In her recent blog post from March 25, Pam Moran shares her reflections from the trip to the Pentagon with John Hunter and his 4th grade delegation.  Talking about the excitement of the children and the bus ride to Washington, DC. Pam shares this beautiful comment she overheard that confirms the effect of an excellent teacher:  

“You see the video monitors on the bus. One of the children asked when we got on the bus this morning if we were going to watch a movie. One of the other children said, ‘no, the movie’s in your mind today’… what a great thing that their imagination is their canvas, not some Madison Avenue firm developing their imagination for them…”

In the NPR StoryCorps piece that aired on December 25, 2011, former students of John Hunter tell what it was like being a student in his class. One student, Irene Newman, who is currently studying peace, war and defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, tells about a letter that Mr. Hunter sent her on her thirteenth birthday. 

Newman says she received two pages of advice from Hunter. 

Maya Jelinek, one of the top leaders in the World Peace Game in Mr. Hunter's class this year, talks about her Pentagon visit which included a meeting with the US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

John Hunter and his 4th grade class from Agnor-Hurt Elementary School in Charlottesville, Virginia are invited to visit the Pentagon and meet with real defense strategists.

One of the magical and somewhat mystical components of the World Peace Game is the sense of agency and stewardship that it ignites in students. I use the term "ignites" because children have a deep sense of compassion, empathy, and care that we can steer, guide, and further develop, finding outlets and applications for it through learning.  Presenting students with the reality of world dilemmas that affect millions of people is a portal that reaches their sense of care. Giving them knowledge and tools that allow them to think of a world without these dilemmas, because solutions have been created, led, and implemented, ignites their sense of empowerment, creativity, purpose, and gives meaning to their learning and their lives.

Jennifer Gaspar-Santos, Teacher and Academic Technology Coordinator at St. Matthew's Episcopal Day School in San Mateo, CA, was inspired by John Hunter's TEDtalk and his World Peace Game. Jennifer used the inspiration and awe she felt from John Hunter's work to fuel her creativity and initiative and has created her own game, The Digital Divide. Many thanks to Jennifer for writing up her game and sharing it with us here on this blog.

This account of John Hunter's Keynote at NAIS Annual Conference 2012 in posted on the NAIS conference website.

World Peace Game

"How can I be of service to you?" John Hunter asked the crowd of 4,200 independent school leaders at the 2012 NAIS Annual Conference in Seattle. "I'm a public school elementary teacher from the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, from a modest sized town... I can't do much by myself, but I can turn to my teachers here with me. I stand on the shoulders of my teachers every day. How they could talk, soothe, and calm with a wave of the hand. I learned from the masters and I try to simply express what they taught me. All teachers have a lineage of people behind us." 

This is a collection of tweets from the amazing words shared with us by John Hunter, creator of the World Peace Game and a teacher of generations.