QUOTES
I'd
rather teach peace.
The
students I've been with these twenty years are looking for a world where it becomes
a little easier to love and a lot harder to hate, where learning nonviolence means
that we dedicate our hearts, minds, time, and money to a commitment that the force
of love, the force of truth, the force of justice, and the force of organized
resistance to corrupt power are seen as sane and the force of fists, guns, armies,
and bombs insane.
Everyone's
a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals.
Warmaking
doesn't stop warmaking. If it did, our problems would have stopped millennia ago.
Unless
we teach children peace, someone else will teach them violence.
"The
most revolutionary thing anybody can do is to raise good, honest and generous
children who will question the answers of people who say the answer is violence.
That's what the schools should be doing."
"Wars
aren't stopped by fighting wars, any more than you can fight fire with fire. You
fight fire with water. You fight violence with nonviolence."
"Peace
is the result of love, and if love were easy we'd all be good at it."
"You
can earn all A's in school and then go out and fail at life."
"What makes us happy
is service to others. If schools don't expose students to the joys of community
service, we graduate people who are idea rich but experience poor. In these addled
times of leave no child untested, we think it's enough to pound ideas into the
kids' heads. You can make all A's in school and go out and flunk life."
"It's
too easy only to blame the militarists, racists, sexists and other pushers of
violence for the mess we're in. What is harder is self-examination, moving beyond
caring by looking inward to ask the personal question: What more should I be doing
everyday to bring about a peace and justice based world, whether across the ocean
or across the living room?"
"I'd
prefer that my students don't ask questions. Instead, be braver and bolder: question
the answers. What answers? Those from anyone who says the answer is violence.
Of all the lies, that's the grossest."
"It's
better to build a peaceful child than re-build a violent adult."
