Day 4. Our Values: Personal, Social, Global. Our Society: the Future is in our hands! International organisations

Rain, rain, go away! We woke to a light rain, so skipped morning “gymnastics” outdoors and had extra time to sleep, shower, or socialize with each other at breakfast.

A few leaves remained on our Tree of Knowledge from yesterday so we addressed those this morning. The questions focussed on ecology and the environment as well as on differences between Lithuanian and Polish cultures.

Next, we wrote on green leaves the questions we have about today’s theme: “Our Values: Personal, Social, Global. Our Society: The Future is in Our Hands! International Organizations.”

In groups we discussed core values such as life, health, freedom, and cooperation, and ranked what we believe are the top five values. We then created colorful graphic representations of these in the form of a locomotive pulling five train cars, each representing a value. We added people, an environment, and other elements to show the forward movement that comes from all of us pulling together in the same direction to better our democracies.

After decorating our classroom walls with the value trains, we moved into an activity about social values. These are values that guide our interactions with one another, such as respect, tolerance, and empathy. To understand how social values interplay in our daily actions, we took on roles as landlord, tenant, and observer. The prospective tenants were from diverse backgrounds: a Muslim refugee student, a musician who needs to practice for an upcoming festival, and others. Who did the landlords want to rent to? Who did they not want to rent to? What social values are in play? Do laws exist in some countries to ensure fairness? Do you see correlations at your school where there might be prejudices toward certain people?

Since it was too rainy for outdoor exercises this morning, we took advantage of the break in weather to get outside to the tennis courts for a relay race involving matching values vocabulary with definitions.

The US Embassy sent personnel from the US Army and Civil Affairs to talk about their jobs and how they operate in Europe, and specifically in the three Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. We met several personnel from the US Army and from the Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP), a NATO-allied forward-deployed defense and deterrence military force in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. Those soldiers, from the Czech Republic and Netherlands, gave a presentation about NATO. We learned why NATO was formed, which countries are members of NATO, and why “an attack on a NATO country is an attack on all NATO countries.”

Unfortunately, during the kahoot game that followed the presentation, a student delegate anonymously posted hate speech in the form of emojis that the Army personnel could see on their computer and many of the delegates and teachers could see on the thread. This shocked and disappointed all of us. The military personnel changed their program to address the hate speech and violation of the values we have been learning as part of the camp. They made it clear that hate speech violates our shared values and said that if they had posted the same content, they would have immediately lost their jobs and been dishonorably discharged from the military.

Before they left the camp, they brought out some of the equipment they wear and let delegates try on their gear. It was heavy!

After a dinner of kabobs, we gathered in a circle, without the perpetrator of the hate speech, and talked about the incident. Our teachers started a process of restorative justice. Restorative justice seeks to examine the harmful impact of a crime and then determines what can be done to repair that harm while holding the person who caused it accountable for his or her actions. Accountability for the offender means accepting responsibility and acting to repair the harm done.

Delegates expressed their shock and sadness at what had happened. Some comments included wondering if racism is embedded in their history and culture, the certainty that one is not born racist but is taught to be, and that Polish and Lithuanian cultures have less racial diversity than the USA. They talked about their own roles as bystanders or upstanders and why they took on those roles, by either not responding to the offensive post or posting that it was not appropriate and racist. We all learned a painful but important lesson that we plan to take forward.

The fun returned with groups forming to imagine being marooned on an island and needing to build a new democratic society. We agreed on and illustrated our values, form of government, town layout, flag, motto, conflict resolution, and even a tribe “exclamation,” such as the ancient Lithuanian chant we imagine – “ooooh, oooh, oooh!”

Our final activity of the evening — before disco fun and games – was outlining our hands and writing on each finger. For example, we wrote one little thing we want to change in the world on our littlest finger.