Curriculum
our curriculum:
Our step-by-step, evidence-based curriculum helps students build the skills of mindfulness and compassion to support all aspects of learning and offers them tools to:
Develop Positive Attitudes
Resolve Conflicts
Cope with Difficulties
Develop Self-Motivation and Self-Confidence
Feel Willing, Able, and Equipped to Help Others
Students are introduced to tools to support their peaceful mind, including creation of a personal mandala to connect and reinforce their own internal resources of wellbeing. Through our programs, they realize they can have a positive impact on their world by working with their own attitudes and actions.
The Tools for Peace curriculum guides participants through a variety of mindfulness activities, personal reflection, and group discussion. Students begin with an introduction to mindful breathing - a basic building block of mindfulness - and build upon that skill by following a three-step process:
Becoming Aware
Participants deepen their awareness of their thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations.
Broadening Perspective
Participants learn to settle themselves down and proactively manage their actions and reactions.
Compassion-in-Action
Participants engage in service learning projects that address a community need in their classrooms, on campus, or within the wider community.
Our curriculum is implemented in in-person and online workshops and retreats for adults, in addition to classrooms, after-school programs, and summer camps for teens.
contemplating change
Tools for Peace staff and students reflect on the nature of change from the Tools for Peace curriculum.
students creating a sand mandala
Shi-Tro Mandala
Tools for Peace uses the blueprint of a Tibetan art form called mandala, a framework to understand our connection to others and the impact of our state of mind on our experiences. The blueprint outlines the tools we can use to build the skills of mindfulness and compassion, and is a visual support to illustrate how to cultivate positive attitudes as an antidote to challenges such as anger. Providing the framework for the curriculum, the blueprint of the Mandala helps participants understand how their attitudes directly impact their actions and experiences.