Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: Leah Wells

  • Nonviolence 101

    Conversations pertaining to work often begin like this:
    “What do you do?”
    “I’m a high school teacher.”
    “What do you teach?”
    “Peacemaking.”
    “Huh?”
    And then it takes a moment to register. The follow-up question usually is, “Is that a real class in high school?”

    And thus begins the story of how classes on nonviolence wind up in high schools.

    I tell people about the various chapters, how we start out at the beginning of the semester with personal peacemaking and nonviolent responses to assault. Students always want to know how a pacifist would respond if he or she were to be attacked by a random stranger leaping from the bushes or from behind a dumpster in a dark alley. So I ask them how many of them have ever been physically hit by a random stranger in any way at any point in their lives. Maybe one or two people. Then I ask them how many people have ever been physically hit by a member of their family or someone they know at any point in their lives. Nearly every hand goes up. We worry about the boogeyman and abandoned buildings but fail to address some of the most conflict-ridden arenas, the places where we usually go like home, school and work.

    That’s how the semester begins, by examining our own personal lives. This first chapter introduces students to nonviolence, the myths, the truths and the power of responding with nonviolent force to our precarious lives. We create a working definition of peace, of violence, conflict and of nonviolence. We explore where we need to create spaces for peace in our lives, in our communities, in our state, in our nation and in our world. We start to learn about consensus, following a process and taking turns. We begin to disarm our disbeliefs, our doubts and our misgivings about peacemaking. We start to let our defenses down in order to let peace in.

    After establishing a baseline for conceptualizing nonviolence, the class learns about historical figures who usually get the short end of the stick in traditional high school classes. Primary sources are a must in Solutions to Violence, the name of the course which I teach and which my mentor, Colman McCarthy, founded. We study Gandhi in his own words. We watch A Force More Powerful, the video series by York&Ackerman which aired on PBS in October 2000. We read Dr. King in his own words, and learn about the civil rights movement, hassle lines and nonviolence trainings. The class begins to understand the structure and discipline which nonviolence requires. We then read Dorothy Day, learning about intentional communities and communal living. The students I teach are accustomed to mass marketing, consumerism and capitalism, so Dorothy Day’s commitment to generosity, hospitality and precarity tends to shock them. That chapter demonstrates a very exciting learning curve.

    Next we read Gene Sharp, Tolstoy’s “Patriotism or Peace”, Daniel Berrigan and a very articulate piece by Joan Baez which examines a dialogue between a pacifist and a skeptic. We learn about the humanitarian crisis in Iraq as a result of the economic embargo, about the School of the Americas Watch movement, about Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, about sweatshops and maquiladoras, about child labor and child soldiers, about economics and the Pentagon and about the environment and animal rights. By the end of the semester, the Students in Solutions to Violence know how to find alternative news and pacifist perspectives on the Internet from websites like Commondreams, Indymedia and the Nonviolence Web.

    What students really learn…

    “This class made a difference in my life. I see things in a whole new way now that I didn’t see before. I’m not saying this class changed my whole viewpoint on life, but it did help me to be a little more open-minded. I’m seeing a little more color these days than just black and white. I don’t think this class is about learning a bunch of stats and info. It’s more than that. I’ve learned to be a little more positive than negative. I hope that the class becomes required in the future.”

    I hope that my students learn the specifics of nonviolence, that they learn to tell the stories of nonviolence and that they grow in their understanding of key nonviolent figures both past and present. Even more than the facts, though, I hope that they learn about themselves. About halfway through the semester, I ask the class what they think my goals are in teaching Solutions to Violence. Items from the following list invariably arise each semester in their responses to that question:

    Compassion. Compassion is a difficult skill to teach. Everywhere around them in the world, they learn to be tough, not to show their softer side and that kindness is a weakness. Perhaps the best place to start is teaching with compassion. My mentor, Colman McCarthy, gave me some good advice about how to do this. He told me that before every class, he reminds himself to listen more than talk. He says that good listeners have many friends and poor listeners have many acquaintances. Many people like to talk just to hear their heads rattle. The skill of being a good listener is perhaps the most important one in the teaching profession.

    I have learned many things from my students just by listening. In fact, even if I just show up to class and don’t say a word, the students will create their own dialogue because they so often need a forum to vent their emotions and share their experiences. When we study Gandhi and review the nine steps for conflict transformation, “Work on your listening skills” is one of the toughest on the list. I ask my class if, when they’re having a conversation or argument, if they are truly digesting the words of the other person, or if they’re planning in their heads what to say next, letting the other person’s words go in one ear and out the other. We so desperately want to be heard and understood, but have little experience in truly listening with patient hearts.

    Compassion also comes from empathy. I always hope for my students that they make other people’s experiences a part of their own, whether they live in the same town or around the globe.

    Ownership of their learning. Students have very little opportunity to exercise their natural creativity in school in no small part to the reliance on standardized testing and multiple-choice exams. These brain-numbing techniques lull the students into a passive state of receiving information without truly testing the measure of its worth, without examining it for relevance and truthfulness. Standardized tests stratify students into categories that teachers, administrators and colleges are comfortable with, but have little bearing on what students have actually learned.

    I am interested in students learning. I want them to assume responsibility for their own education, and become partners with the school and their teachers in an active pursuit of knowledge. In Solutions to Violence, students have the opportunity to grade themselves, and each semester they report that this is the toughest assignment. The class writes about what they are learning, how they are learning and how it is affecting them in their daily lives. Then they must assign a comparable grade so that the administration is satisfied. Learning ought to be a cooperative process. Sharing power with the students demonstrates respect and attentiveness to their autonomy and gives them the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned. It is also tremendously valuable insight for me to know what parts of the curriculum reach the students and what elements of truth they have gleaned from the stories, videos and discussions.

    This semester, one student said the following: “Why can’t you just give us grades, Miss Wells? I mean, if you gave us grades then we could just be angry with you if we didn’t like them. If we give ourselves grades, we have to live with what we have done and either be angry or happy with our own effort. Can’t you just do our grades for us?” For me, this says it all. Students are too far-removed from the processes by which we measure them. Perhaps we don’t trust them to give honest evaluations of their work. Perhaps it ought to be part of the teacher’s job to evaluate the students independently. But I believe that empowering students to grade themselves is one of the best privileges to bestow on them. They must assume responsibility this way.

    Occasionally, students will respond with less-than-honest recommendations for their grades. So we review what they have written as a part of their evaluation, and use their overestimated grade as a jumping off point. What I have realized all too often, though, when a student grades himself or herself higher than I would have is that I have not accurately measured what that student has learned, and upon closer inspection, I learn that indeed that student has assumed a great deal of responsibility for taking back his/her education. Sometimes it takes a while to know what you know, though, and test-centered accountability does not take into account this gestation period for knowledge to develop.

    Knowledge about the world. Most students do not read the news section of the newspaper. Many students read the sports section, but that is just not comparable. Solutions to Violence teaches them how to dissect the newspaper, learn about the places in the stories and try to connect with the lives of those impacted by international events. We talk about letters to the editor, discuss news items and read through articles, point to places on the map and follow up with case studies about places that interest the students, like Palestine and South Africa.

    But Solutions to Violence is more than just encouraging students to be more informed. It is giving them the tools to take action and create change in their lives, in their school, in their community and in their world.

    In the past few semesters that I have been teaching in California, my students have incorporated their theoretical knowledge about how and why nonviolence works into practical action to address current needs in the community and in the world. For example, in response to learning about the mushroom workers’ struggles to win a contract for fair pay, better health and retirement benefits, the students organized a school-wide canned food drive to benefit the farmworkers. This particular action impressed me because it was during the last week of school and coordinated primarily by the seniors in the class, people who had tuned out of nearly every other subject and had their minds only on graduation.

    Nonviolence is not only about changing the world. Students begin to learn about how their hearts and minds can be transformed by considering peacemaking a legitimate skill. We read a selection from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Peace is Every Step, learning to be mindful of our breathing and to recover ourselves and refocus when our attention turns to anger and potential violence. Many times my students have reported that in a tense situation, one where they were ready to loose their cool, they remembered the conscious breathing exercises we do in class, concentrating on naming our in-breath and out-breath. When they were in control of their own emotions through mindful breathing, they felt less likely to react violently. It is this exact personal transformation which makes me believe that Solutions to Violence is a worthwhile class that ought to be a part of any standard high school curriculum.

    It teaches them how to be better friends, better children, better students and better people. It helps them define their talents, articulate their thoughts and cooperate with each other.

    I, too, am transformed each semester, impressed with the level of life experience and wisdom my students bring. I learn from them as much as they learn from me.

    Teaching peacemaking in school is the most logical non-reactive component to ending intolerance, racism, ageism and all other forms of personal, structural and institutional violence. I am hoping that more people will recognize this and that the movement to teach peace will be the saving grace for the sake of our young people, our communities and our world.
    *Leah Wells is a high school teacher and the Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. This article was initially published in the spring edition of Peacebuilding, the newsletter of the Peace Education Commission.

  • A Peacemaker These Days

    Originally Published in Common Dreams

    What makes a peacemaker these days? Apparently with the nomination of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize, being a peacemaker means that you can drop bombs on civilians, offer few options for reconciliation to your enemies and reduce spending on social services in favor of funding an already disproportionate military budget.

    I try to explain to my students who take “Solutions to Violence,” a semester-long course on peacemaking for high schools that pacifism works and offer evidence to that fact. Nominating Bush and Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize undermines this effort significantly. So as their teacher, I have tried to note a few characteristics of peacemakers which might help to clarify the quandary we as a global community face when people who fit more in the category of war criminals are heralded as peace heroes.

    Someone seeking to be a peacemaker uses violence only as a last resort. Violence has a very simple dynamic: might makes right. Nonviolence on the other hand uses creativity with unlimited possibilities to resolve problems and seeks to evoke the human spirit in their enemies, that undeniable conscience which ought never be shelved. Alexander Solzhenitsyn speaks of the futility of separating the evil people from the good people and destroying them – the same language George W. Bush is using to delineate the evildoers from the benevolent – only Solzhenitsyn truly knows that the line between good and evil runs through each human heart. When we desire to kill evil, we commit to killing a piece of ourselves.

    I continue to remind my students of Gandhi’s message that the goal is not to bring our enemies to their knees but to their senses. To do this, we must offer ways for them to save face, rather than give them ultimatums which back them into a corner and force them to lash out in frustration of lack of options. To grant our enemies the dignity they are due as human beings is to take a step toward reconciliation. We can love the evildoer while hating the evil act.

    Many religious leaders have blessed many wars throughout the years, and just last week I heard a Catholic priest at an interfaith dialogue making excuses for the “Just War Theory.” My students sitting near me beckoned for my response. On a sheet of scrap paper I asked them if Jesus embodied “Just War Theory” – if his actions represented justifications for hatred and retaliation, or if his message called us to a greater level of understanding. Walking with our enemies. Loving them because they are difficult to love. Showing compassion and mercy. Where is this dialogue happening nowadays in our war frenzy? Dare we speak out for moderation – or are even clergy being swept away in this flood of madness and hatred? Certainly the voices of peace and justice have been drowned in the swiftly moving tide.

    A peacemaker these days would not continue to bomb Iraq while calling for an end to terrorism and violence. In the past two weeks, the United States has bombed Iraq four times, while calling on the United Nations to keep their negotiations with Iraq “short”. Talk is cheap, I suppose, when we have bombing to maintain! A peacemaker would allocate more than enough resources so that housing, health care and education never went needy. Dr. King said that any nation spending more on its military than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. We are already there.

    It’s quite handy for our government to do this, though. We cut funding for social spending and overwhelm the Pentagon’s budget. This way, our students who are prone to fall through the cracks anyway will realize that there is no future for them in school, or in the workforce, and then believe that they have no other choice than to join the military. We’re eliminating options and free will under the guise of national security, underhandedly denying educations and futures to young people who deserve them. We are killing the dreams of many young people who want to create better lives for themselves and their families.

    The most important quality of a peacemaker these days, I believe, can be summed up in a line from the Manifesto by Wendell Berry on the Mad Farmer Liberation Front: Be joyful even though you have considered all the facts. A peacemaker knows the obstacles ahead. A peacemaker cries with the families of those killed and labeled ‘collateral damage’. A peacemaker lives the spirit of peacemaking and is not afraid to take risks in the name of justice. A peacemaker these days aligns with the unpopular causes, speaks up for the people we’d rather hate, and questions the authority which condones cultural genocide, mass murder and rampant militarism.

    This is what my students deserve to know about peacemaking.
    *Leah C. Wells teaches high school classes on nonviolence and serves as Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. She traveled last July and August with Voices in the Wilderness to Iraq and condemns the economic sanctions as genocidal.

  • Advice for the soon-to-be or newly graduated student on choosing a career with a conscience

    Dear Friend,

    So you are graduating soon and are starting to think about your role in the world, about survival, about independence and about what you were put here on this planet to accomplish…a hefty task to undertake with all that must be going through your mind at this time. Take it or leave it, I have some unsolicited advice for you on how to choose a career that satisfies what you are most yearning for and what will best serve humanity.

    I’ll start with myself.

    I have never been certain what exactly I wanted to be “when I grow up.” I used to listen to my friends and classmates who were so certain about their future careers, about people who went to college and graduated with a degree in something important that they could use in whatever career path they chose. After high school, I was not sure what I wanted to study, but I knew I was a good writer, a good thinker and a person with a good conscience. This pointed me in the direction of Linguistics. Today I do not formally use my degree; I am a teacher, a writer, an organizer and an activist for issues of peace and justice. My job has diffuse boundaries and unlimited resources for lesson plans, for articles, for nonviolence campaigns and for op-ed pieces.

    When I was three I was asked to leave the Montessori pre-school I was attending in Des Moines, IA (their loss). I couldn’t follow their rules. This is a fairly good starting point for investigating how I have arrived at my present job status. At three, I was an articulate child, an avid reader with a wide vocabulary and an astute observer of human behavior. I liked being around people and I liked new experiences and challenges. I became bored easily and sought adventures at every turn. Indiana Jones was my hero – a respectable professor by day, a swashbuckling treasure hunter by night.

    The work I am doing now is extraordinarily fulfilling and still is grounded in the fundamentals of what I knew to be true about myself as a child. I serve as the Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation where I write articles and a curriculum on teaching peace, I teach high school classes on nonviolence, I organize marches and events for national nonviolence groups, I travel to distant lands like Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness and I have the ability to garden, run, cook and travel to visit friends all over the country as well. Every day brings a new idea, a new predicament, a new perspective. For me, this is the perfect job at this point in my life, and I believe that there is a “recipe” for finding jobs with a conscience that those nearing graduation can draw from. Here are my ideas:

    • You must find out where you want to be physically on the planet. If you love a warm climate, don’t choose your “perfect” job in Alaska. Don’t underestimate the effect the weather, temperature and surrounding geography will have on your personal and professional life.
    • Find out what you like to do. Some jobs for people do not exist in the “help wanted” ads in the newspaper (try to find my job description in your local paper!) Do not be discouraged if you cannot find the perfect job for you just by searching the Sunday Employment section of your newspaper. Jobs with a conscience are hidden jewels, like pearls, that you must tease out of hiding. While daunting at times, the reward for finding a job you love and that meets your needs is greater than you can imagine.
    • Learn from your s/heroes. My first shero was Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor. She did what people thought could not be done. I felt a deep connection to that ideology and constantly pursued goals in my life that defied expectations. Make a list of the people you admire and list the reasons why. This investigation can be tremendously enlightening and may help articulate qualities of yourself which define your passions. Never assume that you can’t make a career out of doing what you love.
    • Watch the signs in your life. The world sends us signals, hints, and messages in funny forms that unless we are observant, we tend to miss. Do not dismiss the coincidences and the happenstances that bend your thinking in a new direction, that wake you up to a new idea.
    • No law says that you must stick with your first job for a certain amount of time. You can change your mind, move on, move out, move up and move forward when you feel the need to grow or feel the pangs of conscience creeping up! My first job out of college was working for the World Bank, which is interesting because now many of my friends in activism are working against this gigantic institution. I feel quite privileged to have an intimate understanding of the inner-workings of the “WB” as I fondly used to call it, and learning about the people on the inside, hearing their stories and realizing that for a seemingly untouchable powerhouse, the World Bank actually has some significant Achilles’ Heels. Hindsight is 20/20.
    • Brainstorming is an important creative endeavor when determining your future and vocation. Here is a brainstorm of mine: op-ed writer, volunteer, science teacher, math teacher, history teacher, french teacher, food drive organizer, talent show coordinator, jail filler, puppetista, hall director, resident advisor, office grunt, grantwriter, nonprofit founder, affinity group member, social worker, GED teacher, campaign organizer, fundraiser, graffiti artist, musician, vagabond, documentary filmmaker, VORP mediator…the list goes on and on…
    • The following list of people are some of my heroes and hold jobs that one day I might like to try on for size:

    Brendan Greene, union organizer for Pictsweet mushroom workers, United Farm Workers, www.ufw.org

    Margaret Oberon, Ventura County Catholic Chaplain, Detention Ministry

    Katya Komisaruk, lawyer for activists, http://www.lawcollective.org

    Michael Beer, Peace Brigades International and Nonviolence International

    Daniel Hunter, nonviolence trainer, Training for Change, www.trainingforchange.org

    Propagandhi, musical group

    Jeff Guntzel, Iraq delegation leader with Voices in the Wilderness, www.vitw.org
    *Leah C. Wells teaches high school classes on nonviolence and serves as Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. She traveled last July and August with Voices in the Wilderness to Iraq and condemns the economic sanctions as genocidal.

  • Farm workers struggle with Pictsweet

    A simple issue of justice

    The workers at the Pictsweet mushroom farm want justice in their workplace. They want decent wages and health benefits, retirement plans, and, most of all, respect. And through the tireless efforts of individual workers, through their personal sacrifice and through the unobtrusive facilitation by the skilled UFW organizers, the mushroom workers and surrounding community are using their collective strength to win a contract.

    The concept of a union for farm workers centers on grassroots organizing and the power of communities to create positive social change. Thanks to the tireless work of the nonviolent leader Cesar Chavez, California farm workers’ rights to organize are legally protected through the Agriculture Labor Relations Act. The traditional hierarchical system of the “powerful few” over the “powerless many” relies on the assumption that the many workers will not organize, link arms and work together to exercise their rights. However, the workers have continued to speak truthfully about their hardships at the hands of Pictsweet management. Nonviolence requires that its practitioners understand the transformative power of human suffering. In this respect, the workers are well versed.

    In a presentation to a high school in Ventura County, Jose Patiña outlined the wishes of the workers and the tactics they are using to persuade the management at Pictsweet to negotiate with them. Delegations of workers routinely visit the offices of supermarkets and restaurants that still purchase Pictsweet mushrooms. Their main purposes are to personalize the issue – showing the management of those establishments the mistreatment of the workers and of the unjust practices – and to convince them to boycott the Pictsweet mushrooms until the company agrees to negotiate for a fair contract and fair working conditions. The organizers have enlisted the help of college MEChA groups statewide in their latest lobbying efforts as well, encouraging them to distribute flyers at restaurants in California still buying Pictsweet mushrooms.

    The workers not only attempt to educate the buyers, but to raise the consciousness of the public as well. Labor Day weekend saw community-wide support for the mushroom workers in a three-mile march through downtown Ventura to the Pictsweet plant. A few months prior, workers stood in front of the government center with signs and puppets at rush hour to publicize the fact that Pizza Hut still purchases Pictsweet mushrooms. And even progressives in Hollywood have taken up their cause as activists Martin Sheen and Mike Farrell have endorsed the workers’ struggle.

    ¿Que queremos?

    The workers want a contract and a raise. All of the nearly 250 workers at the Ventura mushroom farm have been working without a contract for nearly fourteen years. This means that they cannot leverage collective bargaining power to gain the desired improvements in wages and working conditions. While the struggle for a contract has financially impacted the workers and their families, the workers realize that the long-term goal is a raise – more than the last 3-cent raise they received from Pictsweet after an increase of workload. Jose Luis Luna says, “We have not had a significant wage increase in years. The cost of living has gone up several times and we are still making the same money. I support two minor children and myself on my salary.”

    The workers want a pension plan. There are no 401K plans for Pictsweet workers. There are no retirement benefits for dedicated employees who have spent more than twenty years working for this company and, regrettably, the workers have nothing to show for their labor when they retire. The director of human resources reports that he encourages workers to invest a portion of their money in savings accounts for their own retirement, but there is no guarantee that any or all of the workers in fact do this. Moreover, because of increased economic hardships as a result of inflation and no adjusted salary increases, the workers often find themselves in already financially precarious situations before having to set aside some money for retirement.

    The workers want a decent medical plan. The working conditions at Pictsweet are often precarious: working in pitch black darkness; climbing slippery fifteen-foot tall mushroom beds; and, during the rainy season in California, sometimes working barefoot in water up to their knees in a room with exposed electrical outlets. In violation of fire codes, the buildings where the mushrooms grow have only one fire exit from the second floor. The hats that the workers wear in the dark sheds where the mushrooms grow have inadequate light bulbs, causing severe eyestrain, yet there is no vision plan in their medical benefits.

    Workers’ complaints about on-the-job injuries often fall on deaf ears at Pictsweet, where the management challenges their claims, asserting that their injuries happened elsewhere and thus are not covered by workers’ compensation. In addition, the existing medical plan is outrageously expensive for the farm workers’ families. Workers pay on average $13 per week for medical coverage for themselves, their spouses and their children – and yet the individual annual deductible for office visits, not including prescriptions, is a staggering $150 for each member of the family!

    In March of this year, a compost fire began as a result of the buildup of discarded compost and hay. The fire’s origins? Rather than reduce productivity to accommodate the decline in business as a result of the boycott, Pictsweet maintained the same level of production and opted to throw out their packaged, unused mushrooms. When the fire started and thick pungent smoke contaminated the air, the community throughout Ventura County was immediately informed of the health risks posed by the toxins released in the air. However, the local Pictsweet management did not address the health risks with their employees until nearly a week later after UFW organizer Jessica Arciniega met with plant manager Ruben Franco. Only then did Pictsweet hand out facemasks for their workers.

    The press release by the Ventura County Public Health Department on March 15, 2001 read as follows: “County health officials recommend that healthy adults and children in areas affected by smoke avoid strenuous outdoor activity and remain indoors as much as possible…levels of the particulates in the smoke may be high enough that the potential exists for even healthy people to be affected. [Smoke] may pose a special risk to adults and children with asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, or other respiratory diseases and heart disease.”

    Yet the workers were forced to continue working in enclosed buildings where huge fans pumped in thick smoke – unaware of the health risks posed. They were not told by management until the sixth day that their health was jeopardized by working as the fire continued to burn. Moreover, they were not allowed medical leave with pay for illness sustained during this time! Because the Pictsweet workers have no contract, they are at the mercy of their supervisors. Any complaint could be construed as insubordination.

    Finally, the workers want respect and a voice at work. There is no partnership at Pictsweet between management and labor. Supervisors routinely condescend to the pro-UFW workers. The supervisors give preferential treatment to the anti-union workers who have family members in management and encourage the contras, those workers who oppose UFW representation, by offering promotions and financial rewards for their complicity in maintaining the status quo at the farm. The pro-UFW workers want a system of arbitration so that they have a safe and reasonable forum to address their grievances with the company.

    “It has been hard working for this company, but what can we do, we need to work. It hurts to know that we don’t matter. We give our lives to the company only to learn that they don’t think very much of us. We’re people who feel and think and have families who need us and love us,” explains Baudelio Aguayo. “We’re not animals that nobody wants. All we ask for is a little human compassion and respect.”

    These disciplined workers are not only working for their benefit, but for the good of all the workers there. Both pro- and anti-UFW workers alike work in the same conditions. The pro-union faction, a decisive majority of the workers, struggle to create a sustainably just environment for the entire laboring workforce.

    Firsthand visit

    The management at Pictsweet in Ventura is not wholly to blame – they are merely mid-level executors of policies set by those in the corporate office who value profits over people. When I toured the Pictsweet farm at the behest of management there, I had the opportunity to talk with grower Greg Tuttle, intimately inspect working conditions at the farm, and inquire about the status of negotiations with the workers.

    During my visit I saw the close proximity of the fire to the buildings where the workers were forced to endure stifling poor air quality while the fire burned. I saw how the boycott has impacted the productivity: what used to be a room filled floor-to-ceiling with packages of mushrooms had been reduced to one stack of mushrooms less than four feet tall. And I saw no more than ten anti-union workers in white “No UFW” t-shirts at the farm, corroborating the fact that two-thirds of the workers support UFW representation.

    In a meeting with Mr. Olmos, head of human resources at the Ventura Pictsweet plant, I learned that the company feels it has been involved in negotiations with the workers for nearly two years, in spite of claims by the workers and UFW organizers that the company has maintained stoic unresponsiveness to workers’ pleas for mediated talks. However, these alleged “negotiations” have not produced better working conditions for any of the workers, and have not provided for a significant wage increase nor recognition of Union representation – charges which the company cannot deny.

    In fact, the office atmosphere where I spoke with Mr. Olmos was palpably uncomfortable, him shifting in his chair and clearing his throat as if to indicate the legitimacy of the questions I was raising about resolving the discrepancies between the workers and management. Those in power at the Ventura Pictsweet branch, and those in located at the parent company United Foods, Inc. headquarters in Bells, TN, seem undaunted by the unmistakably devastating economic impact the consumer boycott is having on their business, already having closed one plant in Oregon and drastically scaled back production at the Ventura plant. They seem unmoved by the stamina and vigor exhibited by the workers who, in the words of Gandhi, are seeking through their nonviolent campaign not “to bring their opponents to their knees, but to their senses.”

    In a recent major legal victory in mid-January, an administrative judge with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board found Pictsweet guilty of illegally firing mushroom worker Fidel Andrade. Judge Douglas Gallop outlined Pictsweet’s continued mistreatment of its workers who support UFW representation in a 31-page decision, highlighting the animosity shown toward pro-union workers and demanding that Mr. Andrade be given back his job with seniority and pay all lost wages and other benefits. Additionally, Pictsweet must post notices about workers’ rights and allow the workers access to ALRB representatives who can answer the workers’ questions without Pictsweet officials present.

    UFW organizer Jessica Arciniega believes that “the judge’s ruling has benefited the workers more than anything in once again validating and reaffirming what workers have known and been experiencing throughout this campaign – that Pictsweet is very anti-union and has been violating workers’ rights. This translates into everyday by workers knowing that if they stand up for their rights, and provide the evidence that is necessary, the law can work in their favor.” One legal victory does not win the battle, however, as Ms. Arciniega points out: “The success of this campaign is dependent on so much more – boycott and solidarity within our communities.” To those who impede the negotiations process, these words, written in 1969 by Cesar Chavez to the President of California Grape and Tree Fruit League, Mr. E.L. Barr, provide a compelling admonition:

    “You must understand – I must make you understand – that our membership and the hopes and aspirations of the hundreds of thousands of the poor and dispossessed that have been raised on our account are, above all, human beings, no better and no worse than any other cross-section of human society; we are not saints because we are poor, but by the same measure neither are we immoral. We are men and women who have suffered and endured much, and not only because of our abject poverty but because we have been kept poor. The colors of our skins, the languages of our cultural and native origins, the lack of formal education, the exclusion from the democratic process, the numbers of our men slain in recent wars – all these burdens generation after generation have sought to demoralize us, to break our human spirit. But God knows that we are not beasts of burden, agricultural implements or rented slaves; we are men.”
    *Leah C. Wells serves as the Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and teaches nonviolence in two high schools.

  • Combat is the Wrong Answer for Alienated Youth

    Re: Raymond Marquez’s Nov. 4 letter, “Draft gang members”:

    The letter by Mr. Marquez asserts that the front lines in war would be a more appropriate place for our gang members than the streets in our country. He does not see America as a war zone, whereas many young people do. They are fighting for attention, for recognition and for legitimacy.

    Because we teach them little about nonviolent power, about changing the dynamic of the “powerful few” and the “powerless many,” about organizing themselves toward a greater good, and about structures of systemic and institutionalized violence, they use what they perceive as their only power: violence through brute force.

    I see every day the origins of their careless, bad attitudes and their sense of disenfranchisement from society. They are concerned about the basics: money, food and their personal safety, things that, as a caring society, we should be providing in an attempt to raise a compassionate generation ready to lead us in the future.

    Yet, nearly 25 percent of kids in America live in poverty, while we spend $350 billion annually on our military. Funding for education, justice, housing assistance and social programs together makes up less than one-third of the military’s budget. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that a “country spending more on its military than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

    Our young people know where our priorities are because the money we spend, or refuse to spend, speaks volumes about what we value: money, weaponry and absolute power.

    When gangs fight on the streets, the violence is illegal and punishable with jail time, but when they train and fight in the military, the violence becomes legitimate. Right time, right place, right enemy and they get a medal of honor and money for college.

    Wrong time, wrong city, wrong enemy, they become immersed in the prison-industrial system of injustice. This mixed message is exactly what Mr. Marquez suggests we employ in our country.

    His suggestion is both classist and bigoted. Instead of only sending the already poor and disenfranchised young people in gangs to war, why do we not also send the sons and daughters of the members of Congress who have voted so adamantly and unilaterally for this war in Afghanistan?

    Not even those orchestrating this war, namely Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, served in the armed forces. Are the lives of gang members less worthy and more disposable than the decision-makers’? Additionally, if Mr. Marquez believes that a healthy dose of combat will shape up our gang members, I wonder if he believes, too, that the veterans of the Vietnam War were better socialized in American society after serving in the armed forces.

    Not even our classrooms are exempt from military indoctrination. Education in America already encourages institutionalized violence through participation in the armed forces. Because administrators and teachers have more to worry about than military recruiters on campus, the Pentagon has an unobstructed avenue into the consciences of our youth in high schools. Whether through brochures in the career counselor’s office, or on television through Channel One, a “news” channel that advertises for one of its primary sponsors, the Pentagon, the captive high school audience is in prime marketing territory for the military.

    In recent years, more than $1 trillion has been cut in aid to cities and those funds have been reappropriated for usage by our military, with little accountability to the American public and certainly no accountability to our youth and future generations who will have to live in the militarized world we have created. When students believe they have no future, their actions reflect their inner emotions.

    In an open letter to a newspaper on May 5, students from Los Angeles High School outlined their gripes in their own words: “How can you blame us for doing poorly as students when you are doing poorly as parents? You should insist on the right to be good parents. If your employers complain when you have to go to a parent-teacher conference, tell them that most juvenile crime would disappear if only the adults would take charge of their children.”

    In this letter, the class demands that we build more schools to accommodate the growing student population, that we take them to museums instead of the malls, and that we, the adults, clean up our acts and take responsibility for our skewed priorities.

    Instead, every day, 200 new prison cells are built, according to the War Resisters League. In March 2000, Proposition 21 was passed in California creating a death penalty for people under 18, and directly violating international law.

    The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every country other than the United States and Somalia, clearly identifies people under the age of 18 as requiring special protection and exempting them from being treated as adults, especially in a court of law.

    The solution is not new. We need to provide health care to every person, we need to engage in restorative justice rather than punitive justice, and we need to allocate enough money to schools so that teachers are well-paid, classrooms are well-maintained and higher education is accessible to anyone who wishes to continue studying.

    What we don’t need are more people telling kids how bad they are, and providing suggestions for how to get rid of the problem of delinquent youth in our society.

    Perhaps I have learned more from my students about wisdom, compassion and value than they have learned from me. My students are my role models, all of them. Being around gang members and troublemakers reminds me how far we have to go in creating an equitable society and encourages me in the struggle for justice.

    *Leah C. Wells is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Peace Education Coordinator.

  • Vote for Peace

    “The first time the first woman had a chance to say no against war she should say it.” – Jeanette Rankin

    Behold the anti-war sentiments of this Congresswoman from Montana whose pacifist ideals are nowhere to be seen nor heard in recent days. This often forgotten former Congresswoman from Montana voted against entry into both World War I and World War II, a risky gamble for peace in this war-hawk nation. Yet, believing war was not the answer and willing to take a stand in the face of weighty opposition to remain true to her beliefs, Ms. Rankin cast her vote for peace. Last week, our modern-day Jeannette Rankin, Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), cast the only dissenting vote against legislation giving President Bush the authorization to wage military war against terrorism. The other politicians in our country would do well to pause in silence for a moment and listen to the sounds of conscience which resonate among the peaceloving people in the United States.

    What I find remarkable in the aftermath of the Tuesday’s devastating events is that our outspoken government leaders, especially our President, have maintained a hate-filled unilateral front using language of retaliation and revenge for the perpetrators and the country harboring them and abetting their activities. The mainstream media has reported precious little from peace groups who represent the wishes of many Americans who think that military action is not the only valid response to this tragic situation. We are continually told that more bloodshed will make us feel better. If we can beat up on some other nation’s innocents, it will ease our pain here. Misery loves company.

    The paradigm has already been set up: if you call for peace, for reconciliation and for forgiveness, you are anti-American. You are unaligned with the multitudes of grieving families across our nation and empathize too much with the enemy, who deserves no mercy. Can we be pro-peace and still be true to our country? Can we call for compassion and nonviolent responses to a tragedy this terrible? Revenge and retaliation have been perverted to mean justice, and the American public ought to be offered other options than the militaristic, one-sided vengeance which our leaders have set before us. How can our leaders call for tolerance toward Arab-Americans in our own country and in the same breath blast Arab countries with unrelenting rhetoric of retaliatory attacks?

    After all, we are all human beings, right? Nationalities are man-made creations, as are national borders. In essence, we are plotting the destruction of our own species. Is our national policy toward foreigners nothing than a mirror held up to the face of our own self-hatred? I would like to believe that the good people of America can grieve together during this time of intense loss and still not wish to create more tragedy anywhere else on our planet.

    Within the boundaries of the United States, we house many ideologies, many faith traditions, many races, and many ethnicities. Should we be so myopic to believe that there is only one acceptable response to the terrorist attacks on which all varieties of Americans concur? Does everyone want an all-out war? Many high school students in recent days have been envisioning alternative structures of government more compatible with the principles of nonviolence. Many high school students believe that meeting hate with hate multiplies hate, as first written by Martin Luther King, Jr., and that, quoting Gandhi, an eye for an eye and the world goes blind. Are these students too young and idealistic to dream of a world where their future is not jeopardized? Is their peace studies class teaching them blind optimism? They don’t think so.

    Our President says he would like to eradicate the evil in the world. Let’s take him up on this idea. Let’s stop funding the war on Palestine. Let’s stop bombing Iraq every week. Let’s stop fueling the fires of conflict in Colombia. Let’s provide healthcare to the 25% of children in America who live in poverty. Let’s teach our children to get along rather than to harbor hatred toward their enemies. Let’s take our role as the world’s superpower seriously and respond to these senseless events with dignity and restraint.

    Can we challenge our government to find a creative and meaningful way to respond to this violence while caring for our wounded nation?

    *Leah Wells is Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Message from the Peace Education Coordinator on the Recent Attacks

    Now more than ever, teaching peace is of utmost importance in our country. In the face of such terrible acts, we should be teaching our students about nonviolent responses to violence rather than the retributive and retaliatory acts which are at the forefront of our national dialogue. Peacemaking is a teachable skill, and one which takes commitment and discipline. How can we expect to create peaceful homes, schools, communities and nations if we do not explicitly train our students in the ways of nonviolence?

    In my nonviolence class during the past week, we have been talking a lot about hot versus cold violence. Hot violence is the violence which makes you shrink back in horror. The terrorist attacks this week in New York and Washington, DC were examples of hot violence. Cold violence, on the other hand, is the kind that is more quiet and often legitimized by society. Examples of cold violence, in my estimation, are the 25% of youths in America who live in poverty, or the nearly 40,000 children who die every day as a result of malnutrition and hunger.

    We get so angry about hot violence. It makes us indignant because it is in our faces. As long as we don’t see the violence, we are not motivated to take action. Why did we not allocate an emergency $40 billion to alleviate the mass poverty in our country, or to provide health care for the millions of Americans without any? Or to provide salary increases for the seriously underpaid teachers who deal daily with the effects of family, community, school and institutional violence?

    Cold violence is a tragedy, just as hot violence is. Just because a child dies in quiet, and not in a fiery blast, does not mean that the death is less significant and that the child was any less special. We need to be teaching our young people how to handle the violence they experience on a personal level as well as the systemic violence which perpetuates inequality and injustice all over the world.

    Classes in peacemaking teach our young people that hatred toward an entire people does not make the world a better place. Classes in peacemaking teach our young people the scope of their power and the importance of their voices. Classes in peacemaking teach our young people that their lives are special and that in the midst of mass-marketing strategies and consumerism, that an authentic alternative exists. Classes in peacemaking are the only real response to the many forms of violence to which young people are exposed. If peace is what we want, peace is what we should prepare for. Teaching peace lays the foundation for a more fulfilling life.

    *Leah C. Wells is Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Why I Am Fasting For Ten Days

    I have begun a ten-day fast from 21-30 September for many reasons.

    After returning from the Middle East in mid-August, I realized that I would have to do some soul-searching to come to terms with the amount of destruction and suffering among Iraqis. During the Gulf War, the United States intentionally destroyed national infrastructure which provided clean water to civilians and which sanitized sewage. The United States bombed electrical plants, and thus during the 140-degree summer days in Basrah, the air conditioning for average, middle class citizens works in three-hour intervals. The United States bombed a shelter for women and children in Baghdad.

    I lost nearly fifteen pounds during my three-week trip to the Middle East. When I returned and went grocery shopping for the first time, I cried in the produce department as I remembered the pitiful vegetables spread on various tables before me. So I began fasting today to remind me of the atrocious water conditions which made the vegetables inedible during my trip. I began fasting today to keep me mindful of the suffering of people who are in Iraq, who are victims of my country’s foreign policy.

    Since my return, life has not been the same. Not usually an emotional person, I have found myself unusually moved by the thoughtful words and actions by my fellow activists and friends and conversely by the negative mail and often hateful responses by people who cannot understand the humanitarian crises ongoing in our world. I have felt that lump in my throat reading the AP reports of bombing in the Middle East. I have been more sensitive in tending to my own spirituality as well as my body’s responses to trauma. Things like socializing, keeping up with my laundry and correspondences have fallen aside in the last few weeks.

    I am fasting as an expression of hopelessness at what can be done on a national level for peace and for the beautiful diverse lands which potentially will be destroyed by my country’s military. Even if the entire country, elected representatives included, were crying together for a peaceful solution to the problem, I am not certain that the outcome would change. The weapons manufacturers, the large corporations who devalue individual human life, and the political machinery which allows the level of militarism in our country have such a strong momentum that I cannot hope to change any aspect of U.S. policy through my decision to take only water for ten days. I can, however, remind myself that awareness of others’ suffering is a primary duty of peacemakers. I desire to be a peacemaker in my own life and to set a good example for my family, friends, co-workers and students.

    Once in class last year, I had great difficulty in getting my students’ attention; they were talking and paying no attention to the fact that I was standing at the front of the class. They were so noisy that they could not hear my calls for them to quiet down. I had no resolve to yell at them and participate on their level. So I sat down. At first only a few people at the front of the classroom noticed. They all quieted down. Pretty soon I started hearing people at the back of the classroom wonder aloud where I had gone. Still I sat, not answering any questions, simply sitting. After a few more minutes, every eye in the classroom was on me and every mouth was silent. In a very quiet voice I announced I was ready to begin class and invited them to join me. It is for the same reason I sat down that I am fasting.

    When everyone else is talking over each other, be still. When other voices are yelling to be heard, be still. When the violence reaches such egregious proportions that you feel the system will collapse under its own weight, be still. So I am fasting not to be heard but to be still, and quiet.

    I am fasting to find some solace in the stillness and the quiet. It is so important to know where my heart is, to know where my soul is and to attend to the many emotions which might overtake my life if I did not take some time out to listen. I am fasting because I can do other things to promote peace in the world and in my life like writing a letter to my Congressperson, preparing a good lesson plan for school or praying during my lunch and dinner breaks. I am fasting because I do not know what else to do. Nothing in the world makes much sense right now, so I will take a break and be mindful and listen to the responses I hear in my conscience.

    I seek clarity. I desire to be a patient and compassionate person. I am reflecting on the chaos of war and on the best way to tend to the needs of other people who are actively suffering. I hope that this ten-day break will keep me focused on what I hold important in my life and help me act in the ways of nonviolence in response to the violence in my country and my world.

    *Leah C. Wells is Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Facing the Children of Iraq

    Despite the reports from every United Nations organization dealing with health, agriculture and children, the United States has maintained unwavering support for continuing the economic embargo on Iraq. On my first visit to Iraq in July and August, I traveled with Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness to experience the effects on the people of Iraq who are suffering needlessly at the hands of our government. As many people know, travel to Iraq is illegal and those undertaking the trip do so at the risk of twelve years in prison and over one million dollars in fines. For me, to meet teachers, students, families, doctors, patients, mothers and ordinary people whose lives have been irreversibly altered as a result of the mean-spirited policies of my government, the risk is worth it.

    Before I left I had viewed the excellent documentary by John Pilger and had participated in the cross-country educational Remembering Omran Bus Tour, named for a shepherd boy from a farming community near Najaf who was killed in May 2000 by coalition bombs. I had already taken a public stand against the sanctions through written articles as well as in my classroom where I teach high school classes on nonviolence. Having returned from Iraq after seeing for myself the squalor that children play, learn and live in, seeing for myself the pathetic conditions of health care and education, and seeing the indomitable spirit of the Iraqi people, I realize that I know nothing. I know nothing about patience, about hopefulness and hopelessness, about just getting by, and about forgiveness. I realize that we Americans have so much privilege, time, and resources and that our lives have gone on since the Gulf War. We are able to forget about the Iraqi people because our media does not present us with images from families who boil sewer water for tea, with images from inside a morgue where babies are kept in flimsy boxes until their families can come pick them up, with images from car accidents on hot asphalt roads caused by blowouts because the people can’t afford new tires.

    I realize that I know nothing about life under siege. Voices in the Wilderness founder Kathy Kelly describes our world as a train: some people travel first class, riding with comfort and ease, some people travel in cramped third class conditions, and some people are under the train, and the people of Iraq are under the US foreign policy train which is rolling full speed ahead toward annihilation. To stop this runaway policy of genocide, I can figuratively lay myself down on the tracks. I can lay down the stories of the people I know from Iraq. I can lay down the stories whose raw truth can compel more Americans, more young people like me, to get involved.

    Every day since I returned I have thought about a mother and her twelve-year-old son and sitting at his beside while she cried uncontrollably. He was unconscious, a victim of leukemia caused by toxic exposure to depleted uranium. I gave her some tissues and sat with her as long as I could before our delegation continued on to other sweltering rooms filled with sick kids and their helpless mothers. It was at the Saddam Teaching Hospital that I realized kids cry in the same language and that inconsolable mothers worldwide feel the burden of responsibility when their kids won’t get well. The situation in Iraq is compounded because of the crippling lack of medicine and hospital supplies, like refined oxygen. We witnessed some men unloading industrial oxygen tanks into a hospital hallway which were to be used on even the most fragile babies because refined oxygen is unavailable.

    During my time in Iraq, I thought about why my country has made it illegal for me to visit the cradle of civilization. My only explanation is so that we cannot see the soul-wrenching, pervasive damage our government has perpetrated there. I wondered if people in my government feel any shame for what they have done to ravage these ancient sites in this beautiful country. The foundation for disrespecting pre-existing cultures is nothing new for my country, though, and I was struck by the similarity of how millions of Native Americans were killed by European diseases and uprooted from their native lands in the name of Western progress.

    Yet as I stood at the convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates where they become the Shatt al-Arab, I felt so privileged to be in a place very few Americans will ever see. I felt the timelessness of Iraq and the historical and religious significance which lies within the boundaries. Standing on the top of the ziggurat at Ur and holding seashells which still rest there from the “Great Flood”, I knew the infinite importance of Iraq. And I saw the hurt in our guide’s eyes as as I watched him pull a piece of shrapnel out of the side of the ziggurat where it stuck after a coalition bomb struck a few hundred yards from this temple.

    Americans largely misunderstand the Arab culture. I encountered a country full of generous and hospitable people, welcoming me into their homes even though my country still bombs them many times each month. Yet anti-Arab attitudes promote such discrimination and racism in our country, attitudes fostered by movies and media which portray them as terrorists and suicide bombers. Iraqis especially are shown as hating Americans, burning our flag and cursing our democratic and freedom-loving nation. The Iraqis I met all said that they understand that the American people have good hearts and that we are not our government or military. Can the average American say that about the people of Iraq, or do we equate an entire nation of 23 million people with one leader? In addition to lifting the economic sanctions, we need to eliminate the institutionalized hatred of Iraqis which enables the good people of America to sit by and let our government destroy a beautiful nation.

    Iraq does not need to be bombed another time, and it does not need smarter sanctions. The economic embargo needs to be lifted because it violates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically Article 24 which pertains to healthcare for children, including prenatal care for expectant mothers. Each month nearly 5,000 children die as a result of sanctions, according to the World Health Organization, and 1 in 10 children will not live to see their first birthdays. Prior to sanctions, citizens of Iraq enjoyed quality comprehensive healthcare, but today over 90 percent of pregnant women are severely anemic.

    Additionally, in the past eleven years under sanctions, the international community has rendered the Geneva Convention protocol protecting victims of armed conflicts ineffective because of the intentional, preconceived and flagrant human rights abuses perpetrated in Iraq by the United Nations sanctions supported by our government. This protocol exists to protect not just Westernized countries, but all humans. I live every day knowing that policies of my government dispassionately kill Iraqis, and as a U.S. citizen I bear responsibility for their enduring consequences. We as Americans are guilty of genocide in the cradle of civilization through our inaction and inattention to the needless suffering that has transpired over the last eleven years; we must hold ourselves and our government accountable and mobilize to create more just policies toward Iraq.

    *Leah C. Wells is Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • NAPF Response to the August 2001 Session of Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education

    Contemporary definition of disarmament education and training: An American perspective

    Very little comprehensive education on disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons exists for students prior to entering college. Considering the natural audience of high school and the importance of reaching students at a young age, a focused curriculum for high school students would best serve the goal of creating a good foundation for lifetime commitment and involvement in these areas.

    In order that there be fuller participation in disarmament and non-proliferation from a wider variety of ages, races, classes, etc., the participants must be able to take ownership in the issue. This means that the terminology, access to information, and input credibility must exist in a more user-friendly version. The reason that younger generations are less invested in non-proliferation, disarmament and abolition is their lack of exposure to peace-oriented education. The standard American high school curriculum for history is chronicled from war to war, general to general, and battle to battle with little coverage of the pacifist contingency nor the strides made for humankind by nonviolent activists. In fact, they are generally dismissed as dangerous or destructive rather than principled, disciplined individuals trying to create dynamic changes toward equality and justice.

    Those with the greatest potential for power, our young people, are not treated as viable candidates in the process of peacemaking. Peacemaking itself is an afterthought, a hopeful goal once the objectives ridding the world of nuclear weapons, civil conflicts, and chemical and biological warfare have been attained. Peacemaking can no longer be viewed as tangential to disarmament, but must become the sustenance which propels the disarmament and non-proliferation movement. Nonviolence and education are not the goals at the end of the road; they are the road.

    Assessment of the current situation of disarmament and non-proliferation education

    Access to information on disarmament and non-proliferation is limited to a specific group of people, namely college and post-graduate students whose academic interests focus primarily on these topics. A program for educating a wider audience through high schools is limited in existence. Yet education on disarmament and non-proliferation should not be limited to the academic elite, but should be available to the rising voters and general public, because fundamentally the topics concern everyone. The well educated have a responsibility to widen the circle of public involvement in eliminating the threat of weapons proliferation, and this task mandates dialogue with young people. The nongovernmental organizations and academics must utilize high school venues and assist in classroom education for both teachers and students, being mindful of the current trends in American public education.

    Education in the United States is experiencing a period of review and increased “accountability” where teachers are disencouraged to explore curricula outside the standard material and adhere to rigid testing aimed to prove that students are learning. The standardized tests are largely disliked by teachers and administrators because of the limited practical knowledge they measure; these tests are indicative of whether or not students are learning how to be good test takers, rather than common sense thinkers. This phenomenon of multiple choice testing has many effects, both for classroom learning and for societal implications. First, teachers have little time to explore creative and diverse learning styles because the standardized tests cover specific information, the majority of which does not cover multi-dimensional thinking. Second, because of the time constraints of the school year and the financial incentives offered to teachers whose students succeed, teachers must rush through all the material to be covered on the examinations. Third, the current system of schooling school does encourage character development through service to others nor does it endear students to explore other contexts outside their own experiences, like becoming involved in any social movements or positive change for society.

    Thus, for young people to become active in disarmament and non-proliferation, they must first have the opportunity to come to some understanding and awareness that these two topics are global problems with personal implications. Students are not taught to be system-oriented, seeing the world as living organism and acknowledging the web of interconnections that span the globe. If our goal is to educate kids about disarmament and non-proliferation, then our first step is getting them to believe that our world is worth saving. The military now has direct access into high schools in America through programming called Channel One, which broadcasts “news” into schools for fifteen minutes every day. ROTC recruiters are allowed onto campuses, but conscientious objectors are thrown off school grounds. Specific classes in nonviolence education are few and far between in the United States, and many teachers are too overwhelmed with their current curriculum to believe that themes of peace and justice infused into their existing lesson plans could work.

    Furthermore, disarmament and non-proliferation are at the end of a long path of exploration into issues of economic and social justice. Schools must first provide kids with the tools to handle their own personal conflicts and more importantly must make the existing subject matter, and the way it is presented, less violent. Visual media shows terrorism, civil strife and full-scale war as a real-life video game. For students to have some ownership in the problem, they need to understand where the countries obtain their weapons, who profits, and who uses the weapons. We must not treat the loss of human life as the military does, calling it “collateral damage”. Education for young people on disarmament and non-proliferation has varying implications based on where it will be implemented, i.e. gun control laws in the United States require a unique strategy, as do the problems of disarmament in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

    Recommendation for promoting education

    First, we must make our American schools more nonviolent institutions. Nonviolence education should be a mandatory component in all high schools, and the corporations providing the “news” to ripe young audiences should be forced to remove any marketing by the military branches. Our classrooms are not corporate experiments. Additionally, nongovernmental organizations should utilize the “news” networks to encourage coverage of peace-friendly programming to an already captive audience. Second, nongovernmental organizations should interface the existing material on disarmament and non-proliferation and compile a “user-friendly” seminar, video and worksheet questionnaire as well as a framework for allowing student participation in this issue, i.e. how to write to a newspaper, congressperson, how to create press releases and petitions, and how to engage their creativity toward a positive goal. Fourth, students must be sent on study abroad delegations to experience firsthand effects of governmental policies on other countries. Other options for field trips are visiting sites of nuclear testing as well as the companies and factories where the many different weapons are produced, and touring countries whose young people actively participate in conflict. We need to encourage students to see a more complete, real picture of the problem rather than blaming the warring parties for their reliance on weapons to settle conflicts. American students need to know that the number one export in their country is weapons and that America sponsors nearly three-fourths of the ongoing conflicts worldwide.

    Examining pedagogic methods

    The Internet can be a powerful tool to relate stories and facilitate dialogue between students in different countries. Academics and nongovernmental organizations can serve as moderators for communication between cultures on the topics of disarmament and non-proliferation. In addition, the Internet may be used to display “video diaries” of firsthand experiences from students in regions like East Timor and Cambodia to enhance the personalization of distance learning. Through these “video diaries”, students in different countries can hear their counterparts’ stories in their own voices, making a more real connection between their cultures.

    The Internet can also be used to disseminate teacher training materials and resources while providing a network of educators who have elected to participate in disarmament and non-proliferation education. Through this network, teachers and administrators can secure guest speakers, classroom activities worksheets and background materials, and an array of videos for their students. Students and teachers may also pose questions directly to the nongovernmental organizations’ educational liaisons through email and online discussion forums.

    Recommendations for the United Nations Organizations

    If peace education toward the goals of disarmament and non-proliferation is to work, then adequate funding must be provided for its implementation. First, the United Nations can exert pressure on national governments to evaluate the compensation teachers receive for the demands of their jobs. Currently, the priorities of the government of the United States focus on war making and funding programs through the Department of Defense. Cushioning the budgets of the Department of Education and ensuring adequate grants for States and Local Municipalities will increase the viability as well as the legitimacy of disarmament and non-proliferation education. Second, the United Nations can suggest that nongovernmental organizations pertaining to disarmament and non-proliferation take their messages into school board meetings and classrooms, and provide classes at the college level for teachers-in-training as a part of a Credential program. Third, textbook writers and manufacturers must accept a new version of history, and nongovernmental organizations must begin consulting with writers of world and American history texts to ensure accuracy and fair and adequate coverage of nuclear and weapons-oriented themes. To acquire authenticity in the classroom, these ideas of disarmament and non-proliferation must be written and viewed in print by students.

    Introducing disarmament and non-proliferation in post-conflict societies: Aceh, Indonesia case study

    UNICEF currently funds a peace-building educational program in Banda Aceh, Indonesia for young people who have been exposed to war throughout their lives. This experimental program combines nonviolent theory with practical applications of peacemaking and disarmament. It provides a forum for people to tell their stories and heal from their experiences, as well as create for themselves a more peaceable society. Nonviolence trainers are currently conducting teacher trainings in Aceh, and beginning in early September, the teachers will begin classes for young people in the province.

    In addition, the concept of “peacekeeping forces” must be reevaluated to incorporate more than reassigning soldiers to forcibly keep the peace in a region. Peacekeepers must be unarmed as well as trained in conflict management and crowd dynamics. The concept of disarmament and non-proliferation must grow from citizen awareness to government and military implementation of more peaceable resolutions for global problems.

    *Leah C. Wells is Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.