"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety is a miserable creature and, will never be free unless made and kept so by the exertions of a better man than himself." John Stewart Mill, "The Contest in America" Dissertations and Discussions 1859

and

"War is a bad thing: but to submit to the dictation of other states is worse...Freedom, if we hold fast to it, will ultimately restore all our losses, but submission will mean permanent loss of all we value...To you who call yourselves men of peace, I say: You are not safe unless you have men of action at your side." Thucydides, 460/465(?)-400 B.C. Fifth century B.C. Athenian historian

I often teach my students, especially when beginning Oedipus Rex, that there are 4 essential traits that one must posses in order to achieve greatness of soul: Courage, Justice, Temperance, and Wisdom. I ask them, "which of these do you posses?" Which do I posses? On any given day I may have a mix of some of the traits, but the mix is always changing depending on my mood, my job, if I had enough coffee that morning, and even on the world climate according to Reuters that day.
Yesterday, I had a normal Friday. My seniors were less than enthusiastic about the writing I asked them to do (in my defense, it was a great prompt: suffering is a catalyst for wisdom), and in their defense, they're supposed to whine and then write something beautiful. All was well until 7th period IB. My class is so freaking brilliant. Their summer assignment was to research an international issue, connect to it in some way, and be prepared to stand up in front of the class on the first day of school and give a 3-5 minute presentation on their topics. I then allow the rest of the class to ask the presenter questions... (I'm mean, yes, but these kids are the type who did their assignments in June and practiced their presentations through July and August...most of them, anyway). So the presentations were great; the topics ranged from Japanese architecture v. earthquakes to the National Happiness Index (which I'll address later, except to say that the US and the UK ranked as two of the most unhappy countries), from human trafficking to, of course, the Middle East. We sort of got on this Israel V. Hezbollah thread, and a couple of times Christine (my awesome friend who co-teaches IB with me) and I had to remind the kids about diplomacy and respect and to use words that were sensitive. (We don't want to get fired.) You can imagine the stuff that was being spewed on the topic...probably direct quotes from adults in their houses... During one of the question times, one of our sweetest kids, in her calm, insightful voice addressed the class. She said, "All of you who seem so concerned about the wars in the Middle East: I was just curious, why did you pick these topics? How are you connected to them? What are you going to do about them?" There was a sanctuary of silence that followed. We all (me included) thought about it for a minute. What are we going to do? Why do we continue to debate? Where is the action? She was right.
This is difficult. I consider myself to be somewhat of a humanitarian. I have my rainbow "pace" (peace in Italian) flag hanging in my room over my Einstein poster that reads, "Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved through understanding." I don't want there to be war. I don't want people to die. I want greatness of soul and have been praying for wisdom since I was a kid. Part of the journey means that the leading quotes for this post are starting to make sense all of a sudden (though they're startling to me because I don't want them to be true), and we can interpret them in several different ways. What is action? or What is the right action for a schoolteacher who is living the good life in Metroplex America? What does submitting mean? Do the rules change in a world of terrorism? My smarter than the smartest kids realized that they don't know everything, which was quite shocking for some of them. There was/is no answer. How can I attempt to teach about greatness of soul, when my world is dominated by 105 degrees and whether or not my stapler is working. I do know that I need to get my hands dirty more often. Being complacent is poison.