Creating Compassionate Classroon

Let’s learn more and practice of nonviolent communication!
Visit these sites: www.cnvc.org,www.tcnvc.org,www.nvctraining.com
Participate in a training with Marshall Rosenberg www.cnvc.org/mrsched.htm

This winter, I truly and greatly enjoyed the interactive workshop class at the MFT. There were 10 sessions of 2 hours each. Four two hours class, I did not feel that I was too long at all. Instead, I felt the session went by too fast each day. Class participants actually and actively got to practice how to converse with a classmate. Dealing with issues, has something to do with the UNIVERSAL HUMAN NEEDS, FEELINGS when NEEDS are satisfied, and also the FELINGS when NEEDS are not met. We must understand these 3 important things to understand and communicate better with others.
We were exploring how heightened emotional intelligence increases student achievement and restores the sweetness to teaching. We practiced the skills of compassionate communication, as developed by Marshall Rosenberg. I personally, did try to use these skills with my own students in an effort to help my students feel more connected with me, and they them-selves connected with each other. I wanted my students to get more engaged and enthusiastic about learning.
How the NVC impacted my students, my relationship with my students and my role as a teacher?
1. My students were able to practice developing skills through activities and games I took from the book “The Compassionate Classroom” by Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson.
2. My relationship with my students is better while it was pretty good before.
3. My role as a teacher is to continuously searching for improvement with my teaching, the two ways communication .One can be good, but why not better and even best.
The principles of NVC are basically the followings:
*Aware of our own and others feeling and needs, it is OK for teachers to express their anger fully and wholeheartedly in classroom. NVC does not encourage us to ignore squash or swallow anger.
*There is nothing another person can do that can make us angry.
*It is how we look at situations that creates our anger, not the stimulus itself. The cause of our anger lies in our thinking and our judgments.
*Killing people is too superficial. Any kind of killing, blaming of other people, is a very superficial expression of our anger.
*Anger is a result of life alienating thinking that is disconnected from needs. It indicates that we have moved up to our head to analyze and judge somebody, rather than focus on which of our needs are not getting met.
* All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.
*NVC stresses that it is dangerous to think of anger as something to be repressed or bad. It shows us how to use anger as an alarm that tells us we are thinking in ways that are not likely to get our needs met.
* In addressing anger Marshall recommends connecting emphatically with our own needs and those of others. We can do this by consciously replacing the , “ I am angry because they…” with “I am angry because I am needing…”

*What obstacles do I face implementing NVC?
Not much, but time to practice with my students is needed . I already have an established curriculum for my site.
*Do I like the Books?
Indeed I do like the books. Anyone who has not have a chance to read or skim them should check them out .What I like the about “The Compassionate Classroom” was that I was able to use the tools provided in section II of the book for creating my own compassionate classroom.
The second book that like to keep and reuse as my future resource is “Life-Enriching Education” Nonviolent Communication Helps Schools Improve Performance, Reduce Conflict, and Enhance Relationship by MarshallB.Rosenberg,Ph.D.
Working with diverse students who came from so many different background , teacher should learn to be prepared to meet their needs, without effective communication tools ,we may face misunderstanding and frustration sometimes.
* Lastly my reflection on books and Collegial feedbacks I had from the classroom sessions, have been A very educational, helpful and a worthwhile experience for me.