Skip to main content

International Day of Peace

It was a special day at Bel Aire today.  We celebrated the opening of our new labyrinth as a place of peace surrounded by our beautiful redwood trees at the back of our campus.  The labyrinth will be a way for students to practice mindfulness and reflection.  A labyrinth may be new to some of you, but they have actually been around for thousands of years.  It is not a puzzle or a maze with dead ends and choices but a pathway that is laid out in a circular pattern to take the walker on a journey to the center.  As you walk along the path, it is a time to reflect, find calm when you're in conflict, and appreciate the joys of life.

The labyrinth was a perfect setting for our celebration of peace.  We talked about the 50th anniversary of our International Baccalaureate Organization.  The IB began 50 years ago in the aftermath of a war torn Europe from the International School of Geneva.  That insightful group of educators had a vision that children from all over the world could learn and grow together with the purpose of creating a more peaceful world.   This is still our mission and it's needed in our world more than ever.

I was looking for inspiration for our gathering today so last night I watched the recent documentary film about Mr. Rodgers called Won't You Be My Neighbor? (which I highly recommend!)  I found an idea to use with the students today.  I asked all of us to silently think for one minute about someone in our life that loves us - a family member, friend, teacher, etc.  and after we enveloped ourselves in feelings of love and peace, we sent that feeling out to the world.  Each student placed a flower along the edge of the new labyrinth and sent our good thoughts out to the world with the commitment to work for peace

.

I want to thank all those that helped with this project and event - Mrs. Abeyta, Mrs. Imbach, Miki Hsu Leavey, who managed the labyrinth project, Larry Greenwood, landscape designer for creating this beautiful piece, and especially to Dr. Mary Cooke for her generous donation to make this possible.

Please come and use the labyrinth when you need a little calm and peace in your life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Telling our Community Story

This year at Bel Aire Park our theme has been finding our voice and telling our story.  In thinking about our annual World's Fair last week, it occurred to me that this event is an important way that we share our story as a school community.  We've held this event for several years now as a way to come together with kids and families for a fun, relaxed time where we can enjoy being together.  While also trying to celebrate a little bit of culture from around the world in keeping with our International Baccalaureate program.   It requires a lot of work to put this event together and this year especially I was reflecting about all the people that have their hand in making it successful.  We have members of our staff, leaders from our Family Faculty Club, volunteers from our ELAC group, community support from organizations like 4-H and community partners like Cooke Orthodontics and Umpqua Bank all contributing ideas, time, or resources to help us have an enjoyable time together. 
1 comment
Read more
We had such a fun time today at our annual Great Zucchini Race!  We had about 40 students enter a zucchini car that they built and decorated in some really unique ways.  In addition to being a great community builder, this race gives students the opportunity to use their creativity and critical thinking skills to design a racer using simple physics and engineering. But my favorite part is seeing evidence that families worked together on a hands-on project.  Some of the most memorable and happy times for our kids is when we create and play together.  Thanks to all those that participated and those that came out to cheer on the kids!
1 comment
Read more

Season of Giving

I'm always grateful when the holiday season approaches each year.  It helps me put things in perspective.  Although all of us have challenges and stresses in our lives, it is good to think about things we are grateful for.  As a staff at Bel Aire this past month, we have been trying to practice starting the day with something we appreciate.  It can be something as simple as the sunshine or water.  Then, each time we notice the thing we appreciate, it gives us an opportunity to pause and experience for a moment the feeling of gratitude and appreciation.  I have been reflecting on and appreciating all those helpers that come forward when there's a crisis or tragedy.  We see it often in our own community and have seen it with the recent wildfires again in California.   We also had helpers in our own school community, inspired by their IB unit about how taking action is part of what it means to be human.  All the 3rd and 4th grade classes, chose and researched an area of need and
Post a Comment
Read more