1. Learning

While learning is a prerequisite for all of the outcomes, it is also a critical outcome in itself. There was consensus among participants that profound learning had emerged from their involvement in the VALTA Project. They talked about the extent to which the Project had been "eye-opening" and how it had deepened their understanding of the impacts of violence on learning. Although there was some awareness of the issues before the Project began, it is evident from the comments of participants that their knowledge and understanding increased substantially as a result of VALTA. In particular, there was significant learning about:

Violence and Its Effects on Peoples' Lives

The stories of participants drew attention to how much they had learned about the nature and extent of violence in peoples' lives, specifically:

• The pervasiveness of violence and the range of experiences of violence (for example: domestic violence of various kinds, state violence and control).
• The impacts of violence on peoples' lives and the myriad ways in which it affects learning (for example: fear, loss of confidence).
• Understanding how the experience of violence may be manifested in many different ways (for example: appearing as lack of motivation or hostility).

I didn't really learn anything new about the prevalence of violence in society, but I had never quite put it all together before. It was kind of difficult to take—the natural tendency to "ignore" painful knowledge. But it was good to face the big picture in that way. Also, I hadn't really considered at all that violence could impact learning in subtle ways that weren't obvious. It really opened my eyes.

I have a much greater understanding of the ways in which violence diminishes faith in oneself, belief in ones' ability to learn, ability to make decisions that affect the self...violence can reduce a person to feeling like an object. And objects don't think.

For me, there have been learnings about the impacts of violence, how to address them in the program. Violence impacts learning by creating fear, loss of confidence, inability to make decisions, or emotional instability (to name a few results) in the learner—which may look like lack of motivation or poor attitude. So far, I've learned that simply recognizing certain behaviours as possibly caused by violence rather than student indifference or "attitude" is important to the way I deal with the student.