Standing up to violence.

Last week our IMPACT club started the final stages of their second project together.  This one is called "Ridica-te impotriva violentei," or "Stand up against violence," and they're trying to help reduce physical and verbal violence in School 2 in Lupeni, where most of them are students.  We've been working on this project since late October (with a considerable break over the holidays), and so it feels good to finally be in the actual implementation stages, after months of planning and discussing and hemming and hawing.

The project is pretty simple, but I think they've grown since their last project.  The club members have put together presentations about violence and its effects, complete with film clips and an interactive game, which they're now presenting in some of the most problematic classes at their school.  They've also found a graffiti artist to come make an anti-violence mural, which they'll install in the school courtyard once the presentations are over.

But the presentations.  Oh man.

Last week the kids did four, and I want to tell you about just one of them.  It was with a class of fifth graders, who our IMPACT members told us were in the class of "the strictest teacher ever" -- a religion teacher who apparently ruled with an iron fist.  As we walked up the stairs to his third-floor classroom at 9:00 on a Thursday morning, we walked into chaos, as little kids raced down the cement-floored hallways, yelling and playing, pushing and laughing, and sometimes pushing a little too hard.  There weren't any teachers in the hallway during the 10-minute break between classes, and this school (which houses students from first to eighth grade) was a zoo.

But soon we entered the relative calm of the teacher's classroom, where we were quickly informed by a huddle of little boys that some of their own classmates had just gotten in a fight and one of them had run home, afraid that if he stayed he'd be beat up even worse.  Apparently this is relatively common, as the boys mostly giggled about it and didn't seem too concerned.  But they responded to the presentation really well, engaging with the film clips and the game, and talking openly about the issues in their classroom.  It was going really well.

And then suddenly the door flew open, and in stormed the angry mother of the little boy who had left school that morning.  Hair flying, she pointed an angry finger over her son's head at the bully who had apparently choked him and pushed him into a chalkboard that morning.  "You!" she yelled.  "This is the third time you've hurt my son!  You do it again and I'll throw you out a window!"

Jack and I raised our eyebrows at each other.  No wonder these kids speak violently to each other, I thought, if a middle-aged mom is saying this to a 12-year-old!  But we didn't say anything, just waited to see what would happen next.

And then the teacher got started.  With a flood of angry words, he pulled the bully in front of the class and proceeded to lash him with his tongue -- "You're hopeless!" he yelled.  "You're only in my class because everyone else has given up on you!  You never change!  You never will change unless you change your heart!  You have tested me to the limits of my patience, and now you've really done it!"  He stormed out of the room with the angry mom, telling her that "just this minute, we'd been talking about violence and how important it is to stop it..."  As he left the room, our kids looked at us, a little stunned.  So Jack and I asked the class if this sort of thing happens often.  Yep, they replied.  And do they want it to happen?  Nope, they sighed.  So how can they work together to stop it?  How do these fights get started?  They had just begun discussing it when the teacher came back in.

He then proceeded to rant on and on, about how this class was full of delinquents who everyone else had given up on.  How he was so angry at that bully that he had no saliva left in his mouth.  How God is the only boss, and God is watching, and God is not pleased with this sort of behavior.  It went on and on.  It made me cringe.

Finally he paused, and our kids re-started their presentation.  This time they were way more confident -- something had changed in watching the horrible rampage of the teacher and the real needs of this class.  They owned their presentation in a way they hadn't before, even if it was still awkward and juvenile.  They did a great job.  I think they finally realized that even if there project wasn't enough to change much, it was a step in the right direction -- an important step.  And in that class, as awful and painful as it was, they realized that they were combating a real problem, even if in a small way.  And they were proud, and passionate, and powerful.

I should note that not all of the presentations were in classrooms like this.  In most of the classes we visited, the students seemed to have real respect for their teacher, and the teachers seemed to really care about the students.  There are some great people at School 2 in Lupeni.  And yet the problem persists.

So here's a prayer for peace in that school, and for seeds of non-violence to have been planted in the soil of those kids' hearts.  Here's a prayer that those children would know that they are worth something, even if the words of teachers tell them otherwise, and even if that pain makes them act out.  Here's a prayer for brave kids to stand up against violence, again and again and again, until it is no more.

And some pictures of our amazing IMPACT kids giving their presentations.  We're really proud of them.