Teaching Nonviolence Through the Humanities

Educators do not have the luxury of witnessing current events solely in terms of ourselves. Instead, we see their impact on every child who comes into our classrooms and every student we pass in the halls.

When the economy crashes, we live through the devastation of job losses with our students and their parents. When universal healthcare continues to take a back seat to big business, we see how the lack of medical care can affect students first-hand. And when tragedies like school shootings unfold, we understand the fear of our students and fellow teachers.

Consequently, when faced with tragedy, teachers are often the first to say, “Where do we go from here?” We ask ourselves how we can move forward from pain and turn it in to something useful. We can see how our students need help making sense of the world. We know, without a doubt, that they cannot begin to learn the academic knowledge we need to give them unless they feel safe and secure in their world. And so we look to ways to make tragedy a teachable moment because that’s how our brains and hearts are programmed.

The question then becomes, “With the world so upside down, what do our students need from us the most?” Obviously, there is no easy answer. Maslow tells us that in order to move into cognitive function, we must first fulfill our human needs for survival, security and social interaction; we need to satisfy our humanistic self before we can approach our aesthetic self.

So, how do we fulfill these basic needs in the classroom when we are struggling to identify them for ourselves?

Counteracting the Analytical with the Emotional

The era of CCSS and STEM education focuses on training students for success in a technology-driven world. In schools, access to humanities classes — which includes academic subjects such as history and social studies, but also arts like music and theater — can be very limited.

According to a U.S. Department of Education survey, many elementary school children in the United States lacked instruction in the arts from 2008-2010. In detail:

• Lacked music classes: 1,325,000
• Did not have visual arts courses: 3,910,000
• No theater classes: 23,182,000
• Lacked dance instruction:  23,247,000

Without humanities as part of their education, students may not have the time or resources to explore the fundamental question of what makes us human. Instead, they are encouraged to embrace an analytical and technical approach to learning. If art, music and sociology do not have a place alongside math, science and technology, students begin to lose sight of the humanistic self, nullifying Maslow’s basic needs before they are even broached.

An emerging field of education uses a humanities-centered approach to learning to promote a curriculum of nonviolence. Institutions that embrace nonviolence through the humanities use education to counteract the dehumanizing mentality of violence. One of the core principles of nonviolence education is the idea that isolation leads to anger, which gives way to violent reactions and behaviors. For programs focusing on nonviolence and the humanities, understanding the roots of humanity eliminates a sense of isolation. In this way, students are able to find outlets for emotions that would otherwise lead to violent behaviors.

The Center for Nonviolent Solutions in Massachusetts sponsors programs within K-12 and university curricula focusing on peace building and nonviolence. One aspect of the center’s education programs is a focus on humanities instruction in order to provide students with a deeper understanding of the needs of all people. The center has seen great success and received high praise from both from teachers and students in programs throughout the state. By providing students with a deeper education, focusing on the humanistic elements of peace and nonviolence, the education initiatives provided by the Center are able to instill in students a culture of nonviolence as a way of life.

Humanities: No longer irrelevant

A debate about teaching humanities has been coursing through education for the past few years. In fact, the idea has been posited that the humanities are irrelevant in today’s world. Some education philosophies imply that subjects classified as humanities would be better left to an experimental underground subculture, leaving the doors open for an educational environment based on science, math and technology. Certainly, this is an extreme viewpoint; but it would be easy for the humanities to disappear from schools that do not consider them a crucial component of children’s education.

However, the current trajectory of increasing violence in schools may serve to flip the page. Violence is an outcropping of dehumanization — if I can reduce my opponent to something less than human, then I can hurt him without remorse. Here, then, is the definitive argument for exploring nonviolence through the humanities: by understanding what makes each of us human, it becomes impossible to dehumanize the lives of those around us.

As teachers struggle to answer our own questions about school violence and the breadth of our responsibility to help, we should look at the tools we already hold. Helping our students understand the greater experience of humanity and allowing them to engage in subjects that promote emotional maturity gives our students an understanding of the wider community in which they play a part. Through this understanding, we can begin to promote a curriculum of nonviolence and cooperation. Perhaps then, we can truly meet our basic needs as humans, allowing all students the opportunity to develop their larger cognitive aspirations.

Jacquie McGregor has taught a wide variety of subjects in 15 years as an educator, including music, art, language arts and life skills. She currently works in online education as a course mentor, teacher and curriculum writer, at both the K-12 and university levels. She is completing her doctorate in education, with a dissertation focusing on arts programming in educational free markets.