TEACHING THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE? Start with A Force More Powerful.

Daryn Cambridge teaches non-violent social change in Washington, D.C.  At the 2011 Peace and Justice Studies-Gandhi/King Conference in Memphis, we took each others' workshops and appreciated each others' work.  Based on my book, Think, Care, Act: Teaching for a Peaceful Future, my workshop demonstrated strategies for promoting critical and creative thinking, compassionate care for local and global others, and honorable and effective social action.  (Read excerpts from the book at http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Think-Care-Act .)

In his workshop, Daryn demonstrated strategies for teaching about nonviolent change.  He introduced numerous resources available at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict website (http://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/ ) to help teachers teach about the successes of non-violent social change movements, a topic too-often overlooked in typical curricula. 

The site offers the following helpful definition:  

“Nonviolent conflict is a powerful way for people to fight for their rights, freedom, justice, self-determination, and accountable government.  When people wage nonviolent conflict, they withdraw their cooperation from an oppressive system by using tactics such as strikes, boycotts, and mass protests. These actions can disrupt the capacity of rulers to control events and can shift the support and loyalties of the system’s defenders to the side of the movement. Decisive, even historic, change has then often been the outcome.”

After our workshops, Daryn interviewed me about how I use A Force More Powerful, the documentary about non-violent social change movements.  Based on the book by Jack DuVall and Peter Ackerman, the powerful movie details Reverend James Lawson’s trainings preparing students for anti-segregation lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville, Gandhi's march to the sea to obtain independence for India, and other non-violent movements in Poland, South Africa, Denmark, and Chile.

Our students need to understand how nonviolent social change works!  As they try to understand the day-to-day development of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, for example, our students will find explanations of historic nonviolent social change movements helpful.  They also need guidance understanding unfolding events in the Middle East arising from the so-called Arab Spring.  I even use such materials as this film to help students understand Colonial American boycotts of British goods in the 1770s!  I hope my 4-minute video interview inspires teachers to use the movie in classes from elementary to university.

View my interview at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDJDnSV1IUI&feature.  

Daryn can get copies of A Force More Powerful (movie) to interested teachers.  Contact him (and read more about his work) at his professional blog: http://daryncambridge.com/.