8th graders picked for ‘Paths to Peace’

By SALLY BOYD

Gazette Neigh­bors Editor

life@gazettepublishingco.com

Thanks to the con­certed efforts of two Belle­vue Mid­dle School instruc­tors, a group of 150 BMS 8th graders will have a very unique oppor­tu­nity to visit Put-In-Bay and Canada through a pro­gram enti­tled “Paths to Peace: War of 1812 Arts Legacy.”

BMS 8th grade his­tory instruc­tor Joan Gyurke and arts instruc­tor Linda Cochran addressed the Belle­vue Board of Edu­ca­tion at the Sep­tem­ber monthly board meet­ing, giv­ing infor­ma­tion about the project ‚which is oper­ated under the aegis of the U.S. Depart­ment of Interior’s National Park Ser­vice and its Artrain program.

The bicen­ten­nial of the War of 1812 will run from 2012–2015, with com­mem­o­ra­tive events planned through­out North Amer­ica. The con­clu­sion of the War of 1812 forged a long-lasting peace between three world allies — Canada, Great Britain and the U.S. — which is the basis of the joint edu­ca­tional pro­gram between the U.S. and Canada.

To address the per­ceived lack of knowl­edge about the War of 1812, the National Park Ser­vice (NPS) has begun Paths to Peace, an inter­na­tional col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­gram involv­ing the NPS, War of 1812 his­tor­i­cal sites in Canada, mid­dle schools from the U.S. and Canada, and com­mu­nity lead­ers. Blanca Stran­sky, super­in­ten­dent of the NPS’s Perry’s Vic­tory and Inter­na­tional Peace Memo­r­ial on Put-In-Bay, the main U.S. site loca­tion, is chair­ing the project.

In mak­ing their pre­sen­ta­tion, Gyurke and Cochran explained that because of an on-going rela­tion­ship with Stran­sky, who, they said, has been very impressed with Belle­vue stu­dents dur­ing pre­vi­ous vis­its to Put-In-Bay, the dis­trict was selected as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive U.S. stu­dent body for this pilot pro­gram. The col­lab­o­ra­tion will bring together artists and mid­dle school stu­dents from both the U.S. and Canada to learn about the War of 1812 and its legacy.

The Belle­vue stu­dents will be paired with 150 mid­dle school youth from Amher­st­burg and Wind­sor, Ontario. Stu­dents will par­tic­i­pate in three sem­i­nars, two at Perry’s Vic­tory and one at Fort Malden, in Amher­st­burg. The part­ner­ship, which began two years ago, will have stu­dents first vis­it­ing Put-In-Bay in Octo­ber for a day-long sem­i­nar where they will receive instruc­tion from artists and edu­ca­tors, ori­ent­ing them to the war’s his­tory and intro­duc­ing them to the var­i­ous arts-based opportunities.

Stu­dents will then spend six months back in Belle­vue research­ing ties to the war, artists/craftspeople of the times, peace move­ments and inter­na­tional rela­tions. They will use var­i­ous art forms — visual, media, per­form­ing and lit­er­ary — to cre­ate work which inter­prets their expe­ri­ence and ref­er­ences period cul­ture. It is expected that the work cre­ated will focus on the val­ues of peace and inter­na­tional diplo­macy, then and now.

Through a vari­ety of con­nec­tions, the stu­dents will stay in con­tact with their sis­ter city and Perry’s Vic­tory per­son­nel, to con­tinue learn­ing about the park, each other’s his­tory, cul­tures and cre­ativ­ity. The oppo­site sis­ter city will then host a sec­ond gath­er­ing in May 2012 at Fort Malden for stu­dents to meet again and share their work with each other.

Cul­mi­na­tion of the pro­gram will be an exhi­bi­tion at the Perry’s Mon­u­ment vis­i­tor cen­ter dur­ing Com­modore Perry Edu­ca­tion Days and at the end of the five-year project, the park will host an Inter­na­tional Youth Arts Fes­ti­val, bring­ing all art­work together in 2015 as part of the park’s com­mem­o­ra­tion of 200 years of peace between the U.S., Canada and Great Britain.

Gyurke said that Perry’s Vic­tory and Inter­na­tional Peace Memo­r­ial has obtained a $400,000 grant to fund the pro­gram, includ­ing travel — pos­si­bly via the Jet Express — not only to Put-In-Bay, but to Fort Malden in Canada. She and Cochran are cur­rently final­iz­ing the details of the project, which was approved by the board.

Super­in­ten­dent Kim Schu­bert said, “Our stu­dents were cho­sen for their exem­plary behav­ior. This is a won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to expand their bound­aries beyond Bellevue.”

Rachel Gore, daugh­ter of board mem­ber Val Gore, was the only per­son to speak dur­ing the pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion time. Gore, a Belle­vue ele­men­tary stu­dent, asked the board to con­sider imple­ment­ing uni­forms for daily school wear, as stu­dents often, she said, wear inap­pro­pri­ate cloth­ing — too small, too tight, too short and with inap­pro­pri­ate words. Excep­tions could be granted, she said, for Fri­day spirit days, pic­ture days, etc.

Schu­bert said the district’s pol­icy com­mit­tee would take the sug­ges­tion under review.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Sep 16 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.