How to Be a Peacemaker
Grades 2 to 5 · K-1 with an adult reading aloud · one 60 minute session or two 30 minute sessions
Why this lesson
Many students have only ever heard one story about the Middle East. This lesson answers that story with evidence instead of argument: the greeting itself wishes peace, and the case study shows Emirati culture being shared and welcomed far from home. The child leaves knowing that peace is something people do, and that they can do it too.
What the class makes: A classroom peace agreement, written and voted on by the class, signed by every child, posted on the wall.
Title and welcome
What is peace? Children call out first ideas. Write every answer where all can see. No answer is wrong here.
The greeting from the book
In the book, Dabya greets Alexandria with “marhaba.” It means welcome. Dabya was welcoming Alexandria to her country, the way you welcome a friend to your home.
The wish inside the words
In Abu Dhabi, Dabya’s family also greets people with “as-salamu alaykum,” which means “peace be unto you.” The answer is “wa alaykum as-salaam”: “and unto you peace.”
Ask the class: what is this greeting wishing for the other person? Every hello here is a wish for peace, given and given back.
Personal reflection
Three questions, written or drawn:
- What does peace mean to me?
- Where do I feel most peaceful, and what makes it feel that way?
- How am I already a peacemaker at home or at school?
Something real to read, and discussion
Read aloud “Together in Peace: UAE Day in Austria” from Sail Magazine: people in Austria learning about and celebrating Emirati culture in a different land. A strong companion is the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, opened in 2023 with a mosque, a church, and a synagogue built side by side on one site.
Talk it through together. Open each question when you are ready for the teacher notes:
What did people share about Emirati culture at UAE Day in Austria?
How does the UAE show other countries that it wants peace?
Why does it matter for people from different places to get along?
What would you share from your culture, if you were welcoming someone?
The six actions
How to be a peacemaker, one action at a time.
🌍Learn about the world around you
Build a class peace-words wall: collect the hello words used in the families of this class, and what each one wishes. The class’s own languages are the world coming to you.
👂Learn how to listen
Listening circle: one partner tells about a time they felt peaceful. The other partner repeats back what they heard before saying anything of their own.
🗳Be involved in the decisions being made for you
Write the classroom peace agreement together. Children propose the lines, the class votes on each one, everyone signs.
💡Learn about different ways of thinking
One playground problem, two fair solutions. Pairs invent two different fair ways to solve the same disagreement and show that both can work.
🪞Learn about yourself
My peace picture: each child draws or writes what peace looks like in their own home, and keeps it or shares it, their choice.
🤝Learn how to solve problems peacefully
Practice the four steps on a made-up classroom conflict: stop, name the feeling, listen to the other side, find a together-answer. Children act out conflicts they invent themselves.
Before and now, then the close
Show photographs of the Abu Dhabi Corniche around 1970 and today, and Qasr Al Hosn, the oldest stone building in the city, standing among the towers. Ask three questions: What changed? What stayed? What did people choose to keep?
The answer to the last question matters most: the fort was kept, the greeting was kept, the welcome was kept.
Close with each child sharing one line of the peace agreement they will use this week.
Thank you for exploring with us.
With thanks to Sail Magazine for the case study article from the original lesson. Photo pairs: official Abu Dhabi heritage sources.
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