Archive: Around Town

The Lansing Elementary School lawn was covered with pinwheels Monday morning as students filed out from their classrooms to place pinwheels they had made in the grass.  Some of Cathy Moseley's enrichment students at Lansing Middle School made and displayed pinwheels, and all 420 elementary school students made a pinwheel last week, to be placed in front of their school in celebration of part of a world-wide celebration of International Peace Day. 

"This isn't a political decision about war," says Principal Chris Pettograsso.  "It is just an overall visual statement to say that we agree with harmony and peace in our school and  world-wide."


Pinwheels for Peace began as an art installation project in 2005 Coconut Creek, Florida.  Art teachers Ann Ayers and Ellen McMillan wanted their students to use pinwheels to show how they felt about events around the world and in their lives.  The idea spread beyond just their school.  In its first year over 1,325 schools participated with about 500,000 pinwheels, and by 2008 the numbers had grown to more than 3,000 locations and over 2.3 million pinwheels.

Pettograsso says that when enrichment teacher Patty Jennings suggested that her students make pinwheels she sent an email to all the teachers to ask if they would also like to participate.  Every teacher signed on.

"I'm just so pleased that it came from my teachers and followed through the students," she says.  "It came from them -- I love that."

Peace is a theme that students started with from the beginning, with the singing group Vitamin L performing on the first day of school.  Now that the pinwheels project is completed, the theme will tie in with social studies and civics units, especially in third and fourth grade classrooms as they study different parts of the world and cultures.

 

Pettograsso says she loves the lesson that students are doing something that is bigger than just one individual or just one school.  She notes that is a lesson the newly formed student council teaches, service to a group greater than one's self.  Younger students see that older students are participating, and with pictures posted on the Pinwheels For Peace Web site kids can see that other kids from around the world are doing the same thing.

"To know that other schools are doing it," she says.  "Especially with our third and fourth graders -- they really get a higher understanding that this is not just us -- this is greater than us."


On another level the project is just plain fun.  Pettograsso says the kids love hands-on projects, and each student got to create something independent.  Some created designs for their pinwheels, others wrote poems or haikus on theirs.  Some sported the peace symbol, others words like 'Peace,' 'Friendship,' and 'Respect.'

"It's interesting -- one child said, 'We stand for peace,'" Pettograsso muses.  "When you say, 'What does that mean?' they usually say, 'Friendship, it means that you're nice...' -- you know, simple statements that are very poignant at the same time.  'Let's just be nice to each other.'  The kids are really into into it.  It's been sweet."

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