This Peace Council started its exploration of a culture of peace for youth by looking at pre-natal influence. They discussed conscious birthing, brining forth a child in a peaceful way. They considered the effect of thought and belief on the body and on the fetus, and discussed the parents' spiritual path to bring forth a new soul into the world.

Parenting for peace got significant attention too. Children need personal attention, not to spend their time with electronic devices. They need self love, validation, structure, limits, positive reinforcement - and for the way of peace, they especially need heroes and models. Parents need education - in parenting and in parenting for peace. We need to stop parenting through control, punishment, and shame, and start parenting through empathy and nurturing.

Young children should be taught respect for all living beings and the sacredness of all life from the earliest age. They need to know that we re all connected; that each has a place in the universe. They need a time of innocence (maybe up to 5 years old) where they are not exposed to violence, especially media violence. They need to be taught the skills of finding inner peace.

Parents need to do their own healing from the violence, abuse, neglect, and pain in their lives. They must model the peace they wish their children to learn, and make peace values a priority for their children.

Peace education also received attention. It should be in school curricula at all levels. We need to teach life skill courses, compassion, unity, tolerance, uniqueness, universal service, and the appreciation of differences. We can show teachers that peaceful classrooms, where peaceful conflict resolution is the norm, lead to more effective teaching, and show administrators that peaceful students get higher test scores.

Teachers should emphasize respect in the classroom, and demonstrate it, meeting young people where they are. They should teach current events at an early age. After-school peace groups or clubs were also discussed.

On the subject of youth culture and the media, the group considered the language of peace, feeling that young people are more drawn to action-oriented and uplifting language. "Peace" still has a 'hippie' connotation for many. Positive images, inspiring words and symbols, and new peace language can be shared widely through the internet, for example on MySpace.

There is so much violence in youth culture, especially video games. They should be banned from public spaces (as should horror movies). Participants spoke of finding or creating games where people serve and save, not kill. Young people don't necessarily distinguish between what's violent and what's 'cool,' so we need to teach children media literacy and get stars and famous youth idols to promote other kinds of media. We also need to provide other interesting things for youth to do so they won't become addicted to television.

Ultimately, the youth want to create their own new media. Through the arts (poetry, film, music, etc.) they can share their voices and their visions for peace and for a better world, which are passionate and articulate.

On the subject of university education, the group spoke of the pedagogy modeling peace values: encouraging learning from the heart and spirit as well as the mind; creating community in the classroom where students are treated as equal human beings; honoring progress for each individual rather than rewards for the best.

Some resources that were mentioned:

• Race: The Power of Ilusion (video) - www.pbs.org/race/
• The writings of Robert Sardello
• The Circle of Life Curriculum - Native American health program - google for more information
• Punished by Rewards - a book by Alfie Kohn
• Everyday Heroes (film) - www.every-day-heroes.org
• Pay if Forward (film)
• PeaceJam program - www.peacejam.org
• The Tribes program - www.tribes.com