In Pursuit of the Beloved Community

I received some feedback from my last article, "Open Letter to the Guy with the Confederate Flag." One person implied that I am tone-deaf to the racist symbol that is the Confederate flag. So, let me tell you a story.  

When Rev. Jim Lawson was on a march during the Civil Rights Movement. One bystander was yelling racial epithets and spit square in his face. He stopped and asked the man if he had a handkerchief. The man, surprised, gave him one. After cleaning his face, Rev. Lawson saw that the man wore a motorcycle riding jacket. Rev. Lawson was also a motorcycle enthusiast and struck up a conversation. They talked about what kinds of bikes they rode and where they like to ride. By the end of the conversation, the man apologized to Rev. Lawson for spitting in his face. Rev. Lawson made a human connection with the man who spit in his face. This is the power of Nonviolence in action.

In my work in Nonviolence, I have a workshop on how to create the Beloved Community in concrete ways. King told us "the aftermath of Nonviolence is creation of the Beloved Community." I am going to be bold here and clarify. The Beloved Community is not just the end goal. It is the beginning, middle and end. If we want to end with the Beloved Community, we have to show up with the Beloved Community. That means valuing every person's worth and dignity, including and especially your opponent, from the beginning. Yes, that includes the police who have terrorized our communities. That includes the racist confederate-flag waving groups. That includes the politicians who continue to vote against progress.

That does NOT mean that we accept or excuse racism, abuse and injustice. Absolutely not. The Metta Center for Nonviolence has a very clear definition of the means of Nonviolence. It is persuasion not coercion. The goal is cooperation, not domination. As Dr. Bernard Lafayette describes, "the goal of Nonviolence is not to win over your opponent. The goal is to win them over to your side." We must awaken their conscience. As he described his experience in the Civil Rights Movement, he said of the racist white community, "we had to rush to their aid."

But can we really create the Beloved Community? Do we have the collective courage? Do we have the strength to talk with Confederate flag wavers as people? Do we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all people or only those who agree with us?

King said of agape love, "it is the insistence on community, even when one seeks to break it." Nonviolence is not about one letter or one conversation. It's about one hundred thousand letters and conversations that try to convince others that a community without hate and division is what we all want. That might also mean starting conversations that are not about the flag. Rev. Lawson didn't scream at his assailant about racism. He also didn't scream at him about togetherness. He talked to him about motorcycles.

Many activists see social change as a tennis game in which there is a net between them and their opponent which will never be crossed. They hit something at us and we respond. Back and forth, back and forth. The flag is racist. No, the flag is about heritage. Back and forth. Back and forth. Where is the progress? Where is the attempt for mutual understanding? Where is the attempt for reconciliation? There is none. We scream at them. They scream at us.

Social change with Nonviolence is not a tennis game. It is a complex chess match, deep in strategy and every piece you capture becomes active on your side of the board.

How would you win someone over to your side? Think about the letter would you write to those who wave the Confederate flag? What conversation would you have?

The Southern Poverty Law Center Hatewatch tells us there have been 132 pro-Confederate flag rallies since the Charleston massacre. That is 132 rallies in 45 days.  They are fully aware of the impact of their symbol. Actually, they just spit in your face. How will you respond?  

Open Letter to the Guy with the Confederate Flag

On the road to North Carolina, I saw many confederate flags.  Hundreds maybe.  They were attached to pick-up trucks and motorcycles, on beach towels and bed comforters, on t-shirts and do-rags and next to graves in cemeteries.  What I saw was blatant racism on parade.  I dismissed them all, except one.  Except you.

You were marching on the corner of a gas station in Waynesville, North Carolina.  You were alone and you carried a large confederate flag with the words on it, "Heritage, Not Hate."  I was driving by with my family on our way for a vacation together in the mountains.

You were different.  You had the courage to stand on the corner, by yourself, waving a flag with the words, "Not Hate."  I've had a few conversations with passionate confederate flag supporters.  You think the massacre in Charleston was tragic.  You think Dylan Roof was insane and he doesn't deserve to wave the confederate flag, the flag of your heritage.  You think that most Americans don't get it that brothers fought brothers in the Civil War.  Some towns sent every man and boy off to war and no one came home.  The tragedy of the Civil War runs deep in the South.

But now you see the confederate flags coming down.  You feel like your heritage is getting buried underneath a whole bunch of political correctness.  You also want the government out of your business, especially when it tries to tell you what to do with your flag or any other part of your life.  Enough is enough.

Have I missed anything?  These things came up regularly in my conversations with others.  If I may ask, would you be willing to put down the flag for a minute so we can talk?  The confederate flag screams loudly in our culture and I want us to have a real conversation instead of a shouting match.

I teach leadership and nonviolence for a living.  It is rare for me to find someone willing to stand alone on a street corner in their home town for a cause.  America needs your courage right now.

Your heritage will be well secured in American history books.  It is already there.  But right now, America isn't fighting for its history.  America is fighting for its future.  We are struggling for a future without hate and division.  Right now, we need you to stand up to hate in your community.  It is that same hate that murdered nine innocent African-Americans in Charleston.  It is that same hate that comes out when, in Douglasville, Georgia, trucks with confederate flags show up at the birthday party of an African-American child and intimidate his family with guns and death threats.

I know you dislike these unspeakable acts of violence.  Are you willing to say enough is enough?  Are you willing to march with a flag for peace?  Do you have the courage to stand, not on a street corner, but square in the way of those who commit these acts of violence in your town?  You know who they are.  They are the ones who said they wouldn't march with you and your "Not Hate" flag.  They are the ones who laughed at you.  They are the ones who said you were crazy, even though they have three confederate flags flying off the back of their truck.

One of the things Nonviolence teaches us, and that I teach others, is that no one is beyond the reach of the human heart.  We are all in this together.  Christ spoke about this in his teachings, "love thy neighbor as thyself."  This is the same love Martin Luther King talked about called agape (ah-GAH-peh) love; "the insistence on community, even when one seeks to break it."

I offer to you that nothing would be more courageous, nothing would be more honorable, and nothing would be more effective in ending the hate than you taking a stand in your community against it.  Bring people together to make a plan of action.  Imagine the heritage you will create today for future generations.  In the peaceful world of your grandchildren, they will look back and proudly say it all started when you took a stand for peace and said "enough is enough."

Dave Soleil is a nonviolence leadership consultant and a founder of the K-12 Sudbury School of Atlanta.  He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.  He can be reached at: davesoleil@gmail.com.  

#Charleston. Another tragedy. What should we do?

Mother Emanuel

In Charleston, SC nine African-Americans in a prayer group were massacred by a white racist.  Once again, there is a resounding question in America, "what do we do?"  This was the same question after the killings of Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and many, many others.  This was the same question after the Sandy Hook massacre.  John Stewart characterized America yesterday saying, "We still won't do jack shit."  He is tragically accurate.

But why?  Why is America so flummoxed every time a tragedy happens among Americans?  Let's begin with 9-11.  Attacks from abroad allow us the opportunity to use our number one solution for everything... violence.  We have the world's most robust military.  Attack us and we will unleash billions of dollars of bombs and drones and missiles and planes and guns and soldiers upon other countries that may or may not have been involved in the attack.  It's easy and cathartic and far away.  Just like the Toby Keith song, Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue, says, "We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way."

Yet, when a white American racist slaughters nine African-Americans in a church or when the police murder citizens on the street, we talk about "bad apples."  We talk about mental illness.  We talk about police body cameras and we post MLK quotes on Facebook and Twitter.  We fight over the hashtags #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter.  Authorities tell people to "be calm" and not to burn down the city.  Yet, more violence happens and authorities try to squash the violence with more violence and the cycle continues.  

To paraphrase Maslow, if your only tool is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.             

This is why America has no idea what to do when social problems arise in our country.  The hammer of violence is the only tool in America's toolbox.  So, when the problem IS violence, America is dumbfounded.  We not only are confused about what to do but we don't recognize where the problem stemmed from.  We are victims of our own self-perpetuating, violent, one-solution-fits-all philosophy. 

What do we do about police violence?  We don't know because violence is our only tool.  What do we do about the Charleston massacre?  We don't know because we can't bomb South Carolina.  Where do we direct our water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets?  Who should our drones kill?  Fighting violence with violence is absurd. 

So we make excuses about these tragedies because it's far easier than admitting that our toolbox is empty.  "This was an isolated incident."  "How can anyone possibly avoid this?  When a man is sick and crazy, there's nothing that can be done."  

So, what should we do?  The first thing is to fill our toolbox with the many and multi-faceted tools  of Nonviolence and throw away the rusty, bloody hammer of violence that has been destroying our communities for centuries.  And when I say, Nonviolence, I am reclaiming that word from the politicians, officials and media who just want people to sit down, be quiet, and maintain the status quo.  That is not, and never has been, Nonviolence.  

Nonviolence is an active, creative and strong force for social change.  It is not weak, nor passive.  It challenges injustice.  It organizes, empowers and forges the just world we seek.  Nonviolence teaches us that peace is not the absence of conflict, it is the presence of justice.  It does not inflict suffering on others, it voluntarily accepts suffering in order to awaken the consciences of all people.   

   

This is why I teach Nonviolence Leadership.  If Nonviolence is the tools for change, leadership is learning to use those tools effectively.  The first part of leadership is just showing up.  As an example, having attended #BlackLivesMatter rallies and town hall meetings on community policing, the white community in Atlanta has been painfully, noticeably and continually absent.  

Think about it.  When an African-American community member is gunned down by police and a demonstration is held to affirm that #BlackLivesMatter and the white community does not show up but then are loudly vocal on social media that #AllLivesMatter, what message does that send?    

If we want change in our communities, we cannot simply post on Facebook that #BlackLivesMatter or #AllLivesMatter or Gandhi quotes about "being the change" or MLK quotes about "hate doesn't drive out hate."  The change we seek will not happen on Facebook and Twitter.  In the words of Gil Scott Heron, "the revolution will not be televised."  Everyone needs to show up.  In person.  And often.  

To use our tool analogy, if your friend calls you because their house needs an emergency repair, will posting Bob Villa quotes on Facebook fix the house?  No, that's ridiculous.  The way to fix your friend's house is you show up with your toolbox, that has the right tools, and you work and you sweat and you rip out what broke and you put in new frameworks and sand and paint and then you and your friend look at what a beautiful thing you fixed together.    

We must learn about all the tools of Nonviolence.  They are many and versatile.  I try to write about many of them.  They can build the world we seek.  Leadership is what teaches us how to use those tools most effectively.  

The solutions we seek for our communities are within reach, but we are waiting for you.  

How We Teach Violence to Children

As thoughtful, caring parents, we would never want to teach our kids that violence is the answer to any or every problem.  We want our children to learn to get along with others, share, be kind, say "excuse me" and try their best at an empathetic "I'm sorry."

I thought I was attuned to the violence that surrounds us in American culture.  However, a trip to Target with my kids yesterday was shocking.  We stepped into the toy aisles.  Here is a quick rundown of the toys and action figures, in order...

• Batman
• Power Rangers
• Star Wars
• Elite Force - modern Army/military toys
• Professional Wrestling

Next aisle:

• More Power Rangers
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Spider-Man
• Super Hero Smashers
• Marvel Comics Characters - Hulk, Avengers, Captain America, etc.
• Transformers

End cap:

• Horror Series - Michael Meyers action figure from Halloween movies and Eric Draven from the Crow
• Game of Thrones
• Magic
• HALO

Next Aisle:

• Super Hero Adventures - these are tiny cute versions of Spider-Man, Batman, Wonder Woman and Hulk for younger kids.

Notice a pattern here?  Every toy, without exception, uses violence and weapons to cause pain and/or death as their solution to problems.  Then, with the Horror Series, we are supposed to play Serial Killer?!?

What message does this send our children?  Violence is heroic.  Violence is the solution to all problems.  Violence is a super power.  

We are aghast and outraged when we see ISIS beheading a person on the nightly news, yet our children play out the same gruesome scenarios with the toys we get them for their birthday, the movies we take them to see, the comic books we buy for them, the shows they watch on TV, and the video games we buy for them.  

What is a solution for this?  Do I want a Selma action figure series at Target?  Perhaps a Gandhi bobblehead?  (Yes, that one exists...)  

While that would be nice, the solution that I seek is to empower parents to take a stand for your values.  Take a stand for peace-making.  Take a stand for selfless service to others, out of compassion and empathy.  Your children are looking to you to define how to interact with the world.  Talk with them about your values, especially at Target, and especially in the toy aisle.  How do you solve problems?  Connect it to your faith or your belief system.  What does it mean to you to be a Christian?  A Muslim?  A Unitarian Universalist?  A Humanitarian?  Who are the super heroes in your life and why?        

Suddenly, those plastic "super heroes" and weapons seem pretty silly and your family's connections, values and relationships have grown much deeper.  Stand strong.  Put peace into their hands.  Leave the violence on the shelf.  

The Next Step Beyond Service

Nonviolence teaches us to look beyond problems to their root.  What are the causes of these problems?  For example, when we see hunger in our community, the cause is not that someone forgot to eat!  There are unjust systems that we have collectively built that marginalize and dehumanize people.  These systems have created the conditions that make it extraordinarily difficult for some members of the community to meet their basic needs.

It is our responsibility then, not only to feed those who are hungry, but also to correct the systems that create the conditions for hunger and food insecurity in the first place.

This is what I mean by "the next step beyond service."  It means taking service to others and adding deep strategy to address root causes.  This is the essence of Constructive Program.

The classic example of Constructive Program was Gandhi's efforts to teach people how to spin cotton into cloth to make fabric and clothing.  At the time, the British Empire took the cotton and raw materials from India, sent it to England, made it into cloth and then sold it back to the Indian people at a much higher price.  Gandhi's Constructive Program looked at this exploitation at its roots.  This was not just about high priced clothing.  This was about Indian independence from the British.  It was about economic independence.  It was about moral and spiritual independence.

The spinning wheel built local economies.  It empowered the Indian people, not only with the structural means to make cloth, but with the moral and spiritual vision of independence.  As his message spread, it had a major impact to free the nation from British rule.

If Gandhi had simply tried to provide cheaper cloth, that might have meant opening second-hand markets for clothing.  Maybe there would have been an exchange system from those who had excess cloth to those with less.  It would have created some jobs and some solutions, but the root of the problem would have remained... subjugation to the British Empire.

Constructive Program can be extraordinarily powerful.  The key is taking the mindset of service and love for others and adding in strategy that addresses the root of the problem.  

The #BlackLivesMatter Movement and a New Paradigm for Schools

In the midst of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, protests are happening all over the country.  Everyone is looking for solutions and the conversation inevitably turns to education.  Recently, Reverend Alex Gee took a listening tour through high schools in Wisconsin to "find the cultural and academic pulse of young black males."  Here is one thing Rev. Gee found:

"The young men stated that too many teachers and administrators underestimate their ability, worth and potential.  They mentioned feeling unwelcome and expendable."

The conclusion that we hear in the media often is that we need better teachers, more funding, accountability and a raft of stricter regulations.  However, these will not solve the problem and many freedom movements throughout history have known this.  In fact, many freedom movements have thrown out the "Western" system of schooling and re-invented education.  From Mississippi Freedom Summer to Gandhi in India to Paulo Freire in Brazil and more, all re-invented education.  Why?  

Under oppressive governments, it became clear to each of them that an education system implemented by the government would only serve to support the needs of the government.  The American system of education is no different.  Our system is based upon obedience and conformity.  If you do what you are told, you are rewarded.  If you do not do what you are told, you are punished.  Wear uniforms, walk in straight lines, don't talk, raise your hand, compete against your classmates to see who can be most obedient to the teacher, get a pass to use the bathroom, get good grades.  This is not a system that encourages independent thinking or critical reasoning.  It is not a system that develops the individual.  It is a system designed to oppress and break the individual.  It is a system that conquerers have used for centuries to homogenize a population.

Among many examples, the United States used it in establishing Native American boarding schools in the late 1800's.  U.S. Army officer, Richard Pratt, founded the first Indian boarding school called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.  In 1892, he described his philosophy in a speech, saying:

“A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one.  I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead.  Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”          
   
What were the horrible, oppressive methods of this school designed to kill the Native American culture?  Wear uniforms, walk in straight lines, don't talk, raise your hand, compete against your classmates to see who can be most obedient to the teacher, get a pass to use the bathroom, get good grades.  Add to that, students were only allowed to speak English, just the same as when California banned bi-lingual education in 1998.  Or when Russia banned the Crimean language in schools after invading Crimea in 2014.

So, when young African-American males say that schools underestimate their worth and they feel expendable, that is the result of a "schooling" system designed to dehumanize the individual in favor of obedience to authority.  The solution is not better teachers.  The solution is a different system.  We need a system that values and develops each individual and says YES! to who they are, their ideas and their passions.  We can say YES! to their individuality, their decisions, their successes and mistakes.  We can say YES! to the content of their character knowing that they are on a path to fulfilling their own dreams and desires.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. told us:

"I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be."

Mississippi Freedom Schools in 1964 did not have grades, uniforms or tests.  It was a free-form, multi-age learning experience where people learned to question and think critically.  According to a memo to Freedom School teachers:

"The purpose of the Freedom schools is to provide an educational experience for students which will make it possible for them to challenge the myths of our society, to perceive more clearly its realities, and to find alternatives, and ultimately, new directions for action." 

The goal was valuing and empowering each individual, not breaking them.  Freedom Schools wanted students to become active, engaged citizens.  They knew that the traditional "Western" school system was oppressive.  Why fight to maintain it?  They started over.

Gandhi started over too.  He founded the Nai Talim or "New Education" system in India.  He dumped the British system of education in favor of empowering schools in the native language that recognized each individual as "mind, body and spirit."  He said in 1917, "All education must aim at building character."  Gandhi wanted schools that validated the individual spirit, embraced local culture and valued the efforts of young people to benefit their community.

In Brazil in the 1950's Paulo Freire launched adult literacy programs leading him to write the landmark book, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed."  Literacy was a requirement for presidential voting in Brazil, so the illiterate poor had no political influence until Freire came along.  He called "Western" education the "Banking Concept of Education."

“In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing.  Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry.  The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence.”

Instead, he suggests:

“Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”

He says teachers and students should be in an egalitarian, respectful relationship where students have voice rather than being coerced into a "culture of silence."  A culture of silence only perpetuates the submissiveness of the oppressed.  Instead, Freire argued, knowledge should be co-constructed without the authoritarian power structures of traditional education.  This evolution of the classroom begins by valuing and giving voice to the life experience of the students before they even enter the classroom.

This is just a sample of how freedom movements have cast off the traditional system of schooling and re-invented education.  Today, America is going through another social upheaval.  Our system of policing is broken.  We need to start over and re-imagine it.  It is the same with education.  We need to start-over and re-imagine it.  Freedom struggles from around the world are speaking loudly to us now about education and we should listen.  They don't teach these lessons in school. 

The Value of Spinning

One thing I value about Gandhi's leadership in the struggle for India's independence was his Constructive Program of spinning.  Not only did it create the economic and spiritual independence sought by the Indian people, it gave everyone something productive to do when no one knew what to do.

When Gandhi was uncertain of what to do next in the movement, he would spin cotton.  It was an effort that allowed him and others time to think and strategize while continuing to work for independence.  Sometimes he would think for weeks or months on end.  Nonviolence has no timeline.  
Nonviolence is often seen ONLY as civil disobedience.  While Satyagraha is visible and confrontational, Constructive Program builds the just and peaceful world that does not yet exist.

So, find your Constructive Program.  Take time to spin.  There is no hurry.  You are building the solutions you seek.    

Free Nonviolence Training

As a service to to all of the #BlackLivesMatter groups, I am offering free 90 minute Skype or Facetime trainings in the philosophy and methodology of Nonviolence.  Feel free to forward this invitation to those who might be interested.  See the description below and email me at: davidsoleil@gmail.com to set up a time.

Learn the power of Nonviolence.

The #BlackLivesMatter movement is here and it is strong.  We are angry about Mike Brown and police brutality.  We want to do something but what?  What is going to be effective in creating real change in our communities?  What is going to empower people and challenge the status quo without causing a civil war?

I would like to introduce you to Nonviolence or what Gandhi called, "the greatest force at the disposal of mankind."  Gandhi defeated the British Empire with it and never fired a shot.  Martin Luther King studied Gandhi's techniques and as King said of the Civil Rights movement, "we expressed anger under discipline for maximum effect."      

Today, there are tremendous misconceptions about Nonviolence.  It does not mean "Sit down and be quiet."  It also does not mean march in the streets and sing "We Shall Overcome" and everything will work itself out.  These are cartoon versions of Nonviolence that are rampant in American schools and culture.

Nonviolence is strong, courageous, strategic action with a very specific philosophy and methodology.  It has been used with great effectiveness in overthrowing the most brutal dictatorships and regimes.  It will work in our communities but it requires training and planning.

Please contact me to set up a free online training session for your group.  Email me at: davidsoleil@gmail.com.  I offer this as a service to our communities.  There is no catch.  There is no obligation.

As King said, "The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice."  It bends with Nonviolence.  Contact me and let's work together to create a more just world.    

Here is my bio:

Dave Soleil has over twenty years experience developing the leadership skills of thousands of college and high school students, MBAs, and nonprofit and corporate clients.  He is passionate about teaching the philosophy and methodology of nonviolence for transformational social change.  Gandhi called it "the greatest force at the disposal of mankind."

Dave is the former Chair of the Leadership Education group for the International Leadership Association.  He also was the Associate Director of the Center for Global Leadership and Team Development in the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. Dave has worked as a consultant for many universities and nonprofits including the Interfaith Youth Core, Georgia Tech, Emory University, Agnes Scott College, the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University, the Foundation for Teaching Economics and more.

Dave is also a founder and staff member at the Sudbury School of Atlanta, a K-12 school dedicated to empowering students.

Dave received his Masters degree in Nonprofit Management from Indiana University and holds a certificate from Emory University in the Nonviolence philosophy and methodology of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Blueprint for a Nonviolence School

Can we design a school based on nonviolence?  Can we find inspiration from the lineage of nonviolence activists and change agents?  Can we determine a model that supports what the Metta Center for Nonviolence calls, a New Story?

Let's begin with Myles Horton:

I think if I had to put a finger on what I consider a good education, a good radical education, it wouldn't be anything about methods or techniques.  It would be loving people first."

-from the book, "We Make the Road by Walking"

1.  Respect the inherent worth and dignity of every individual 

Each person, regardless of age, is a complete human being with strengths, abilities, interests, experiences and passions.  They are not a vessel to be filled, nor a voice to to be silenced.  The nonviolence school would be egalitarian and multi-age.  We would create, co-create and recreate knowledge together and as individuals.  We would seek to empower the intrinsic motivations of each person and eliminate externally imposed measures that serve only to support obedience and conformity.  We would ask, "what are you interested in?"  "What are you passionate about?"  Then, we would empower each person to discover and fulfill their swadharma.          

2.  Every Person has Voice and Choice

Voice and Choice are an extension of respect for the individual.  Each person, regardless of age, would have voice to express their interests, passions and experiences.  They would also have the power (choice) to pursue those interests with others or by themselves.  Agency is another term that applies here.

3.  Encouraging the development of mind, body and spirit 

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony." - Gandhi  The compliment to mind, body and spirit are actions of word, thought and deed.  These all are interwoven and would be encouraged.     

4.  Nonviolent communication (NVC) and restorative justice

The practice of NVC and restorative justice would be a framework for communication and conflict resolution.  There would be no principal's office or retributive justice.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "an insistence on community, even when one seeks to break it."  When issues in our community separate us, we work to bring our community back together rather than ostracize or punish people in our community.    

5.  Embodying service

"I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be." - Martin Luther King, Jr.  Service would be a value and a practice.           

6.  Encouraging the lifelong study and practice of nonviolence

This would likely encompass spiritual practice, social action in both constructive and obstructive programs, teaching others about nonviolence, and other explorations of the practice, science, philosophy and methodology of nonviolence.

There is a growing trend of schools similar to this, particularly emphasizing numbers 1 and 2.  Democratic schools, free schools, unschools, Sudbury schools, and other similarly inspired programs follow numbers 1 and 2.  The rest you can modify to fit the needs of your community.  This could be a model for after-school programs, "Sunday schools" or other schools seeking to encourage the spiritual journey of young people. tutoring programs, music schools and more.

I helped start a school similar to this and offer this as a blueprint for others who wish to make a nonviolence school their constructive program.  The results are incredibly empowering, creative and fulfilling.  Reinventing education in this way is also the subject of a book I am writing under the working title, "The Content of their Character."  

Feel free to contact me if you have questions about opening a nonviolence school.  It is possible.  You can do this!  In the words of Peter Block, "the future appears as we gather."         

Part 8: "Stayed on Freedom": Social Movements and Re-Inventing Education

A "talking book" by Horton and Freire.

Before I even begin about Paulo Freire, I have to recommend two books.  This is essential reading and encompasses far more than I can put into a blog post.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed
We Make the Road by Walking

These books are just two of dozens authored by Freire.  "We Make the Road by Walking" was also the last book Myles Horton authored.  He approved the final draft of it just days before his death.

Paulo Freire is from Brazil and is one of the most widely influential authors related to education.  While we have explored many re-inventions of education in these posts, most educational circles point to Freire as the father of "critical pedagogy."  He was the bridge between freedom struggles and educational theory.  He spoke truth to power in education.  That doesn't invalidate the work of Tolstoy, Gandhi, Freedom Schools and more.  Their work in education was simply overshadowed by their more popular efforts toward freedom and social change.

Early on, Freire was influenced by a popular movement of populist politics in the Brazilian Northeast.  This was around the time of the Cuban Revolution, 1959-1961.  The Catholic Church increasingly supported Liberation Theology and focused efforts on the poor.  Literacy was a requirement for voting in Brazil which excluded a large majority of the illiterate poor population in Brazil.

This backdrop set the stage for Freire to launch adult literacy programs, much like the Citizenship Schools of the Civil Rights movement that originated at the Highlander Folk School with Septima Clark.

Freire was so successful in his efforts in northeast Brazil that he was invited by the federal government to coordinate a national literacy campaign.  However, a military coup in 1964 drove out the populist government and Freire was exiled.  He returned to Brazil after 15 years when the military regime gave way to democratization.  

Let's pause for a moment.  You know how a statistic sticks in your head and then you go back to find it and you just can't.  Here's that statistic.  I believe it was in "We Make the Road by Walking," but I can't find it for the life of me.  So, take it with a grain of salt.  I remember seeing that the literate electorate in Brazil was about 250,000 people.  Freire's literacy programs touched around 750,000 people.  So, you can see how his literacy programs were downright dangerous to a government of the elite that wanted to hold on to their power.

So, what was his philosophy on education?  Traditional education is a political tool of the oppressors.  However, it can be used for liberation as much as oppression.  Here's a sample from Pedagogy of the Oppressed:

“Pedagogy which begins with the egoistic interests of the oppressors (an egoism cloaked in the false generosity of paternalism) and makes of the oppressed the objects of its humanitarianism, itself maintains and embodies oppression.  It is an instrument of dehumanization.” 

He called it the "Banking Concept of Education."

“In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing.  Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry.  The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence.”

Instead, he suggests:

“Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”

He says teachers and students should be in an egalitarian, respectful relationship where students have voice rather than being coerced into a "culture of silence."  A culture of silence only perpetuates the submissiveness of the oppressed.  Instead, Freire argued, knowledge should be co-constructed without the authoritarian power structures of traditional education.  This evolution of the classroom begins by valuing and giving voice to the life experience of the students before they even enter the classroom.  Sounds a lot like Myles Horton?  Now you know why they wrote a book together.

Freire's programs were for adult education but they apply equally to younger people.  It begins with valuing the inherent worth and dignity of all people.  His model promotes freedom and equality and empowers students with their own voices, experiences, thoughts and actions.

For now, this is the end of my exploration into the lineage of re-inventing education through freedom struggles, humanitarian efforts and nonviolence.  There are many more stories to tell, like the Reggio Emilia form of education that began in Italy after WWII with the sale of a German tank, nine horses and two military trucks and the belief that "children are powerful people, full of desire and ability to construct their own knowledge."  It was an effort to bring freedom to education to ensure that fascism would not return.  

So, given all of these rich and deep connections, what might a school of nonviolence look like?  I shall write about my experience and ideas in the next post.  

Next: Blueprint for a Nonviolence School

Part 7: "Stayed on Freedom": Social Movements and Re-Inventing Education

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was a well-known and established author in 1859.  However, he considered abandoning writing altogether.  Why write for the Russian people if most of them could not read his writing?  So, Tolstoy embarked on a trip to Europe exploring different methods of pedagogy and schooling and looking for a new path for Russian education.

In one of this journals, he remarked, "In education, once more, the chief things are equality and freedom."

Upon his return to his home Yasnaya Polyana, he founded 13 schools.  Here is his writing about, "The School at Yasnaya Polyana."

"The children bring nothing with them, - neither books, nor copy-books.  No lessons are given for home.  Not only do they carry nothing in their hands, but they have nothing to carry even in their heads.  They are not obliged to remember any lesson... They are not vexed by the thought of the impending lesson.  They bring with them nothing but their impressionable natures and their convictions that to-day will be as jolly in school as it was yesterday."

No child was forced to "learn."  Tolstoy summed up the coercion of the Western model of education well, "Force is used only through haste and through insufficient respect for human nature."  There was no homework, no grades, no tests or other forms of extrinsic motivations.  Young people of multiple ages joined in voluntarily and there was a structure of freedom for students with equal contribution by students and teachers.

Tolstoy also remarked, "...the pupil has always had the right not to come to school, or, having come, not listen to the teacher."

Again, we see the connection of another school throwing off the Western model of education in favor of:

1.  Valuing the inherent worth and dignity of the students.
2.  Multi-age environment.
3.  Promoting empowerment of students.
4.  Informal environment with freedom and equality.

Sounding familiar?  Nai Talim, Freedom Schools, Hull House, the Highlander Folk School, Yasnaya Polyana are all cut from the same educational cloth.  Tolstoy's schools, while short-lived, became a strong influence on the Summerhill School in England and later Sudbury Schools in the U.S., Free Schools, Unschooling and other models of democratic education.

Next: Part 8, Paulo Freire and Pedagogy of the Oppressed 

Part 6: "Stayed on Freedom": Social Movements and Re-Inventing Education

Boys from Jane Addams' Hull House who built their own clubhouse in the 1920's.

When Myles Horton was in graduate school in 1930 in Chicago, he was considering what sort of educational program could create social change.  His program required him to spend time with an organization engaged in social work.  He chose to spend time with Jane Addams at Hull House in Chicago.

This was five years before Addams death, in 1935, and one year prior to her winning the Nobel Peace Prize.  She had long since established the first kindergarten in Chicago in 1889 and the first public playground in 1893.  What was appealing to Horton about Addams and Hull House?  Professor Jon Hale wrote about it in the American Education History Journal:  

"In many ways, Addams' views reflected dominant progressive thinking. For instance, her writing indicates a belief in democracy and the importance of incorporating students' experience in education. For Addams, the 'democratic ideal demands of the school that it shall give the child's own experience a social value; that it shall teach him to direct his own activities and adjust them to those of other people' (Addams 1964, 180). While this clearly resonates with progressive thinking, Addams' commitment to alleviating social ills was of more importance for Horton. At Hull House, Addams took direct action in establishing a new social order."

While the educational efforts at Hull House were not exactly what Horton was looking for, according to Hale, "Jane Addams is significant in this analysis for she is representative of Horton's search for models of critical education that would resonate with his notion of achieving radical social change through education."

Jane Addams believed in empowerment at any age.  Hull House had a philosophy that affirmed the inherent worth and dignity of all people.  Hull House offered a myriad of classes and opportunities for people of all ages and even had its own marching band.  As a side note, the most famous alumnus of that marching band?  Benny Goodman.

Shortly after Horton's experiences at Hull House, he visited Denmark to study the Danish Folk Schools and thereafter, the Highlander Folk School was born.

However, the lineage continues further back than Addams.  Throughout her life, Jane Addams was influenced by the work and writings of Leo Tolstoy, who in 1859, founded his own school which was radically different from the traditional model of education.

As another side note, Jane Addams was aware of Gandhi's work in India and they exchanged letters.  As well, Addams' work and philosophy was also influenced by John Ruskin, the art critic, philosopher and author of "Unto This Last."  Ruskin's book on economics was instrumental in Gandhi's life as he began his campaign in South Africa and it helped him form his ideas, now known as Gandhian economics.  Gandhi also reflected on Ruskin's ideas on education in his writing, "Some Reflections on Education" from March 28, 1932.

As you can see, the connections here grow wide and deep.  Connecting the dots is challenging because the more dots I research, the more dots I find.  Both Addams and Gandhi looked to Tolstoy for inspiration for their work.  We will explore Tolstoy's work in education in Part 7.

Next: Part 7

Part 5: "Stayed on Freedom": Social Movements and Re-Inventing Education

Septima Clark and Rosa Parks at the Highlander Folk School in 1955,
before anyone knew who they were.

Connecting the dots:

Nai Talim and the Freedom Schools were two well-documented efforts to re-invent education toward empowerment.  Other efforts to establish a new vision for education is where things get very interesting.

Just prior to the launch of the civil rights movement in the mid-1950's, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Septima Clark, Ralph Abernathy, James Bevel and more visited the Highlander Folk School under the direction of Myles Horton.  Not only was Highlander instrumental in educating leaders of the Civil Rights movement, professor Jon Hale wrote the following in the American Education History Journal in 2007:

"Another notable connection between Highlander and the Freedom Schools comes in March 1964 at the conference called for the curriculum planning for the Freedom Schools. Myles Horton was in attendance at this meeting, ensuring, at least, that the tenets of critical education espoused at Highlander would be represented."

Founded during the depths of the Great Depression, Horton wrote about his vision for the school in 1931, saying:

“I would like to see a school where young men and women will have close contact with teachers, will learn how to take their place intelligently in a changing world.  In a few months, free from credits and examinations, utilizing only such methods as individual requirements called for… it is hoped that by a stimulating presentation of material and study of actual situations, the students will be able to make decisions for themselves and act on the basis of an enlightened judgment.”

Highlander was based on the Danish Folk High School movement which began in 1844 as a way to bring education to the adult lower classes in Denmark so they could also be active participants in the modern Danish state. Hallmarks of the Danish Folk High School movement included:

• Students and teachers learning from each other
• Freedom from examinations
• Freedom from state regulation
• Social interaction in a non-formal setting
• Multi-age environment

As a side note, there are still 70 Danish Folk High Schools in Denmark with 5000 to 7000 people attending every year.

Many regarded the Highlander Folk School as a training program for organizers, but Horton disagreed. He saw Highlander not as a training center, but as a place for education. in the book "We Make the Road by Walking," he said:  

"We've called our work adult education. We thought of ourselves as educators. We deliberately chose to do our education outside the schooling system."

Life-long learning and people being able to solve their own problems was of paramount importance at Highlander. Horton did not use traditional teaching methods. He would not give anyone "the answers," nor did he want to. He recognized that telling people what to do would only make them dependent upon him for answers.

“Stretching people’s minds is part of educating, but always in terms of a democratic goal.  That means you have to trust people’s ability to develop their capacity for working collectively to solve their own problems.”

Empowerment was the educational root of Highlander. He practiced what was "experiential education." However, what students learned did not come from their experience in the classroom, as the term is used today. For Horton, students learned from the experiences of life before they even walked into the classroom. Horton believed the students already had the answers. Paul Freire said that Horton "was just awakening their memories concerning some knowledge and concrete experiences... What Myles did was to touch their memory about a subject and to remake the road."

This is where our road through the history of education forks. I hope to address both routes. Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, had a similar journey in adult education in Brazil. So similar in fact, that Freire and Horton co-authored the book, "We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change."

Shall we now travel to Brazil with Paulo Freire, a man whose educational programs for the illiterate poor were so successful that he became a threat to the establishment and was jailed and then exiled?  

Or should we travel father back in time with Myles Horton to his formative years in graduate school in Chicago where he spent quite a bit of time with Jane Addams at Hull House? We shall soon see!

Next: Part 6

Part 4: "Stayed on Freedom": Social Movements and Re-Inventing Education

1964 was Freedom Summer.  It was an effort organized by the major civil rights organizations at the time, SNCC, CORE, SCLC and NAACP, to register voters and educate young people in Mississippi to become agents for social change.  As detailed in a COFO memo to Freedom School teachers in May, 1964:

"The purpose of the Freedom schools is to provide an educational experience for students which will make it possible for them to challenge the myths of our society, to perceive more clearly its realities, and to find alternatives, and ultimately, new directions for action."

Freedom Schools were the educational efforts that brought together more than 3000 students in 41 schools across Mississippi.  However, these "schools" were radically different from traditional 'Western' schools.

They were multi-age and had students ranging from small children to the elderly.  They met anywhere and everywhere from church basements to parks, homes, kitchens or under a tree.  When a host church in McComb, MS was bombed for hosting a Freedom School, the classes were "held on the scorched earth next to the blown out wall."  The teachers were primarily volunteer college students and questioning was the mode of instruction.  They questioned the institutions of racism and prejudice, what does the majority culture have that they wanted or didn't want and more.  It was a free-form environment where a teacher could toss out his or her entire plan if the students were interested in discussing something more local and more relevant to their experience.  Empowering the students was the focus, not the teacher or the curriculum.  There were no grades, no homework and the only test was life in Mississippi after Freedom School.  

Staughton Lynd, a history professor at Spelman College, was chosen as the Director of the Freedom School program.  He described the program like this in 1965:

"...our approach to curriculum was to have no curriculum and our approach to administrative structure was not to have any (I will explain this in a moment). So my answer to the question: “How do you start a Freedom School?” is, “I don’t know.” And if people ask, “What are the Freedom Schools like?” again I have to answer, “I don’t know.” I was an itinerant bureaucrat. I saw a play in Holly Springs, an adult class in Indianola, a preschool mass meeting in McComb, which were exciting. But who can presume to enclose in a few words what happened last summer when 2,500 youngsters from Mississippi and 250 youngsters from the North encountered each other, but not as students and teachers, in a learning experience that was not a school?" 

Lynd commented on the free-form structure:

"...it helped us to break away from the conventional paraphernalia of education, to remember that education is about a meeting between people.  We said at Oxford: If you want to begin the summer by burning the curriculum we have given you, go ahead!  We realized that our own education had been dry and irrelevant all too often, and we determined to teach as we ourselves wished we had been taught."

After hosting the Freedom School convention in Meridian, MS, where students put together their own mock political program, Lynd had this conclusion:

"But in the not very distant future candidates running for Congressional office will be real, not mock, candidates, and will have to declare themselves intelligently on a variety of issues. These candidates may come out of Freedom Schools. If we do not take their program seriously, it means not taking their ideas seriously. If we do not take their ideas seriously, we should ask ourselves what the Schools are for."

Once again, like Gandhi's Nai Talim, we find Freedom Schools cast off traditional education in favor of empowerment.  Age grades were set aside for multi-age learning.  Curriculum was thrown out the window in favor of what was socially relevant.  Cultural norms were questioned and the results needed to be taken seriously.

"The Freedom Schools challenged not only Mississippi but the nation. There was, to begin with, the provocative suggestion that an entire school system can be created in any community outside the official order, and critical of its suppositions. The Schools raised serious questions about the role of education in society: Can teachers bypass the artificial sieve of certification and examination, and meet students on the basis of a common attraction to an exciting social goal? Is it possible to declare that the aim of education is to find solutions for poverty, for injustice, for racial and national hatred, and to turn all educational efforts into a national striving for these solutions?" -Howard Zinn

For more information on Freedom Schools, check out these first-hand accounts and resources.

Here are original documents created by and for Freedom Schools
Full curriculum of the Freedom Schools

    

Next: Part 5