LES students take part in International Day of Peace
On the morning of Sept. 21 Kesha
Metzler was busy lining the front lawn of Lakeside Elementary
School with 387 pinwheels that the students at the school created
for the Pinwheels for Peace Project to celebrate the International
Day of Peace.
The project links millions of people
together from all over the world who create and display pinwheels
on the same day in recognition of the need for world peace.
Metzler, who teaches art classes for
Lakeside students in kindergarten through fifth-grade through the
Artist -in-Residence Program funded by a PTA grant, decided to use
the pinwheel project as the inaugural project for the school year
because of its simplicity and larger purpose.
“I thought it would work well because
it’s a short month and it is the start of school and everyone is
getting settled in,” Metzler said. “I needed a short project that
we could do and it coincided well with 9/11 and the International
Day of Peace. I thought it would be a good kick-off and that it
would be fun to have an outdoor installment that all the kids could
look at and be proud of.”
The pinwheels were not only on display
for the students to see on the International Day of Peace. Metzler
took them out of the ground that evening to protect them from the
elements and then put them back up the following day for the
school’s open house so the students could share the installment
with their families.
“They loved it. They thought it was
really cool to see their work displayed,” Metzler said of the
students. “A lot of them were surprised at how small 400 pinwheels
looked on the lawn. They were really proud to show their parents
(Thursday) night at parents night. It was neat to see the kids
searching through the field of pinwheels to show their parents
theirs. It was a neat element for me.”
Another fun aspect about the project
was that every student in the school did the same project, though
at different times. Most of the art classes Metzler will teach to
the students this year will vary greatly from grade to grade.
“It’s a fun project too because it was
for the whole school, Metzler said. “All of the kids could do it
from kindergarten through fifth grade. I thought it was a neat
thing that they could all do together before we start splitting off
into different projects at the different grade levels.”
She said the students not only enjoyed
the fact that the whole school was working on the same project, but
also that they were part of a global effort.
“They thought it was really cool that
they weren’t the only ones that were doing this project, but that
the same project was happening not just across the country but
around the world,” Metzler said. “I think they thought it was
pretty wild that they were a part of something so big.”
Although a count has not been made
public for this year’s Pinwheels for Peace, last year around 3.5
million people around the world took part in the project.
The Lakeside students started their
project by discussing creative expression, the idea of peace and
even learning to say the word peace in different languages.
“First of all I talked to the kids
about how we all express ourselves differently and as artists we’ll
all express ourselves differently,” Metzler said.
She then had the students create two
pinwheels. The first pinwheel they made was for Pinwheels for
Peace.
“I asked them to decorate a pinwheel
with what they thought and felt about world peace,” Metzler said.
“Some were decorated with American flags but they talked about how
we would have over population if it wasn’t for war. It was really
interesting to see how the kids expressed themselves and what their
ideas are on this topic, especially in the higher-up grades.”
Those pinwheels were laminated and put
outside. They were asked to decorate a second pinwheel in a way
that expressed who they were as a person and those were put up
around their classrooms.
“The kids really expressed themselves
well,” Metzler said. “Several of the kids really took it to heart.
There were a lot of thoughts that went into the journaling that
went on the pinwheels and the artistic work that went into
them.”