Parker School seventh graders pose next to World Peace Game founder John Hunter (on the SmartBoard), who Skyped with them May 7. (Photo courtesy of Parker School)

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John Hunter, award-winning teacher and educational consultant, whose Ted talk about world peace was No. 1 for an extended period, spoke May 7 to Parker School’s seventh grade history class via Skype.

Previously, Parker Middle School English and history teacher John Blossom, along with 5,000 other teachers, heard Hunter speak at the National Association of Independent School Teachers conference in Seattle in February (which Blossom attended thanks to a generous Parker Parent Teacher Student Ohana grant).

Upon his return, Blossom shared Hunter’s ideas with his history classes.

The World Peace Game Foundation, founded in 2010, according to the website, “is dedicated to sharing the mission of peace, developing self-awareness, and the life work” of Hunter. “The Foundation seeks to foster the concept of peace not as a utopian dream but as an attainable goal to strive for, and to stimulate the creative development of tools for this effort. It supports development of collaboration and communication skills for resolving and transforming conflicts, and the development of the skills of compromise, all while accommodating different perspectives and interests.”

Blossom said the World Peace Game documentary called “World Peace and Other Fourth Grade Achievements,” which has begun airing on PBS, does not reveal the specifics of the game Hunter has played with his students in Virginia for the past several decades, so the Parker seventh graders decided to make a video documenting their discussions and speculations about how the game might be played.

Hearing about this, Hunter offered to take time out of his busy schedule to Skype with them once the video was complete.

Parker seventh grader Kyra Matsuda said, “One of the things Mr. Hunter told us was that adults actually had a harder time playing the game because they carried more ‘baggage’. Two adults nearly got into a fistfight. He said the game usually works best with students in grades 7-12. This was a little surprising, but it made sense, too. Kids aren’t burdened with political affairs and financial issues. They just want to play the game and win by creating world peace… I think that’s what the World Peace Game is all about. It’s about learning to think for yourself while working together, solving problems, and understanding how each decision you make affects everything else. And we did just that.”

On Friday, May 11, the Parker students were mentioned on the World Peace Game website’s blog, and their video can be viewed via a link on the site: http://worldpeacegame.org/blog/blog.

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www.parkerschool.net