Elementary school students pledge to demonstrate love, peace and harmony

Sara Brauner
Ottawa, Ontario

With the support of the Principal and staff members at the school where I teach in Ottawa, I launched a school-wide Love Peace Harmony project to help the children understand and experience the power and significance of love, peace, and harmony. For the first few months of the school year, I ran a weekly Love Peace Harmony Club with children ranging from 5 to 14 years of age.

During the first phase of the project, I was working with grade 6 students to create posters and Love Peace Harmony trees to be mounted on the first and second level walls of the school.

Our Love Peace Harmony project included reading books on love to all the students in the school followed by a discussion of what love means, how is it expressed, where is it felt in the body, and more. The students were asked to write a pledge of LOVE and to provide their name and grade level on post it notes to be pasted on the trees (see attached photos).

Some of the grade 6 students helped me with this school-wide project, posted the pledges on the primary and junior trees, and read books to the students. They were also asked to pledge a demonstration of LOVE during the month ahead.

For the second phase, I read a book on mindfulness to promote inner peace to all the elementary and junior students in each of the classes. After meaningful discussions of what peace is, how it is demonstrated, where it is found in the body, and more, the students were asked to make a pledge demonstrating PEACE to post on the primary or junior tree.

Visitors to our school have commented very positively on the Love Peace Harmony trees and the pledges written by the students.

The tree is growing with pledges of LOVE and PEACE – soon to be joined by pledges of HARMONY!