Little Prince and Peace

It is no secret that I am obsessed with the Little Prince.  I mean, my valedictory speech and college essays were about the messages in this philosophical tale, and I'm planning my summer around a trip to the new Little Prince Amusement Park (and my friends in Europe).   My house is decorated with quotes from the text and I've composed a multilingual musical about it.  It would be hard to be more obsessed with Antoine de Saint-Exupery's work than I am.

But I have recently become even more obsessed with the story than I used to be, and it is because of my students' excitement.  The synergy that is happening as we read the book is mind boggling.   We have debated Childhood vs. Adulthood and Imagination vs. Knowledge.  We have found evidence to support Consuelo's argument that Antoine was a "philanderer" by watching the Little Prince abandon his rose, and evidence to support Antoine's claim that Consuelo was vainglorious by seeing what a diva the rose was.  And we have explored the possible meanings of the mysterious baobabs.

These baobabs start very small.  Every day, the little prince needs to tend them so they do not get out of control.  Therefore, a standard explanation is that the baobabs represent our daily chores and healthy habits.  Lately, I have not been tending my baobabs; a simple look at my kitchen sink will confirm this!  This will be a week of sinks, kitty litter and laundry: a perfect triumvirate for a three day weekend!

Another view, though, is that the baobabs represent seeds of hatred.  St. Exupery's text about the danger of baobabs' tearing apart a planet can support this theory.  He writes of "urgent necessity" and urges children to "watch out for the baobabs!" because of their "considerable risk." The picture below shows three baobabs dominating an asteroid; this was at the time of the Triple Axis powers of WWII.  

If one were to go with this theory, the book is actually a beautiful primer in how to avoid war, in how to avoid future genocides and Holocausts.  Tend the seeds of hatred and hurt when they are small and you will be able to focus on true matters of consequence: friendship, love, the ephemeral.

With this in mind, I began to look for simulation activities which would help me bring this message home to students.  In particular, I wanted them to see that conflicts start small enough to be handled with words before they escalate to physical tactics.

I found an amazing booklet,  a Peacebuilder Toolkit for Middle School Students and found an amazing simulation in it to do with my students.  Each class was divided into three groups.  One group was journalist analysts.  They would know everything but not be allowed to interfere.  The other two groups were given the same instructions, but they didn't know this.  They only knew their own instructions:

"You will receive a life sentence to prison if you cannot get all your opponents to come over to your side and stay on your side at the end of three minutes.  You can do this in any way you want except interrupting other classes or acting unsafely.  Good luck."

The journalist-analysts knew that all each team needed to do was switch sides to avoid life in prison.  However, of the five classes who did this activity, only one of them communicated enough to resolve the problem.  Other groups used bribery, threats, cajoling, apathy (singing "Do you want to build a snowman!!!") and borderline unsafe behavior to try to get the other team over.  Very few students considered speaking to the other side.

A little conversation goes a long way.  Some wars are too far gone for conversation to solve things, but if we start before situations escalate, we could have a much safer world.