The New Year Quote by Eddie Bernice Johnson

Policy language rarely admits it, but Eddie Bernice Johnson is talking about governance at the level of temperament. The “second phase” framing is the tell: this isn’t a dreamy plea for kindness, it’s a sequenced program, the kind that shows up after something has already gone wrong. By treating peace as a curriculum rather than a slogan, Johnson recasts public safety as a long-term civic infrastructure project, built in classrooms instead of only enforced in courtrooms.

The list does careful rhetorical work. “Tolerance” and “respect for differences” nod to the pluralism battles that define modern American politics, but Johnson doesn’t stop at values. She pairs them with “conflict resolution” and “anger management,” skills that imply friction is inevitable and that the real question is whether institutions teach people how to metabolize it. That move quietly challenges the punitive reflex: if anger is treated as a teachable, manageable human condition, then violence and disruption aren’t just moral failures, they’re preventable outcomes.

There’s also a strategic subtext aimed at skeptics. “Attributes of peace” sounds soft until you notice the operational verbs embedded inside the nouns: resolve, manage, respect. Johnson is arguing that what schools already do - shape behavior and norms - can be made explicit and measurable. In a political landscape where “education” is often coded as partisan indoctrination, she stakes a pragmatic middle ground: not telling students what to think, but training them how to live with one another when thinking differs.