CEASE Recent Activities  

Spring 2013 CEASE News

CEASE at 2012 NAEYC Conference

We found Atlanta to be an inspirational site for CEASE.  Our visit to the Martin Luther King, Jr. birthplace and National Historic Site brought the civil rights movement and King’s devotion to social justice alive for us.  President Jimmy Carter’s Library and Museum inspires us to continue working toward building a culture of nonviolence and peace.

An exhibit of the civil rights march invites us to stand in solidarity with marchers.  Pictured with an Atlanta family are (L-R) CEASE members Joyce Daniels, Wilma Gold, Sharon Davisson, Irene Lipshin and Susan Hopkins

Sharon Davisson and Marilyn Pearce "Waging Peace" at the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum.

CEASE 2012 Interest Forum Sessions

Play matters! and that was the theme of our CEASE session, “Urgent! Return Play to the Lives of Children.”Our interactive session was one of several at the 2012 NAEYC Atlanta Conference highlighting the message that play is critical and endangered. After presentations by Graciela Italiano-Thomas, Lucy Stroock and Irene Lipshin, enthusiastic participants addressed queries in roundtable discussions: How was play honored in your childhood and how is it honored now in the classroom; Think how play happens with your age group (the introductory story was presented by Lucy Stroock for Craig Simpson, who was delayed in New Jersey, helping his brother deal with effects of Superstorm Sandy); How can we design classrooms to support play and think how to explain and advocate for play. Before the session started a slide show of children at play, with quotes by notables in the field and handouts, including “Children and Play: a Resource Guide for Advocacy” helped participants consider this critical topic.

CEASE/LGBT Collaborative Session 2012:   “That’s so Gay:  Reviewing Language and Teaching Tolerance.” 
Last year CEASE and the LGBT Interest Forums experienced notable success in a collaborative session on preventing bullying of LGBT children and families.  This year our two Interest Forums once again joined together to present a stimulating collaborative session.  We were pleased to learn that our sessionwas selected for the NAEYC Live Learning Center where members may obtain an audio recording, PowerPoint and handouts.  Lucy Stroock moderated the session and Steve Schuman, Brian Silveria and Sharon Davisson spoke to identifying and addressing biased language and behaviors, integrating proactive anti-bias activities into the classroom, and using a “Peaceable Classroom” model to create a democratic and socially just learning environment.
The participants engaged in lively discussions as they addressed each topic.  One participant reported, “Thanks for the informative and thought-provoking session. . .  having us talk in small groups made the session especially supportive. The resources posted on the conference site will be helpful as I share this experience.”

2012 CEASE Peace Awards to Susan Linn and Joyce Daniels

Diane Levin presenting the CEASE 2012 Peace Award to Susan Linn and Audrey Duck.

Joyce Daniels receiving the CEASE 2012 Peace Award from Lucy Stroock

CEASE/Violence in the Lives of Children Interest Forum Meeting

We agreed to accept the proposal from the June Retreat to add "sustainability" to our Statement of Purpose. The second sentence will now read "We seek to end the violence that permeates our society to an ever increasing degree and to remove the root causes of this violence by advocating for peace, justice, economic opportunity and sustainability."
We chose to support three proposals for the 2013 Conference: 
          Empowered Children Make for a Peaceful World:  CEASE in collaboration with NVP.
                    Sharon Davisson and Wilma Gold will work together on this.
         CEASE will join in a Defending the Early Years proposal with Geralyn Bywater Mclaughlin.          CEASE will lend its support to a CCFC proposal submitted by Susan Linn. 
CEASE will meet again for our Retreat in the East, June 5th -9th.

2012 CEASE Retreat – Grass Valley, CA, June 14-17

CEASE East and West members gathered at the Woolman Retreat in Nevada City, California for three days of working on our commitment to create a safe and just world for children and families, planning our activities for the coming year and enjoying our valued companionship. 

We continue to be concerned about the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top emphasis on early academics and high stakes testing.  One of our actions will be to write an article regarding the benefits of child-initiated play. Another is to continue to focus on play in our future workshops.

A new committee was formed to create the 2012 Fall Packet with the goal of eventually transitioning the packet to a paperless resource to be available well before the Fall NAEYC conference.  This year resources will include background on the upcoming election and a FYI comparing the military budget with the ECE budget.

We plan to continue to support and work with our close partners: Save our Schools, Defending the Early Years and the Campaign for the Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

We discussed NAEYC’s bias toward technology in the ECE classroom as evidenced in the May 2012 Young Children.  We will support the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Alliance for Childhood as they complete their report on the effects of technology on young children’s growth and development.  We agreed with the recommendations of the health-related organizations with reference to the exposure of young children, particularly those under two, to screen media.

While we continue to view NAEYC as an appropriate forum for our advocacy work, we are also investigating the possibility of becoming an interest forum at the Association for Childhood Education International, which more closely aligns with our values and purposes.

 

For activities in 2011 and earlier, see our Archives page.