Ahimsa Crisis You Decide

Author(s): Sulekh C Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 95

Jessica Rubin, Teacher at Rocky Point High School, Middle Island, NY (originally shared as a blog post on December 17, 2012.)
“Tomorrow is my first day teaching after the tragedy in Connecticut, and tonight I cannot sleep. I am obsessively thinking about how to talk to my students, five full classes of sensitive, vibrant, unpredictable teenagers, about violence and tragedy, about life and death and love and humanity. The easiest thing to do would be to move forward with the lessons I have planned about the books we are reading, books whose themes are relevant and important in moments like this. It is easier to talk about tragedy through the abstractions of fantasy and character. But, I know I must face the difficult reality of our world at this exact moment in time, even though it terrifies me. I will tell my students I love them, and that the brave actions of the teachers who were killed protecting their classes did not surprise me. As teenagers, they need more than love and reassurance, more than someone to promise that the dark is nothing to be afraid of. They are sophisticated thinkers, many of whom are on the precipice of great understanding and deep connections with themselves and the universe. I want to empower them to be forces of peace in a turbulent and violent society. I want hope to permanently illuminate their worlds, even now. This summer, I studied nonviolence with a group of American teachers in India. Nonviolent philosophy has permeated my thinking since then, and I have become painfully aware of the levels of violence that exist in my everyday life. It is unnerving and uncomfortable to admit how much violence exists around us, and the quantity of violent acts that each of us is complicit in by participating as spectators or non-objectors. By purchasing music that glorifies a violent lifestyle, clicking 'like' on a hateful Facebook post, or choosing to ignore hurtful
An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide
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