so much that she drives five hours from Bakersfield when a group is scheduled to visit.

"I just love the kids. I love doing this," she said.

After winding through all of the rooms in their small groups, the class gathered to learn how they can choose peace when they really want to yell or hit. They were taught the mantra, "Stop, think, peace," along with catchy hand signals, and then used it in a scenario acted out with some funny puppets.

At the end of their trip, my students boarded our yellow bus with bright blue bags brimming with handmade peace flags, animal puppets, friendship bracelets and feathery masks. The ride back to school was noisy, much like the noise I heard all morning in the colorful rooms of the Pavilion.

So maybe I didn't find a place to keep them quiet, but the joyful noise they made while discovering that each one of them has a beautiful face or has something to contribute to this world, is priceless.

They can't learn to love themselves with their noses in any of our school textbooks, but hopefully their trip to the Peace Pavilion gave them the self-confidence to approach their challenges at school just a little more calmly.

To schedule a visit, please contact Diane Barnett at (510) 792-1929. The Children's Peace Pavilion is open 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and Saturday by appointment. Volunteers are welcome and admission is free.