Archive for December, 2007

non violent communication

Published by Matthew on December 23, 2007 in Reflections. 0 Comments

I was sitting round a fire with some strangers at a music festival, drawing some sketches in my journal. A girl sitting next to me asked to see so I let her look through the book. When she gave it back I drew idly on the cover. “You can’t have that!” she shouted at me as she took hold of the book and started to pull it out of my hands. I locked up and tightened my grip on the book. I was totally focussed on getting my book back, but I didn’t want to hurt her. After some struggling I twisted the book out of her hands and left. I was breathing hard and shaking.

Afterwards I was amazed that I had reacted so strongly to a book being taken. It occured to me that this was fighting. In my training as a martial artist, I’ve always felt that to engage in a fight is a failure of communication. I wondered how things had gone wrong so quickly and what I could do in the future to resolve a situation before it escalated into a physical violence.

When I discovered non violent communication (NVC) I was interested to read Marshall’s idea that violence can happen with words just as it can with bodies. NVC’s beliefs are

  • all humans share the same fundamental needs, and this is beautiful
  • human behaviour is the result of people wanting to fulfil their needs
  • our learnt language patterns can precipitate verbal violence
  • learning new patterns that focus on the underlying needs can help keep our conversations useful and peaceful
  • useful communication raises quality of life

I’ve been putting NVC into practice, and I’m convinced it is helping me to resolve potential conflict. When I can put myself in someone else’s place and understand the need behind their actions, I can more easily emphathise with them. Together we can work out how to fulfil their needs.

So where does this fit in with learning-to-learn?

  • many teachers could benefit from new tools for handling communication violence in the classroom.
  • everyone’s personal life could benefit with increased capacity to empathise.
  • understanding our own needs allow us to actually ask for them to be fulfilled - which leads to a greater quality of life.

Getting out there

Published by Matthew on December 12, 2007 in News. 0 Comments

The next part of my plan is to make contact with teachers in schools. My friend Jane (who is head of a primary school) recommended putting up posters in my local schools. She also recommended starting working with teachers at primary schools.

I’ve got a list of 44 local primary schools and all their addresses, so now I need to make the poster. I’ll post it here when I’m done. I want to get it out in schools before the term finishes (in about 10 days).

Also, I’ve made contact with another teacher to ask if I can observe her at work. Watch this space!

be guided by the student

Published by Matthew on December 3, 2007 in Reflections. 0 Comments

One way of viewing a teacher is as a high status person who gives out lessons to their eager students. A teacher who views themselves in this way runs the risk of getting too involved in their own story of how great they are and how privileged their students are. They lose the chance to connect with their students.

Recently I was teaching martial arts to a friend and a girl of 10. I had my plan, my idea, and how I wanted the lesson to progress. I got so into my story that I missed the signs of my students losing interest. They picked up some hoola hoops and started playing with them instead!

If I had been more aware of my role as a guide, and been more focussed on where my students were, I could have switched to a new game and perhaps held their attention to what I was teaching.

Luckily for me, my friends found that a movement in the hoop that was very like what we had been practicing before. The hoola hoop break brought us back to the martial arts and I was able to finish teaching the idea I wanted to share.