We discussed Gandhi's relationship with the British in terms of truth. I shared a diagram (from the book, The Bonds that Make Us Free) that demonstrates how people can get caught in a vicious cycle of bondage where their distorted perceptions of self and other keep them trapped. Each person in a conflict sees the other as the offender and themselves as the victim. Thus, anything the other does can only be interpreted as offensive. How do we get stuck in this way? It occurs when we fail to respond to conscience (which we do sometimes without even realizing we have done so). When we fail to follow conscience, we feel compelled to justify ourselves, and so mentally we begin the process of blaming the other party and vindicating ourselves.
We noted how the way out of this bondage is by following conscience. In the Gandhi movie we saw this played out when Gandhi's wife refused to clean the latrine. Gandhi got angry with her, arguing that the entire farm community was built on the agreement of all to be equal. On principle, Gandhi was completely right, but in his way of being he was completely wrong. When he was stuck in this false way of being, he nearly cast his wife out of the community. Just then, conscience pricked him again, and he responded truthfully. He asked himself, "What am I doing?" and asked for forgiveness. When he responded truthfully to conscience, he took down the wall that kept him from seeing his wife truthfully as a human worthy of love who was struggling to overcome her pride. His truthful way of being actually invited her to be truthful too, for she responds to his repentance by saying, "I must go and clean the latrine." Thus they entered into a new kind of bond, a bond of liberty. Please note that synonyms for "bond" include promise, covenant, ties, and love.
Gandhi chose to live truthfully in response to British oppression. This allowed the British to see the truth about the injustice of their own dominion in India. Unfortunately, when Gandhi offered a way out, the Hindus and Muslims of his land did not accept it. They chose to remain in their bonds of captivity, and to this day the conflict between India and Pakistan lingers.
We noted that this principle is immediately applicable to our day-to-day lives and interactions with other people, particularly our families.
After finishing our discussion of Gandhi, we began studying for the WWI test. I shared a few principles of test preparation:
1) Map out what it is you need to know. Sometimes teachers provide study guides, but it can actually be more effective for students to create their own. For this test, you must create your own.
2) The human brain can remember 5 plus-or-minus 2 things at a time. Group ideas into "chunks" to make them easier to remember. I asked students to create 5 to 7 categories to organize all the information about WWI.
3) Space out repeated practice of recalling the information. Review, take a break, review, etc. This helps information get stored in long-term memory.
4) If you can't explain a concept now, you certainly won't be able to explain it on the test. Avoid the experience of feeling like you know the material and then arriving to take the test and not knowing. Actually quiz yourself and practice explaining as you study.
Homework:
- Study for the WWI test.
- Continue working on the media essay.
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