All eyes on violence remedy

The terrible irony of it all almost brings tears to my eyes.

It's Friday morning at Astral Drive Junior High School in Cole Harbour. I'm in a classroom, watching two dozen Grade 7 youngsters take their seats. But my mind is wandering.

I'm thinking of Jamie Bolger.

Remember poor little Jamie? He's the two-year-old in Liverpool, England, murdered by a pair of 10-year-old boys five years ago.

And here's where the irony comes in. I'm here to witness a special anti-violence program for school children. And not five feet away from me, making ready to record the whole thing, is a two-man TV team from, of all places, Liverpool in England!

David Guest and Ken Ward are from the British Broadcasting Corporation. David is the reporter and Ken is his cameraman. They're touring Canadian schools, recording various anti-violence programs for young people.

David was telling me that Liverpool schools have finally begun introducing violence-prevention programs and are learning a lot from Canada. In particular, they're impressed with a curriculum by a Nova Scotia organization called Men For Change.

The program is called Healthy Relationships: A Violence-Prevention Curriculum, and hundreds of copies are in use in Canada, the U.S. and now, obviously, Britain.

It's the work of Andrew Safer, a freelance writer who, together with Roger Davies and Peter Davison, formed Men For Change after the 1989 Montreal Massacre.

In fact, Andrew is with us this morning. He's a tall, soft-spoken man with a beard and a rather wistful-looking face. His curriculum, the one we'll be using, aims to change attitudes, particularly among the young, to head off future tragedies.

Our class teacher is Mary McDonald, a pleasant woman with a firm, upbeat air. She has the children arrange themselves in groups of five, then hands each of them a large envelope.

Andrew tells me today's exercise involves a co-operative jigsaw puzzle. Each group is expected to make five squares, but what they don't know is that their pieces don't fit. To make the squares, they must share.

"It needs teamwork," he whispers to me.

Mary quietens the class and explains the rules. Then the zinger. No talking at all, she says, no gesturing. And no swiping pieces.

"You have to co-operate. If we don't co-operate, there may be failure and dissatisfaction."

The kids begin, and the two Brits prowl the room, recording everything and everyone. I hover near a table occupied y the three girls, Ashley, Lexie and Courtney, and two boys, Craig and John. Ashley soon realizes her pieces don't fit. Then Courtney. She raises her eyebrows, as if to say, "Hey, what gives here?"

Within five minutes, John has made a square. So has Craig. Now they're just sitting and staring. The three girls continue to sift patiently through their own pieces. The teacher gazes around. "They're dying to ask us some questions," Mary says softly.

Ken the cameraman is standing on an empty table, shooting down at a group. Andrew is over at one side, making notes.

"I'm learning things," he explains, "and then folding it into revised editions."

The kids seem confused. Only one table has managed to assemble three squares. Andrew isn't concerned. He says the whole idea is to learn how to work together, not simply to make something out of the cards. "By the time we're done," he murmurs, "they'll have some idea of how to do it."

And so it seems. By the time the lesson ends, there are quite a few squares in evidence.

Mary asks the kids how they feel.

"It made me feel frustrated," says one boy. "We were working together as a group," says a girl. "It brought us together."

The students troop out. I sit watching the two Brits pack up their camera gear.

"So David," I remark, "is this going to work in the land that gave us little Jamie Bolger?" David Winces. "We don't like to talk about that," he says quietly. Sorry.

Actually, he says, this curriculum is already going down quite well in Liverpool. "They're using part of the program, drawing up guidelines for all the schools."

Mary comes over to say goodbye to us.

"Is any of this actually working?" I ask her. She nods vigorously. "There definitely is a need for it in schools," she says. "This is where they're going to learn co-operation and teamwork, so their relationships with others will be ones of non-aggression."

Lord, I hope she's right. For all the Jamie Bolgers still out there, and the rest of us, I hope we've stumbled on a way.

Or, at the very least, a start.