'Peace in my city': Guatemalan teacher makes a difference

Mennonite Central Committee
Friday, 7 September 2001

GUATEMALA CITY -- "I want to see with Your eyes, I want to feel with Your heart," sings a group of 15 peacemakers. They are gathered from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to participate in a four-day workshop on "The Spirituality and Ethics of Peace," held Aug. 6 to 10 by the Regional Network for Peace and Justice. The network, supported by Mennonite Central Committee, brings peace workers together for training and encouragement.

The chorus of voices grows strong as the song continues, "I pray for peace in my city." Participants in this network are working for peace in cities from war-torn Chiapas, Mexico, to crime-ridden San Salvador, El Salvador. Isabel Galvez Garcia de Torrento, a Guatemalan primary teacher, prays fervently for the peace of the troubled city where she carries out her peace education work.

Aug. 1, 2001 saw Guatemala City paralyzed as thousands of students, workers and business leaders marched to protest a bill that would raise the national goods and services tax to 12 percent -- a betrayal of campaign promises. More devastating still are ongoing human rights abuses that have sent popular support for the governing party plummeting. The party is controlled by ex-president Rios Montt, who oversaw some of the most brutal massacres of the civil war that ended in 1996.

This is the model of leadership that Isabel Galvez and her colleagues are working to change at the Muchachas Guias de Norvega school.

"Guatemalans are accustomed to authoritarianism and violence," Galvez explains. "There are those who believe that you are not a man if you have never killed." In schools, this attitude is reflected in aggressive classroom discipline that relies on shouting and expulsion.

Some five years ago, Galvez's principal attended a meeting on a student conciliation program promoted by Kikoten, a peacemaking project of the Guatemalan Mennonite Church. After listening to Kikoten's presentation, the educators confessed that they could not commit to training student peacemakers because they themselves were experiencing serious conflicts. Kikoten shifted gears and began a series of conflict transformation trainings developed especially for teachers.

In the past, antagonistic staff members had come close to fistfights. As they practiced new models of communication and developed trust, teachers were able to raise their hand in meetings to respectfully address points of contention. Constructive criticism could be received without hard feelings and retaliation. The teachers were now ready to begin training student peacemakers.

Galvez and her fellow teachers worked every Thursday afternoon with students grades 4 to 6 on a conciliation curriculum developed by Kikoten. Young peacemakers learned to mediate potentially explosive conflict between peers using a five-step process: introducing conciliation, storytelling, identifying problems, exploring solutions and making agreements. They also learned the profile of the effective peacemaker: a good and trustworthy listener, concerned for justice, who helps others find their own solutions.

Working with student conciliation has radically transformed Galvez's teaching practices. She strives in her classroom to help students find their own answers to life's problems.

Isabel remembers one occasion when she discovered a group of young boys huddled over a stack of pornographic playing cards. Rather than shouting or punishing, Galvez took advantage of the opportunity for a sex education lesson.

"I told them I wanted them to respect the female body, that it was sacred and created by God," Galvez remembers. She invited questions on a subject still taboo in many Guatemalan households, while insisting that the boys put away their cards.

Galvez has won trust not only in her own classroom but in the larger school community. Her school no longer expels students. Discipline problems are referred to Galvez, who talks with troubled students about alternatives to current conduct. Recognizing that violence and peace both begin at home, she also facilitates large group meetings with parents to discuss such sensitive issues as domestic violence and child abuse.

"I pray for peace for my city." Morale is low in Guatemala City. President Portillo and Rios Montt refuse to back down from their tax measures or from their iron grip on power. Encouraged by her fellow peacemakers in the Regional Network for Peace and Justice, Galvez nevertheless stands firm in her commitment to praying, teaching and modeling peace for her city.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org