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:

  1. The accounts of participants spoke to how much they had learned about how to create a safe environment for learning.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.