Setting the Stage: a nonviolent classroom

Setting the Stage: Rudiments of a Nonviolent Classroom by Michael Nagler

It is possible to teach students the basic principles of nonviolence in a normal classroom setting with the usual methods that we would use for mathematics or any other subject (Gandhi, after all, always insisted it was a science”).  For two reasons, however, we would be doing the students and the subject an injustice to stop there.

Nonviolence is by nature a subject that has to be learned by the whole person, and not just cognized as a set of ideas; needless to say, this is even truer of K-8 students than of high schoolers, but it applies in considerable measure even to adults.  Unless it is experienced and practiced, nonviolence is not fully assimilated.  To some degree, therefore, we will want to incorporate Gandhian ideas of practical, hands-on education — for example, learning beginning math by working with food grown by the students themselves.  To this extent Waldorf methods of engaging the whole child will also be adaptable for use with this curriculum (see here).

Secondly, the basic concepts of nonviolence are not only unfamiliar to most students these principles presuppose a somewhat different worldview from the familiar paradigm in which most of us operate.  It is not that we have never experienced or practiced some of these principles (the everyday nature of nonviolence forms part of the present curriculum), but we do not have ready explanations at hand to make sense of them and fix them in the vocabulary of our consciousness.  The media regularly report the success of nonviolent acts, individual or social, as “lucky” or “a fluke” though they are entirely predictable, really, from the principle of human interconnectedness that is emerging in many fields of contemporary science.  Therefore we have to build the framework in which the principles we select to impart to our students are at home if we want those principles to be fully absorbed.  Of course, no education can really take place in an atmosphere of tension and distrust, but in an atmosphere like that nonviolence can be literally unthinkable.

We recommend, therefore, that some or as many as possible of the following practices be put in place for the week preceding the beginning of the curriculum, whatever subjects are scheduled for that period, to create what in Montessori circles would be called a “prepared environment”:

• a media fast
• a setting in which students feel that they matter and their voices can be heard, e.g. by arranging chairs if possible in a circle where all can see each other and the teacher is a ‘first among equals’
• a moment or so of silence to begin each session [SEE RECENT ARTICLE and the film, “Room to Breathe” by Mindful Schools]
• silent repetition of a “prayer word” or phrase whenever desired (Gandhi’s prayer word, or mantram, was Rama Rama Rama)
• a peer mediation system if one is not already in place, to deal with any conflicts or tensions that come up among the students or even between them and the teaching staff
• during this time it is particularly important to cultivate an attitude of respect among and towards all in the group; teachers may find it advisable to be particularly firm in discouraging bullying but not adopting a punitive attitude to bullies, if any
• films celebrating nonviolent heroes like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day, Aung San Suu Kyi, etc. will go far to set the tone.  There are also documentaries on many recent nonviolent or mostly nonviolent movements that can be shown this week and analyzed during the week of the curriculum as students learn the tools by which to do so
• group reading of inspiring passages from these and similar figures.

Many of these practices have been found effective for reducing tensions and increasing classroom efficiency quite apart from the teaching of nonviolent content Teachers may of course wish to continue them beyond the tenure of this curriculum.