Director’s Message
By Dr. Terrence Webster-Doyle
I have written many books, curricula and workbooks for adults who live or work with young people so that they can help young people to avoid the torment I experienced early on in life with this abusive behavior called “playground bullying”.
I originally thought when I wrote the book Why Is Everybody Always Picking On Me? A Guide to Handling Bullies for young people that this was all there was to it. But then I began to think about it and realized that bullying had many faces, so to speak.
I then wrote Why Is Everybody Always Picking On Us? Understanding the Roots of Prejudice. This then lead to my creating curricula on what I now think is a full picture of all the levels of bullying –– from the playground to the battlefield –– for I now realize that what starts out on the playground with individual bullying is the starting point for group bullying called war –– that the very structure and nature of playground bullying is the same as in international conflict.
Preventing international conflict
If we are serious about preventing more international conflict we need to educate our children to understand and resolve it on the playground – where bullying behavior begins. And I don’t mean just a remedial superficial approach that we are attempting today, if we are even doing that much.
Preventing, resolving and managing bullying behavior is an education in itself just as we teach math or history or science; it is a subject that takes time to comprehend and it is this time that is absolutely necessary to give in order to end this type of abusive behavior in our lives, for it is resolvable!
Educating young people on the roots of conflict
Youth Peace Literacy was started in order to educate young people about the roots of conflict as manifested in bullying behavior.
In order to accomplish this goal we offer our books online for free to young people and adults, in the hopes that each will benefit greatly and be able to see into the conflict around them. We also offer specialized training for adults that live or work with children.
The curricula and workbooks we have developed address the full range of the bully/victim cycle, so young people can become literate in peace, and can gain the skills and understanding to resolve conflict peacefully – from the playground to the battlefield.