I designed a research study to probe deeper. National Literacy Secretariat funding gave me the opportunity to embark on the study and to travel across Canada listening to literacy workers and trauma therapists in a wide range of settings. My journey began to interweave with Mary Norton's and Judy Murphy's when Mary took on the task of setting up focus groups in Alberta and, along with Judy, participated in the Edmonton focus group on the issue. Eventually—after much rich input, discussion and analysis, and one-on-one conversatons in groups and online—this research led to the book, Too scared to learn: Women, violence and education(Horsman, 1999).

The book became a starting point for more research and for projects that would try to put into practice in adult education programs what I thought I was learning through this research. My work continued to intertwine with Mary's and Judy's during these years as I travelled to Alberta to collect more data, check out analyses, and offer workshops. One key finding was that, in the face of violence, it is important to teach to the whole person—body, mind, emotion and spirit—recognizing that each part could be damaged by violence, and that each can either block or support learning. Although I recognized this intellectually in my workshops, I was still talking and engaging the analytical mind (mine and others)—not teaching holistically and drawing on the whole person. In Saskatchewan, a wise elder pointed out this contradiction, and I felt challenged to learn how to teach differently.

I began to see that the work Mary and Judy were doing with art and music to engage students in a process of reflective learning was an important piece I was not yet exploring. In a New England project where I co-led training, adult educators in many different settings tried making changes to support learners who had experienced violence (Morrish, Horsman and Hofer, 2002). Creative approaches, along with naming the presence of violence, became central in all the educators' work. They used quilting, collage, yoga, meditation, and creative writing in their programs and learned that this creative exploration can make an enormous difference for learning. Bringing in flowers, food, and everything possible to create beautiful and nurturing classrooms, the educators learned that these apparent "frills" were actually fundamental to support learning for women who were all too familiar with violence, poverty and making do, but who had little experience of expansiveness, hope and possibility.

When Mary attended the final institute of the New England project, which showcased educators' insights and the practical changes they had made, she began to see the potential of integrating my focus on supporting learning in the face of violence with the exploration of creative approaches to learning that she and Judy had been pursuing.