My Story — Covenant Children's House

Founder and President Sarah RisingSun Lee

Vision

Our founder and president, Sarah Rising Sun Lee, has actualized part of her vision for Global Peace Education through her body of work, which includes:

An extensive education, training, and experience in early childhood, early primary education, and also in religious studies and psychology, working closely with many master teachers in these fields.
Setting up several early childhood learning environments, before helping to found and establish Covenant Children’s House as a non-profit school dedicated to teaching Global Peace Education.
Designing and developing a Global Peace Curriculum for the 21st Century© under the guidance of the Dean of Education at UMKC, and then piloting parts of it in Montessori day schools and public schools, wherever possible, then in The Mother’s Institute’s two lab schools (Covenant Children’s House) over several decades, with diverse, mixed groups of preschool and early primary students.
Developing many of the unique educational materials (foci) needed to support this new curriculum.
Seeing the need for inner preparation for teachers, beyond the traditional teacher training, she then wrote the textbooks (in three volumes) needed to serve that purpose. These books will also serve as a guide for a Women’s Global Peace Movement, also advocated for in The Mother’s Call for Peace.
Establishing a for-profit business, Casa Tra Noi, L.L.C., to publish the textbooks, training manuals, and curriculum for Global Peace Education, with the purpose of eventually also manufacturing the materials and equipment needed for more and more children’s houses or schools that teach peace.
Planning for a future in which affordable housing can be built or expanded for families with young children and also house those dedicated professionals that staff nearby early childhood households. The goal is to re-create kinship systems for children, so none are lost to ‘tech,’ drugs, or the streets. (A play-based, social childhood is normal for children, not hours spent on phones or tech devices.)
It will also be important to design, build, or adapt existing housing and neighborhoods to become or to remain multi-generational.
All built environments must be family-friendly, but also elder-friendly. If children’s houses are integrated into neighborhoods, they can be re-purposed for elders’ houses, if no longer needed for children. Safe sidewalks and pocket parks help meet the needs of all residents.

The Mother’s Institute

The Mother’s Institute was founded (first as Covenant Children's House) in 1985, carefully thought out, and incorporated under Sarah RisingSun Lee’s leadership. Her education in the arts and sciences, elementary education, psychology, and religious studies, together with her experience as a parent and early childhood teacher, convinced her of the lasting importance of child development, beginning in infancy, and of teaching children within cultures of peace.

She came to see and agree that raising and educating young children together could help to overcome generations of hatred, racism, and other divisions around the world. From its earliest inception, her vision for teaching peace, starting with early education, has remained the same. It guided her ongoing development as an educator and leader of our institute. How to actualize her vision by making peace education a reality has been the focus of her work over many decades.

A Global, Spiritual Education Program® is only one of many results from her years of hard work. Sarah Rising Sun Lee’s program for peace education began with young children who would normally be joining a peer group if in a village setting.

She created a household setting for the children, while preparing them for elementary school. Children were more than classmates. The group functioned as a secondary family in which children cared for each other as brothers and sisters would. Strong adult leadership in place of the “hired help” was central to the program. Nearly all children, who had attended for at least two years responded by bonding to the secondary parent(s) and each other. A group of diverse children learned how to live, learn, and play together through peaceful cooperation.

Many of the school parents functioned as a community for the children and each other. Those who had more time and resources helped with field trips and subjects such as science. However, parent communities tend to form, and then reform, around whatever schools their children were attending.

As RisingSun Lee knew from its inception, sustainable peace education will require a permanent community consisting of:

A local group formed around the early childcare centers and near the elementary school.
A large, regional group to support these local communities.

Educating for peace will require holistic, life-giving communities that are linked by:

A common desire to help build cultures of peace.
A shared purpose of helping to support, care for, and educate all children. Future generations will become better educated and more peaceful as a result of Sarah RisingSun Lee's leadership.

Nomination for Leadership for a Changing World Award and the founder of the Mother’s Institute also intended that it would eventually serve as the organizing center for a specific Women-Led Global Peace Movement - “Rising Up for Peace,” which will offer alternatives to ongoing cycles of violence and war. Its interrelated means for building peace include:

Family-centered, community child care and an early education model for peace.
Communities linked by peace to support early childhood households and schools.
Global, Spiritual Education® to help prepare the next generation to live in peace.
A global school network and related enterprises to implement equality of education.
Local and regional communities for adults, who want to join this peace movement.
A means for people to experience their shared humanity through community service.
Empowerment for more women through leadership in this global peace movement.
Community- and needs-based economic structures to build peace through justice.
More ways for people to help restore and better care for the natural environments.

Sarah RisingSun Lee’s long-term, comprehensive planning focuses on meeting the basic needs of all people on earth, even if it starts with collective childcare and early education for those who have the most need for it.

Covenant Children's House display board — Creating a culture of peace through global education — Covenant Children's House display board

Sarah RisingSun Lee's Story

The Mother’s Institute

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