Bringing Themes of Nonviolent Struggles into the Classroom. This workshop acted as a needs assessment, harvesting from the participants what skills or knowledge they already bring to the workshop and what they are looking to learn and develop in particular. We also screened a segment of the documentary series, A Force More Powerful, and then asked teachers specific questions about how they could see themselves using the film in their classrooms.
Theories, Methods, Strategies, and Tactics of Nonviolent Movements. This workshop gave an introduction to key themes and ideas within the field of nonviolent civic action – monolithic vs. pluralistic views of power, strategic nonviolent action vs. ethical nonviolence, methods of nonviolent action (omission vs. commission, high risk vs. low risk, movement mobilization vs. opponent disruption) and different ways that teachers can break these down for their students. The teachers were broken up into smaller groups to explore more closely and in an interactive way some of these themes.
How Nonviolent Movements Help Shape Global Issues. This workshop broke the teachers up into groups and had them look at current news articles related to nonviolent civic action and then respond to guiding questions related to the key themes discussed in the previous workshop.
Planning Thoughtful and Engaging Units. This workshop was an opportunity for teachers to reflect on all the workshops and presentation they had attended over the course of the two days and then brainstorm on ways the content and pedagogy could be incorporated into lesson plans for their classrooms.