Getting Started
Addressing violence and nonviolence in the classroom requires some thought. Hopefully these videos and ideas for the classroom can help get you started. Before moving on to explore the modules, we also invite you to look at our foundational resources, which offer further depth and insights that are relevant to any particular focus.
We strongly recommend that you show your students this short video that reveals the power of the unexpected human response to shift a dangerous situation. Here nonviolent activist Karen Ridd describes what happened when she was imprisoned in El Salvador in 1989 for her work with Peace Brigades International. Her short article on the power of humour is also inspiring:humor-but-not-humiliation.
Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan’s 2011 book, Why Civil Resistance Works, has contributed to a renewal in the field of nonviolent studies. In this Ted’s Talk, Chenoweth discusses the results of her research into the comparative success of nonviolent revolutions with their violent counterparts from 1900-2006. What they discovered, has stunned many.
In this short interview, nonviolent scholar/activist Stellan Vinthagen explains the concept of nonviolence, arguing that nonviolent struggles are most effective when they offer an alternative vision for society; or, as he puts it, involve actions that are at the same time both without violence and against violence, but also beyond violence. You can find a much longer, but still accessible, interview with Vinthagen at https://youtu.be/33_CqPBpacs if you want to go deeper into his analysis.
Philosopher Judith Butler offers her insights into why nonviolence is a powerful and effective tool to address injustice and oppression in today’s world. In this interview, she points out the difficulties for resistance movements to prevent violence, once adopted, from getting out of control, wondering whether getting international support for your cause may not be a more effective tool “than trying to pursue a military strategy that can only provoke and strengthen the military opposition”.
Archive
Our archive of student work may help fill your classroom with critical thoughts about nonviolent action. We encourage you to consult it.
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foundational Resources
We've compiled a few key resources that can help you explore some concepts related to violence and nonviolence.