SUMMER 2008Aileen Denzler
Friends School Mullica Hill“To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by the projecting of the ethics of love to the center of our lives.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
Imagine being known as the “Bad Class” by all of your teachers. Well, that is how my third grade class was known by our former teachers. Our third grade teacher, Teacher Maura, told us that one day in the beginning of the school year. And our class did not appreciate this, so we decided to change their opinions.
We came up with different solutions but only one seemed the right thing. We decided we would make a “peace pack.” For the next week we made up little cards, but only enough for our class, and Teacher Maura asked us to color them with what we thought peace looked like. Personally, I drew hearts around the edges and colored the inside with all different colors.
For the next couple of weeks we all sat down and came up with ten rules that we thought would bring us peace in our classroom and school environment. For example, one of the rules was to laugh with, not at, people. Also to follow the golden rule: treat others as you want to be treated. Although these rules may sound stupid now that we are thirteen and not eight, they really did make a difference later. While we were making up the rules, we told stories and Teacher Maura told us stories, and during that time we were able to relate to each other.
After we finished the rule making and getting the cards finished, we started to share the cards with our fellow students and teachers. When we showed them the cards, everyone started to want one of the cards. We were all assigned jobs. Some people cut the cards, others got everyone who wanted to have one sign a page. I can remember feeling proud of myself because I was making a difference and helping others.
After everyone in the lower school got a card, we realized that everyone was following the rules and being nicer to people. Then we had a slight problem with recess. We started playing soccer and we had problems with picking teams. First we played Teacher Mary’s class versus our class. That did not work well, so we decided to play boys versus girls. We played for a while, but then, when the girls won, the boys were sore losers, so we played another game. That game the boys won, and they became sore winners, so all the girls ran to Teacher Maura and told her what happened, and she called us all in, and we had to talk about what happened. After a while we figured out why we had such a bad problem, and it came down to us being too competitive and comparing us to each other too much.
In the end we had no problems because we followed our peace pack rules and we realized that we were all the same. In the end we did end up changing the other teachers’ opinions of us. And all because we broke the chain of hate and started a new peace chain.
So how does my essay have anything to do with Martin Luther King Jr’s famous quote: “To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by the projecting of the ethics of love to the center of our lives.”
Well, my story might not be as powerful as his quote, and even though it was about a bunch of third graders and we may not have changed all of the United States, we still made a difference in our community. Also, my story has many things that are mentioned in this quote. One example in the story is that we tried to break the hate chain and we did. We were able to make a difference, and we were able to learn from it. We did not fight back with bitterness and hate. We changed the hard situations we faced. I think if it were not for Teacher Maura and all the love she had for us, and all the love we had for each other, we would never have been able to accomplish what we did. Also, we were only 12 third graders, and we changed almost 100 people. Imagine what a group of 1,000 or 1,000,000 people could do. Hopefully, we will be able to create a world peace pack and change the world.
This essay is the first prize winner in the Helen Glass Peace Essay contest, which is held annually at Friends School Mullica Hill and is sponsored by Mickleton and Mullica Hill Monthly Meetings. It is copyright © 2008 by Mickleton and Mullica Hill MMs.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 11:55 PM
