Peace Practices

Much is said about the value of empathy and the need to cultivate habits of nonviolence which lead to Peace. At the same time, it is very rare to find truly humane and co-creative environments which insist on the daily practice of peace in order to actually achieve this end. Through the local non-profit, Association Building Community, the Peace Practices curriculum was offered for the first time in 2009 at The Renaissance School, a Montessori learning environment in Oakland, CA. We opened a door there through which even the most scattered and conflicted children and families walked to learn habits of peaceful interaction. Peaceful ways of working through conflict and difference have always been one of the traditional pillars of learning and of Montessori education in particular.

 

 

In May 2014 we received three years of international funding and began the next phase, our local launch in partnership with Pacific Rim International School in Emeryville and San Mateo, CA. In 2016, we began working with Beacon Day School in Oakland. For more details, please visit Association Building Community's Peace Practices page. In 2016, the second of three years of promised funding, the foundation supporting us ceased communicating without explanation, and we became unable to support our administration. Some classes continued, but our infrastructure had to be disassembled. We searched for a more sustainable funding model. Brandon was invited to teach all levels of graduate students and introduce Conflict Done Well, the system as whole including Aikido 2.0, Martial Nonviolence, and Peace Practices, into the somatic psychology department of Pacifica Graduate Institute. Afterward, everything CDW then moved to be based in North Texas where it now has a home online, as a result of the pandemic, and continues to develop at Aikido Oak Cliff.

 

Now is the ideal time to offer your support and help us multiply our impact.