How to Address the Impacts of Violence on Learning
All participants
spoke to their increased knowledge of how to address issues of
violence.
In doing so, they named four major
areas of learning that they viewed as central to changing practice:
- The accounts
of participants spoke to how much they had learned about how
to create a safe environment for
learning.
- An important area of learning was about how to interact
more effectively with people based on a far deeper
experience of understanding their lives. This involved
recognizing the importance of building caring and
respectful relationships with program participants.
- There is evidence of learning
about a wide range of skills and strategies that can be used in working
more
effectively with people who have experienced violence or
other issues in their lives.
- As a result of VALTA, participants were much
more attuned to the importance of bringing the whole self to
learning and were aware of many ways in which this
philosophy could be effectively integrated into their
practice.
I've learned the value of becoming whole, of "bringing
the whole self " to learning.
My learning has included:
- Respect the feelings and thoughts of others
- Show people how important
it is to take care of themselves
- Understand how important it is
to feel good about oneself
before learning can take place
- Being helpful to victims without
destroying yourself mentally—being removed enough to be useful
- Healing
from violence is not a fast process and it will always be with you,
even though there are very effective ways of
dealing with it.
I've learned various techniques—songs,
stretching exercises and others. I've used lots of these
weekly in my sessions.
There has been some major learning
for me. For instance, we don't need to name violence; what we need
is an atmosphere
for
the learner to name it if they choose.
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