Teacher’s Dream for Peace Balloons

A Garden Grove teacher heard a speech three years ago. It inspired him to seek a way to teach schoolchildren about peace.

On Tuesday, that teacher, Paul Portner, 34, saw what his dream had become on the grounds of the United Nations’ headquarters in New York. Hundreds of New York City children and one of Portner’s own pupils from Garden Grove took part in a “balloon-messages for peace” ceremony on the U.N. grounds. It was the first such outdoor public event in the U.N.’s history.

Moreover, similar peace-balloon launchings were conducted Tuesday from Hawaii to Maine; from Oregon to North Carolina. At least 700 schools in 48 states had ceremonies on Tuesday that stemmed from Portner’s idea three years ago.

“It’s been an interesting phenomenon,” said Portner, in a telephone interview from New York. “This gives students a chance to write poems and letters to the world about their hopes for peace.

“This started because I went to a meeting of educators in San Diego in 1983. Robert Muller, the assistant secretary general of the United Nations, was the speaker. He invited teachers to become involved in working for peace, to be a part of it. It was a rather inspiring talk, and I thought that it would be good to make something happen.

“So I went back to Riverdale School (in Garden Grove) and tried to think of something. I wanted an idea that students and teachers could be involved in.”

Portner’s solution was to have teachers invite pupils to write messages, including poems, about peace. These would be put in a large, waterproofed Manila envelope. The envelope then would be attached to a large weather balloon painted to represent the world. The balloon would be launched, with songs and other ceremonies, on the U.N.’s International Day of Peace each year--the third Tuesday in September.

With the cooperation of officials and other teachers at Riverdale, Portner inaugurated the first “balloon-messages for peace” in September, 1983. That modest ceremony has been repeated every September since then, including on Tuesday.

In the meantime, a national teacher’s magazine wrote an article about the program and invited other schools to write Portner and Riverdale School for instructions.

“We got requests from 700 schools in 48 states this year,” said Portner. “There are likely more that we don’t know about.”

Portner said he wrote Muller at the United Nations to let him know how his speech had spawned a national school program for peace. “Then last week the United Nations invited me and a pupil from Riverdale School to come to New York,” Portner said.

Michele McElroy, 9, a pupil in Portner’s fourth-grade class, and her mother, Cathy, flew with the teacher to New York. Teachers at Riverdale chipped in to help pay for the three air fares, and families of students in New Jersey taking part in the peace ceremony invited Portner and the McElroys to stay with them.

Teacher Praised

So on Tuesday, the fourth ceremony of messages-for-peace took place at Riverdale School, 13222 Lewis St., without the teacher who dreamed up the idea. But he was frequently mentioned and praised in his absence.

“Paul Portner is a kind, unassuming person,” said Riverdale Principal Anker Christensen. “He did this (peace work) because it comes from the heart.”

One of Portner’s pupils, Thuy Lai, 9, a native of South Vietnam, said of her teacher: “He’s nice and peaceful and kind. He never yells at us.”

Lai, whose parents escaped Vietnam on a boat eight years ago, had a poem in the Manila envelope that read: “Peace is like a star over the sky by the moon. . . .”

All 550 pupils at Riverdale School had the chance to put something in the big envelope, Christensen said.

Colorful Ceremonies

In colorful outdoor ceremonies, pupils carrying flags of countries around the world marched to the schoolyard on Tuesday morning. A tape recorder played a spirited version of “It’s a Small World.”

There were more songs, a few speeches, and a teacher made sure that all the children, who stood in a circle around the big balloon, got to hold on briefly to its long string.

Then, at 10:49 a.m., the students and teachers held hands and sang, “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” There were tears in the eyes of some adults in the audience.

The big balloon was set free after the song, and it soared straight up into the windless, clear sky over Garden Grove. Soon it was only a blue and white speck that children, their heads craned in wonder, watched from the earth.

“Notice how close you all moved together in this circle,” said Principal Christensen to the students. “That’s how peace comes--when we get closer together.”