Hurricane Sandy prompts question: "How do I really react to extreme situations?"

Communities recovering from the destruction of Sandy are just beginning the process of healing from the injuries to land, homes, psyche, and sense of safety. The conflicts between individuals born from the devastation were on the minds of some educators in Branchburg, New Jersey as they reflected on the challenges of forgiveness, and the choices each of us makes when facing conflict. Many of these educators sitting in Circles at Raritan Valley Community College were dealing with gas rationing just days ago, fearing they may not be able to get to work and provide for their families. As one woman put it, "I'd like to think I would share gas with everyone, but what if we really had nothing?"

Another choice one teacher witnessed, "In Marlboro people were physically fighting over milk."

Another teacher responded sarcastically, "And they were really hungry."

Others nodded knowingly, the unspoken question left hanging in the air, "What choice would I make if faced with more dire circumstances?" Teachers voiced concern about what people in their communities would do if faced with even more difficult moral dilemmas.

Moral Choice Points

Those moral choice points were the focus of the conversations of 40 middle and high school educators from across this relatively rural region of New Jersey half way between Philadelphia and New York City on a chilly late November afternoon. The teachers of Social Studies, History, English, Latin, and Special Education spent much of their time at a table of 8 people exploring the theme of forgiveness by asking, "What conditions have to be met for there to be forgiveness?"  "Under what conditions were you able to forgive someone" "What conditions were not met in a situation where you were not able to forgive someone"

One young woman volunteered to her group, "I don't speak to my father, haven't for 5 years. I need to forgive him. If I did start talking to him I wouldn't forgive him immediately. But I am slowly getting to the point of considering forgiveness." She added that even discussing this and thinking about this is a step in a positive direction.

The questions are raised by the life-transforming decisions of people who survived and perpetrated the genocide in Rwanda, and the continuing efforts to compel people there to reconcile, now 18 years after the 1994 genocide. Educators began the 3-hour workshop hearing from the Coexist documentary education project team, Director Adam Mazo, and Learning Director Dr. Mishy Lesser who introduced the film by saying, "The people you'll meet in our film Coexist shared their stories with us, stories of why they've chosen to forgive, or not, stories of how they've taken responsibility for their actions, or not, stories of why they think the genocide could happen here in the United States, and why some think that what is happening in Rwanda is best described as tolerance rather than reconciliation."

Is it all an act?

Some teachers were skeptical about some of the pleas for forgiveness they saw in Coexist, including when a man named Jean-Baptiste pleads for forgiveness from hundreds of people assembled at a reconciliation workshop. "When we saw them on their knees, asking forgiveness, it looks rehearsed."

Another teacher asks, "are they learning about this sort of thing somewhere?"

Ingando solidarity camps are mandatory for people being released from prison and students are compelled to attend them too. The camps are viewed by some observers and participants as a tool of social control, or even brainwashing. The government maintains the camps are meant to build unity.

Another teacher, one of the few men in the workshop, analyzes Jean's statement in Coexist about why he killed and why he is reconciling-- because the government told him to. He asks, "What happens if the state says let's revert to killing next Tuesday?"

Another teacher thinks, "Their attitudes suggest they would continue to commit acts of violence if they were allowed to do it."

A nun, who is also an educator explained how the process of dehumanization makes violence possible in any place, for any individual, "When you convince yourself the other person is no longer a human being you can do anything to them."

Othering and the desire of certain groups to elevate their status over other groups is a tendency that educators in the Raritan Valley are seeing in their schools and in their communities as new and different faces move to neighborhoods that used to be primarily white. Some educators are reticent to name and voice this observation publicly. Coexist aims to open up conversations about how to appreciate difference and build mutual respect among all people. That developing conversation will continue in many of the classrooms of educators in attendance at Raritan. One teacher, Kathy, will pair Coexist and "The Book Thief" for her 9th graders year-long multimedia research projects.

On the Road with Social Studies Teachers

Hundreds of New England’s social studies teachers gathered in Sturbridge, Massachusetts for a conference (NERC 43) on the role and future of social studies in early April. We were honored to have dozens of those teachers join us for a Special Screening of Coexist, which was moderated by David Bosso, Connecticut Teacher of the Year and Conference Co-Chair. Filmmaker Adam Mazo and I led a simulation to demonstrate how to teach the film, using activities from the Coexist Teacher’s Guide. Karen Cook of Norwich Free Academy in Connecticut sums up why so many educators find Coexist to be a powerful teaching tool by saying, “To see and hear people talk about their own experiences is especially humanizing and an important element in education.”

Teachers at NERC 43 were especially interested in new ways to teach genocide and colonial legacy. One teacher from Weston, Connecticut, Amanda Quaintance, referenced the connection between Alexander’s story in Coexist and the lives of her students. (Alexander is a bystander who participated in violence during the genocide by burning down the house of his neighbor.) “Alex gives us a great opportunity to talk about claiming mistakes whether it’s about a child running down the hall or something more serious.”

Teachers were also eager to explore how to make the connection between genocide and bullying. Former nun and author Barbara Coloroso says the common denominator between genocide and bullying is contempt. “When institutional and situational factors combine with a murderous racial, ethnic, or religious ideology rooted in contempt for a group of people, then bullying is taken to its extreme. The bullies are now well on their way to setting the stage for the dress rehearsals that precede a genocide.”[1]

We love when social studies teachers invite us to screen Coexist because they go deep into critical thinking and promotion of awareness of global issues, as well as social activism.

--Mishy Lesser, Upstander Director

[1] Coloroso, Extraordinary Evil A Short Walk to Genocide, 55-56, as quoted in Lesson 3 of the Coexist Teacher’s Guide.