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Meet our peace literacy curriculum developers

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Ann Mbacke, B.A.,  is committed to the belief that we are all connected and therefore need one another. Recognizing that Peace Advocacy and Literacy are necessary ways of living and service, Mbacke began her journey of peace advocacy on a spiritual path as a student of various faith traditions and life paths including service as a Director of Religious Growth and Learning at a Unitarian Universalist church. Mbacke began her career in the environmental permitting field with governmental agencies and then began teaching middle school and high school which led to social work including mental health services and vocational/career development work with several non-profits. Mbacke co-produced with Linda Richards, a study guide for Chapter 5 of Chappell's book The Art of Waging Peace. She now lives in Santa Barbara and teaches in the public school system. She has also worked with Chappell as a non-violence trainer.

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Derek Petrey Ph.D., earned a BA from Wright State University, and a Master’s and Doctorate from Ohio State University. He started teaching at Sinclair Community College in Fall 2003. He has taught courses in Spanish and Portuguese language, literature, and cultures, and has developed courses in Spanish for Social Work, Spanish for Health Care, and Spanish for Law Enforcement.  He has also worked as a free-lance translator and interpreter since 1995, with particular expertise in legal identification documents, university transcripts, scholarly articles and conservation biology. He served as Honors Program Director for the College from 2009-2015 and was recently named director of the Sinclair’s Center for Teaching and Learning. He is a recipient of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development award for excellence in teaching.  He also has ten years of experience designing courses for adults outside of the academic community. He has co-developed, with Kathy Rowell, an extensive discussion and activity guide for Chappell's book The Cosmic Ocean.

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Susan Radford, B.A., is a middle school Science and AVID Elective teacher in the Everett School District in Washington State. She has been sharing her love of science with students, including English Language Learners (ELL) and Extended Resource Room (ERR) students, since 1991. She feels it is pure joy to listen to 12 and 13 year old students have deep, meaningful dialogues on topics as simple as a tweet on kindness to something as complex as Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Radford is a graduate of the 2013 and 2017 Peace Literacy Summer Workshops and has co-written with Chappell and Clough the first lesson of a four-part unit inspired by Hesiod’s Allegory of Metis, as well as a lesson plan based on the produced a lesson plan and pictorial presentation on Plato's Cave based on Chappell's book The End of War and an in-class activity on animal posturing as a form of non-violent aggression. She has also sent us a report from the field about her use of these materials in her middle-school AVID elective class. She is the mother of three children, including one child with autism. As a teacher, a mother, and a human being, Radford tries to model empathy, compassion, kindness, gratitude, happiness, and failure with as much grace as possible.

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Katherine R. Rowell, Ph.D. earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University, and has taught sociology at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio since 1996. She served as the Founding Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Sinclair Community College from 2008 to 2015. For the past eight years, she has taught advanced sociology courses in racism and poverty at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. Rowell has won numerous awards for teaching excellence: American Sociological Association Teaching Excellence Award (2012), Outstanding Community College Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement of Scholarship and Education and the Carnegie Foundation in 2005, the 2005 North Central Sociological Professor of the Year and the 2012 American Sociological Association Distinguished Teaching Award. She is a board member of the Dayton International Peace Museum and strives to infuse peace literacy in all of her work. She has traveled with students for over ten years to the U.S. Mexican Border to learn about border issues and has co-organized four trips for students to Guatemala. She has also traveled to over 30 countries including Costa Rica where she participated in a faculty development project learning about peace and recently to Mongolia, where she participated in the North Asian Regional Peace Institute. She has co-developed with Derek Petrey an extensive study and activity guide for Chappell's book The Cosmic Ocean.

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Chelsey Williams holds a Masters degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Oregon State University, and serves as our Peace Literacy Curriculum Assessment Coordinator. She is passionate about teaching the values of Peace Literacy through the lens of social and emotional learning. Chelsey is a graduate of the 2018 Peace Literacy Summer workshop facilitated by Paul Chappell in Maine and now works at Phronesis Lab with Shari Clough to develop measurable goals and objectives that can be translated into real-world learning outcomes for educators all over the world.

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Paul K. Chappell

Director

recent press coverage and endorsements

 

peace literacy workshops

 

We have a number of workshops coming up this year that are open to the public - check them out!

peace literacy curriculum

 

We offer peace literacy lesson plans and study guides suitable for use in k-12 classes, higher education, and community organizations.

peace literacy compendium

 

The Peace Literacy compendium page has ideas for group projects, assignments, in-class exercises, and community activities built around Peace Literacy themes. We also have a variety of teacher resources. You can download ideas or contribute your own.

 

visit one of our biggest supporters

Jerry Leggett, President
21st Century Peace Literacy Foundation

reports from the field

 

Teachers who’ve used our materials share their stories.

why our world needs peace literacy

 

A short essay for download.

a new peace paradigm:
our human needs and the tangles of trauma

 

A short essay for download.

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