My Story Our Story: Interpretations of Violence in the Middle School Classroom

• In Event: 16.051 - Pedagogies of Peace in Action

Abstract

This paper will document narratives from a middle school classroom in New York where Mr. D, a teacher activist and peace educator engages his classroom in ongoing dialogue about the cyclical nature of violence through imagery and photography. Through visual literacy, students are presented with an historic image and provided the title and year when it was created. The task then becomes for students to reflect and transplant the experience in the image to the present day. Tying together the past and present allows students to “walk in the footsteps” of historical moments and further develop their own critical post memory lens from which to analyze collective stories and peaceful alternatives: it where my story is shared as our story.

Author

• Rita Verma, Adelphi University