There cannot be love without respect.
After the first full day of Play for Peace training in Yangon, Myanmar, facilitators Swati Bhatt and Agyat Shunya, led another full day of training. The morning started with another Practice Peace Session which included lots of games, fun, and laughter. The next activity was focused on encouraging the right behaviors for co-existence and peace. Called Behavior Agreement, the small groups each drew an egg that represented the life of a group. They were then asked to discuss behaviors that help the group learn and grow and write them inside the egg. They were then asked to write behaviors that harm the group or come in their way of learning and wrote them outside the egg. Swati and Agyat worked with each team to ensure that they specified behaviors that were identifiable and not broad or vague terms that were not observable.
For example, instead of simply saying that “we have to be good to be each other”, a better description would be “we have to listen to each word of what one is saying”. Once each group recorded their model and undesirable behaviors, they discussed their thoughts as a whole and agreed to behaviors that the entire group found acceptable. Swati and Agyat then asked the group to show good behaviors for the duration of training as well as point to the agreement when undesirable behaviors were being used.
“Can this be used with children?” was one of the follow-up questions to the exercise. Everyone agreed that the answer was 'yes' but had different opinions about the appropriate age. Reflecting on their past experiences, Swati and Agyat shared that children as young as 5 years old can follow the Behavior Agreement framework. When working with younger children more instructions have to be given and more time has to be spent asking questions and their opinions about behaviors that help them. The Behavior agreement framework can also be used in classrooms for everyone, including the teacher, to follow.
To wrap up the exercise, Swati and Agyat showed the participants a presentation and a short video on some of the concepts covered earlier in the day. One participant wanted to know what was meant by respect for children as they are younger. Swati and Agyat shared their views that there cannot be love without respect and that a child is a human being and as such needs the same treatment as adults. Stay tuned to hear about the activities held after lunch.
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