By Jack Gilroy, World BEYOND War, May 21, 2026
“Every day should be a day of peace,” said one attendee at our annual Children’s Peace Fair.
Veterans For Peace and Peace Action organizers in Binghamton, NY, understand this sentiment and agree.
Recognizing that teaching peace is an everyday need, we have set aside one special day to celebrate it.
School calendars can assign an open day that works. to celebrate peace. In our region of the Southern Tier of upstate NY, we select one of two United Nations Days to focus on: May 16, the UN International Day of Living Together in Peace, or September 21st, the UN International Day of Peace. The specific day can be adjusted according to each school calendar; if the dates fall on a weekend, Friday or Monday works well.
This May 15, 2026, the day before the UN International Day of Living Together In Peace, we opened our celebration with children sitting on the Horace Mann Elementary School lawn in Binghamton, NY listening intensely to Vivaldi’s Spring on flute, a short lesson on the word “diplomacy”, a wonderful magician who taught that there is magic to peace with a play on magical words to make life more enjoyable. Five adults, some former school teachers, sang lively peace songs of the 60s, bringing in the children’s voices to sing El Condor Pasa and reaching back to the 1930′ for a sing-along of This Land Is My Land
Then a lady appeared with a colorful, large parrot sitting on her shoulder, mesmerizing the kids with her Peace Parrot, using “please and thank you” to encourage the big bird to slide down the steep steel railings to delight the kids. She told peace stories associated with “ Baby Boy,” her favorite among her “Peace Parrots.”
Peace stories accompanied by the magical sounds of the Penny Whistle grabbed the kids’ attention as the musician matched the music to a story of peace and justice.
The end of the performance allowed children to select any station from a dozen tables— drumming, or beekeeping, magic tricks table, learning about trees, an array of peace games with peace symbols and chalk drawing the symbols on the school sidewalk, showing kids how to compost vegetative waste with worms, another station with Japanese kimonos to try on, along with conical straw hats worn by millions of farmers in East and Southeast Asia, and ending the Fair with a reading of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss and each child getting a tree seedling to take home, plant, and nurture.
Our event is in opposition to fear, distrust, and hate promoted by the military-industrial culture in control of our nation and people. The Merchants of Death live by the lie: “if you want peace, prepare for war.” We know the exact opposite is true. Children need to be taught peace, not war or war preparation. Some teachers do that, and many, if not most, focus on teaching allegiance to the US flag–American Exceptionalism every day of the school year. The racist and war-focused Star Spangled Banner is sung at school assemblies and sporting events. Some elementary school teachers invite the military to speak to the children. Some middle schools and most high schools allow military recruiters into their classes, guidance offices, cafeterias–smartly uniformed with bright medals on their chests, young men and women teaching war under the guise of peace-making. Numerous United States schools allow military training starting in Middle School (Jr. ROTC). Children fall into the adult US war culture mode by thanking the military for their service without a thought of the horrors they may have committed around the world in the name of the Pledge of Allegiance— “with liberty and justice for all”.
Little children show amazing empathy and kindness and learn to resolve disagreements in their own way, understanding the reasonableness of justice. This seems to fade as they move into Middle School and High School. American Exceptionalism takes over as empathy and kindness are found not to be American values when we search for and label other people as our enemies.
We need Peace Fairs in Elementary Schools, Middle Schools, and High Schools to help maintain the virtues of love, kindness, empathy, and basic human dignity in the sisterhood and brotherhood internationally.
12 Responses
Thank you, WBW, for sharing this suggestion with teachers worldwide, especially in the United States, to hold celebrations of peace rather than war.
Need more children’s Peace fairs!
More Peace Fairs are needed. We are teaching peace by what we do and what we say!
Keep spreading the joy and importance of Children’s Peace Fairs!
Replace militaristic rituals and events in schools with peace inspired activities, entertainers, and hands-on community building that can influence youth around the country to practice peace and justice.
It’s good to see adults reinforce children’s natural inclination to peace. We need to see more of this.
Children benefit experiences that instill empathy, joy and compassion. This Children’s Peace Fair did all that and through in awe and song too.
Children develop life affirming skills and behaviors when they experience activities that enhance empathy and compassion. Include awe, joy and song and then you have a Children’s Peace Fair.
Brother Jack,
A wonderful day for everyone, and a great concept easily duplicated by groups like the VFP throughout the country. Your teaching has reach new and vital levels!
What an excellent opportunity to plant the seeds of peace (literally and figuratively) by modeling peaceful relationships and activities with young children. Many peace activists were influenced by the mentors and role models of earlier generations. Now, more than ever, the culture (cult?) of militarism requires an alternative narrative.
May Children’s Peace Fairs become the norm in every elementary school across the country!
Could we have Peace Fairs for everybody, you are never to old to want more Peace in the world.
One more way to have a livable world. We are all one.