Rules

As you can see there are no rules written on my class syllabus. This is because we decide the rules together as a class, and then everyone, after adequate discussion and agreement, writes in the rules that we agree upon. This assures we build and strengthen community by taking ownership and responsibility for each other's well being, and that the members of the class are not being told how to act or behave by any one single individual.  In essence it encourages taking personal responsibility for our behavior and encourages a "power-with" relationship rather than a "power-over" relationship.

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Course Introduction

Violence exists in many different forms. Two of those forms are physical and psychological. Violence is a result of ignorance and fear. It involves causing harm to any other form of life and also putting others into distress.

Ken Butigan describes violence as, "Verbal, emotional, or physical behavior that diminishes, dominates, or destroys ourselves or others. Violence crosses boundaries without permission, disrupts authentic relationships, and separates us from other beings."

Dialogue and communication are the first steps to conflict resolution. Conflict is not inherently bad, and in fact, there is much to grow and learn from conflict. Imagine the creation of a diamond or a mountain. In order for either to form we need conflicting forces that press up against each other and create friction that transform the land or the coal into its new form.

How we are able to handle a conflict determines whether it will result in violence. For purposes of this course, conflict is bad when it results in violence.  We will spend the next four months exploring our relationship with ourselves and the world around us, and what steps we can take to make the world a more balanced and peaceful place.

Course Description:

Positive Stretch is an opportunity for students and teachers to explore the role that health and wellness play in balanced and effective leadership and peace-building. The classes, through visualization, deep-breathing and meditation techniques, are designed to help participants gain greater mastery over their emotions and reactions. Through these sessions, students discover how to become effective leaders by remaining physically and psychologically strong, and also, calm and relaxed in moments of turmoil.

Positive stretch is a fusion of yoga, meditation, and martial arts. It involves exercise; stretching both mind and body. Key topics include: moderation, positive thinking, the art of listening, honesty, healthy food intake, forgiveness, understanding anger, awareness, stress reduction and disciplined practice. The classes help participants realize and experience how through a healthy mind, they shall have a healthy body, and how through a healthy body, they shall maintain a healthy spirit.

Requirements

This course asks students to make changes in the way they live their lives. It requires students to engage in a continual process of self-analysis and reflection. This course requires the student to question previously held attitudes and beliefs, the teacher, and each other. The basis of trying means to speak out when you are not interested in the topic of discussion and then to offer alternatives.

Each student is asked to keep a journal and folder/binder to store and collect all materials from the class during its course.

Nonviolent Assessment & Grading

Using a philosophy that ability is determined by effort, your grade for this class will be determined by how hard you try and how honest you are. Of course, that can only be determined by one person--YOU. I am not here to judge you.

The following was written by Nathaniel X and adopted for my syllabus.

What is Nonviolent Assessment?

Academic Violence refers to attitudes, behaviors, or actions in a classroom that put our cognitive development in distress.

Is grading a form of academic violence? You must reach your own conclusions.

The pacifist argument is that grading is a form of coercion, separation, and control that ultimately diminishes human personality. Grading is coercive when it exploits the learner's fears-of not receiving parental or peer approval, of not being accepted by some colleges or some employers, etc. Grading is controlling when grades are imposed by the teacher-authority to direct behaviors of the learner (i.e., punishing bad behaviors). Since authoritarian coercion, separation, and control tends to put humans in distress—primarily by fostering insecurity—the nonviolent teacher will find alternative methods of assessment, even if the alternatives require a great deal more energy and creativity.

Imposing grades, though giving the appearance of empowering one to succeed, arguably disempowers the learner because it inhibits self-assessment, which is one of the most desired educational outcomes of Alternatives to Violence—more so even than learning about the people, history, and ideas of non-violence.

YOU are the only one who truly knows how you are doing academically—how well you are learning, how hard you are trying, how much you are improving, etc. If you believe in the system of grading—of assigning numbers and letters to the human personality—then it is far better that you take full responsibility for this system YOURSELF.

Students and teachers have been conditioned to rely on the system of grade imposition. A partial solution to this "violent" system is self-grading. In grading oneself, one has a precious opportunity to self-reflect and to choose honesty. Imposing grades would remove this opportunity. Honesty, of course, can come only from one's own desire to be honest. Honesty should never come from coercion by others. In fact, if truthfulness is obtained through coercion it is not an expression of honesty, but of fear.

Choosing honesty when assessing oneself is not easy; in fact, it is one of the most difficult tasks a person will ever undertake. Ignorance, fear, and denial often prevent even the best of us from assessing ourselves honestly. But, even being honest about the reasons you choose to be dishonest is making great progress towards living honestly.

"I don't have a choice" is a dishonest statement. Each choice we make is always our own.

Outline of Contents and Material

Session 1:
Who are we? Getting to know our classmates and reasons for being here. Activity: 2 Truths and a Lie.

Session 2:
Diversity Workshop:
Simulation---Turning ourselves Inside-Out

Session 3:
Celebrating Diversity Continued

Session 4:
Selected Quotes for discussion and
Studying the lyrics to Bob Marley's song titled "War"

Session 5:
The Theory of Connectivity and
The Butterfly Effect
What happens to one happens to all.

Session 6:
Types of Violence:
Physical, Psychological, and Structural

Session 7:
Origins of Violence:
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Understanding Fear and Ignorance (the process of Ignoring Yourself)

Session 8:
Proactive versus Reactive Ways towards Problem solving

Session 9:
Empathy versus Apathy and
The Bystander Effect

Session 10:
POWER and it's relationship to Violence.

Session 11:
Oppression, Exploitation, and the Psychology of Dependency
Home Work: No television for 5 days.

Session 12:
Homelessness and Gentrification

Session 13:
Homelessness and Gentrification Continued:
Film: Fighting for Housing Rights

Session 14:
Hate Crimes:
Sexual Assault, Rape, and Homophobia
Home Work: Find somebody depressed (having a bad day) and make them smile.

Session 15:
Alternatives to Violence Skills:
Responses to Conflict
Home Work: 2 days without including anyone in a conversation if they are not present to hear what you are saying about them (i.e. no gossiping).

Session 16:
Alternatives to Violence Skills Continued:
Active listening, stating your position clearly and getting all perspectives.

Session 17:
Alternatives to Violence Skills Continued:
Handling your anger and emotions
Anger Mountain. Self-Analysis
Home Work: Forgive somebody and let them know that you are letting go of the grudge/hatred.

Session 18:
Evaluation and Reflection of Progress

Session 19:
Alternatives to Violence Skills Continued:
Handling the Anger of others.

Session 20:
Alternatives to Violence Skills Continued:
Developing options, negotiation, mediation and arbitration.

Session 21:
Institutionalized Racism, Discrimination, and Xenophobia
Home Work: Have a Conversation with somebody who is not part of your "stereotyped group."

Session 22:
Institutionalized Racism Continued:
The Criminal Justice System and The Death Penalty

Session 23:
Institutionalized Racism Continued:
The Education System

Session 24:
Institutionalized Racism Continued:
The Prison-Industrial Complex and Selected Readings

Session 25:
Institutionalized Racism Continued:
Film: Corrections

Session 26:
Human Nature:
Selected Readings by Thomas Hobbes and Rousseau

Session 27:
Animal Rights:
Compassion over Killing

Session 28:
Animal Rights Continued:
Understanding Speciesism

Session 29:
Trust Before Suspicion:
Book Discussion and Reflection

Session 30:
Trust Before Suspicion Continued:
Activities in Building Trust and Conquering Fears.

Session 31:
Lying, Cheating, and Stealing:
Who are you really hurting?
Home Work: Go 5 days without lying and/or documenting every time you lie and what you are lying about and for what end.

Session 32:
The United Nations and World Citizenship:
Film: Crossing Borders

Session 33:
"Patriotism or Peace?"
Selected Reading by Leo Tolstoy
God Bless America or God Bless the World?

Session 34:
Evaluation and Reflection of Class Progress

Session 35:
Wealth Disparity:
Understanding Poverty and it's effects on World Peace

Session 36:
Our Peace Makers:
Selected Readings from Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton

Session 37:
Our Peace Makers:
Selected Reading, "Loving Your Enemies,"
by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Session 38:
Globalization and Privatization of Basic Human Necessities

Session 39:
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

Session 40:
The School of the Americas:
Implications of the U.S. Training Soldiers Overseas

Session 41:
The Military-Industrial Complex:
"It will be a great day when the schools get all the money they need and the airforce has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."

Session 42:
Being a Loving Parent and Raising your Child Non-Violently

Session 43:
Discussion with Young Single Mothers

Session 44:
One Common Unity:
Circle of Life Workshops
You are in Training to become a Non-violent Facilitator

Session 45:
One Common Unity:
Continue developing your Lesson Plans

Session 46:
One Common Unity:
Go to Elementary School and Conduct Alternatives to Violence Workshops

Session 47:
Our Peace Makers:
Selected Readings, "Doctrine of the Sword, "
by Mahatma Gandhi

Session 48:
Film: A Force More Powerful

Session 49:
Fasting for Peace:
Hunger Strike in the Turkish Prisons.
What would you die for?

Session 50:
Increasing Brain Power:
Levitation and the Plant
The power of thought and word. "You can't or you will?"
Changing Our vocabulary - Do you really hate and are you really starving?

Session 51:
Final Evaluations

Potent Quotes

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."
-Mahatma Gandhi

"You must listen to be heard."
-Ancient Proverb

"Don't ever let them pull you down so low as to hate them."
-Booker T. Washington

"Building more prisons to address crime is like building more graveyards to address a fatal disease."
-Robert Gangi

"A lot of people don't have a lot of food on their tables. but they got a lot of forks and knives. they gotta cut something."
-Bob Dylan

"It is wrong to be tolerant of evil perpetrated by those in power. True tolerance is the dynamic approach of forging open relations with all people—and there wage a resolute struggle by nonviolent means; to spread the force of good through dialogue.

A third millennium, imbued with respect for the sanctity of life, free from nuclear arms and war and rich with the rainbow hues of diversity, will come into being only through the efforts of empowered and responsible citizens who don't wait for someone else to take the initiative."
-Daisaku Ikeda (Soka Gakkai International)

"The first thing to be disrupted by our commitment to nonviolence will be not the system but our own lives."
-Jim Douglas

"If we could read the sacred history of our 'enemies,' we should find in each man and woman's life, sorrow and suffering enough to disarm hostility."
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
-Abraham Lincoln

"Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves."
- Eugene Debs

"Fighting for peace is like f—ing for virginity."
-Unknown

"If it's natural to kill, why do men have to go into training to learn how?"
-Joan Baez

"You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist."
-Indira Gandhi

"Being a pacifist between wars is as easy as being a vegetarian between meals."
-Ammon Hennacy, US Labor leader

"Realization is nothing to be gained afresh; it is already there. All that is necessary is to get rid of the thought 'I have not realized.'"
-Sri Ramana Maharshi

"Notice how painful it is, to constantly be wanting, wanting. This is our suffering."
-Jim Gilman

"Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him and to let him know that you trust him."
-Booker T. Washington

"First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—for I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me."
-Pastor Niemoelle, speaking of the Nazis in Germany

"As long as there is a lower class I am in it; as long as there is a criminal element I am of it; as long as there is a soul in prison I am not free."
-Eugene Debs

"Too often we under estimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."
-Leo Buscaglia

"Forgiveness remains the only path that leads out of hell. Whether we're forgiving our parents, someone else, or ourselves, the laws of mind remain the same: As we love, we shall be released from pain, and as we deny love, we shall remain in pain."
-Marianne Williamson

"Great minds discuss ideas; average mind discuss events; small minds discuss people."
-Eleanor Roosevelt

"We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"
-Oscar Wilde

"Being considerate of others will get your children further in life than any college degree."
- Marian Wright Elelman

"If you want to know the past, to know what has caused you, look at yourself in the present, for that is the past's effect. If you want to know your future, then look at yourself in the present, for that is the cause of the future."
-Buddha

"You can only change the man by changing the conditions under which he lives."
-Clarence Darrow

"It required years of labor and billions of dollars to gain the secret of the atom. It will take a still greater investment to gain the secrets of man's irrational nature. It is easier, someone has said, to smash an atom than a prejudice."
-Gordon W. Allport (From The Nature of Prejudice)

"Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced."
-James Baldwin

"If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive. If you want to see the heroic, look at those who can love in return for hatred."
-From the Bhagavad-Gita

"Study as if you were to live forever. Live as if you were to die tomorrow."
-Isinore of Seville

"In order to contemplate our spiritual individuality in its fullness we must free ourselves of practical life and of its routine."
-Henri Bergson

"It's amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."
-Harry Truman

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
-Confucius (551 - 479 B.C.)

"True compassion is not merely tossing a coin to a beggar. It is not haphazard or superficial. True compassion comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
-M.L.K. Jr.

"Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger the wind the stronger the trees."
-William Marriott

"We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading."
-B.F. Skinner

"You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; and when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly."
- Kahlil Gibran

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men."
-Alice Walker

"After the last tree has been cut down. After the last river has been poisoned. After the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
-Cree Prophecy

Recommended Reading

• Herman Hesse, “Siddhartha,” and “The Glass Bead Game”

• Thich Nhat Hanh, “Interbeing.”

• W.E.B. DuBois, “The Souls of Black Folk.”

• Jared Diamond, “Guns, Germs, and Steel.”

• Neale Donald Walsch, “Conversations With God.”

• Kahlil Gibran, “The Vision,” “The Prophet,” and “A Tear and A Smile."

• Paulo Freire, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”

• James Redfield, “The Celestine Prophecy.”

• Martin Luther King, Jr., “Why We Can’t Wait,” and “Strength to Love.”

• Noam Chomsky, “Profit Over People.”

• Adolf Hitler, “My Life.”

• Howard Zinn, “The People’s History of the United States.”

• Sun Tzu, “The Art of War.”

• Henry David Thoreau, “Walden and Civil Disobedience.”

• Frederick Douglas, “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas.”

• George Orwell, “1984,” and “Animal Farm.”

• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “One-Hundred Years of Solitude.”

• Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged,” and “The Fountain Head.”

• Daniel Quinn, “Beyond Civilization.”

• Alex Haley, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

• Nelson Mandela, “The Long Walk to Freedom.”

• Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist.”

• Tao Te Ching and I Ching

• Arundhati Roy, “The God Of Small Things.”

• Colman McCarthy, “I’d Rather Teach Peace.”

• Linda Lantieri and Janet Patti, “Waging Peace in our Schools.”

• Garry Davis, “My Country is the World,” and “Passport to Freedom.”