Peace Flowers -- Blossoming ideas in Chemnitz

My placement in Chemnitz, Germany, at the Landesschule für Blinde und Sehbehinderte (LBS) has the mission “Schule mit Ideen”, which translates to “school with ideas”. This year, I have participated in a community where the exchange of ideas furthers cross-cultural, mutual understandings of people from different countries and of varied ages, living with disabilities.

Throughout the year, I have heard stories from some of my students who arrived in Chemnitz as refugees from conflict areas and from colleagues who shared the memories of their family life affected by the Second World War in eastern Germany. In the past few months, my school has been actively supporting Ukrainian families as they relocate to Chemnitz. After hearing first-hand testimonies and learning about the realities of the war, both in Ukraine and in recent history, it was clear to me that never before has conflict felt so personal. I observed that the experiences of my students and colleagues transcended time and borders to impact their reactions toward the current conflict in the European community. To recognize and make sense of our interconnectedness, I felt that my students needed to identify their shared values and express them creatively.

I found that the shared value was peace. While students actively listened during class discussions and participated in fundraisers for organizations that provide aid to Ukraine, the main goal of these events was to contribute toward peace. Students needed to build a common language and share their idea of peace. I was inspired to pull together the personal anecdotes and current events into a lesson.

Adapting the lesson for students in third grade through tenth grade, I created profiles of current and past activists often associated with peaceful ideals. Students worked in groups to understand the activists and their missions. Together they shared how that activist embodies peace. As a class, we created our own definition of peace and acknowledged what peace means for each of us. Students took their words and phrases and wrote them on different flower petals. When combined, the flower petals created a “peace flower” to represent the beauty and regeneration of peace through history. The theme continued a week later when students met with, and listened to, the life story of a survivor of the Holocaust. Pfr. Mikołaj Skłodowski, born in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, is now a priest working with Ukrainian refugees. He reminded the students and myself how important it is to recognize history and continue to work towards peace, so tragedies do not repeat themselves. His mission for peace connected powerfully, and it became a personal interaction to re-enforce the class discussions we had.

This is just one example of how my Fulbright experience has expanded my exposure to diversity and international exchange. I have been able to interact directly with many different modalities of German history and culture, as well as to develop a lens to adapt activities for visual impairments. For example, you will see in the picture that the peace flowers include tactile components. This example shows how voices from multiple cultures around the world and different time periods were able to exchange ideas and to expand open-minded thinking about current events. As a Fulbrighter, I have contributed my perspectives and created activities that stimulate students to think about broad topics on a more personal level. This has expanded their ability to have an impact in their own community, as well as, the impact that I can have as a representative coming from the global community.