news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Patty Schram was driving past a brightly lit holiday display on Westridge Road when it hit her.

There, up on a roof, was the message, “Peace on Earth.”

She’d passed by it before, in previous years, without thinking too much about it.

But this time was different. This time, it led to a question. A Big Question.

“When was the last time the Earth was at peace?” she thought.

“I remember thinking, we’re not having peace on Earth this year,” she said. “It doesn’t look like we will next year.”

Maybe the year after that, she thought.

But she didn’t just let the idea go. Instead, she took it into her math class at the Academy at Lincoln.

First, she narrowed the question a bit. For the sake of the research, she decided to look just at the United States.

Then, armed with information about the country’s wars and conflicts, she and her sixth-grade students got to work, using the data to create ratios, fractions, graphs and more.

The results were eye-opening.

Once you include not only the most well-known wars — the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, World War II and others — but also the wars before the country was founded, frequent conflicts with Indians and other military actions over the years, it adds up to a lot of conflict.

“It basically came out to about a 7-to-2 ratio,” Schram said.

That’s seven years of war to every two of peace.

That caught some of the students by surprise.

“We’ve had more years of war than years of peace,” said sixth-grader Lemar Martin, who then described the results of a graph the students made. “The war line keeps going up and the peace line keeps dropping down.”

Others expressed similar thoughts.

“The result was actually shocking,” said fellow student Bailey McRae.

For McRae and others, the relative lack of peaceful times raised questions about the future.

“It’s kind of hard to think about what could happen to your children,” she said.

The discussion at times went beyond numbers and graphs.

“It brought about a lot of conversation with the children about 'What does it mean to be peaceful?’” Schram said.

After all, not all of the country’s wars are officially declared. Some took place before there was a United States. Was the Cold War really a “war”?

By the end of the week, the students’ handiwork — in the form of huge graphs and posters — was displayed along the walls near their second-floor classroom.

There, with color codes showing years of war in red and peace in green, they created a bright and visible reminder of the turmoil of human history.

“Look at that one,” Schram said, gesturing to a poster on the stairwell. “All that red.”

But despite the history, she is optimistic that the future can bring peace — and not too long from now.

“When these kids are still in middle school,” she said.

Contact Jason Hardin at 373-7021 or jason.hardin@news-record.com