pathways of literacy to non-violent life: shared leaderships...refuses black rhinos through dominant...
TRANSCRIPT
Cláudia MúriasMarijke de Koning
Raquel Ribeiro Alexandra Carvalho
Foundation Caring for the FutureFaculty of Psicology and Educational Sciences of University of Porto
31 May, 2011
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: Shared Leaderships
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: Shared Leaderships
• This project aims to mobilize civil society in the empowerment of communities.• It intends to develop a critical view on the recasting of leaderships from
representations of participation and shared responsibility between men and women in public and private spaces:
• Workshop Promoting Qualidty of Life by Gender Equality • Workshop Introducing Gender Equality in the Reinvention of Leadership• Workshop Sharing Leaderships in Public and Private Spaces
• Building Pathways of Literacy with:• social workers• local leaders• professionals in positions of decision-making • Citizens
Pathways of Literacy to Non-violent Life:Theoretical and methodological influences
Conversation under the inspiration of Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo…“She is aware that in conversation made ideas are discarded ideas and she only feels satisfied when she sees that on the other side barriers also fall. In the conversation ideas circulate, as well as many simple facts or complex issues, thoughts and ways of feeling. (…)
In conversation equality is not a given – it is an achievement, because the conversation can also express a power that is so insistent that it kills the conversation itself” (Pintasilgo, 2005: 215-216).
Conversation under the influence of Ann Baker, Patricia Jensen e David Kolb…
Conversational Learning• Dialogue, is characterized by "voices in opposition in a demand for truth”; a
definition that emphasizes speech, understanding and exchange of different ideas. In dialogue, we explore all the complexities of reflection and language.
• In conversation, the emotional aspects are more emphasized. The focus is on human understanding, not the increase of technical and theoretical knowledge. The conversation is an experiment in which people participate (Baker, Jenson & Kolb, 2002).
Conversation under the influence of Ann Baker, Patricia Jensen and David Kolb…
Baker, Jensen and Kolb point to 5 structuring dialectis of the learning conversations. It is necessary to manage the tension between:
• Apprenhension (experience) and comprehension (conceptualization)• Reflection (intention) and action (extension)• Epistemological discourse (cognitive knowledge) and ontological discourse (tacit
knowledge).• Individual and relational, to allow the production of the Connected knowledge• Social value/need for status (ranking) and solidarity (linking)
To create a welcoming space that allows the existence of a common base: the white space (Ine van Emmerik, 2010)
Conversation under the influence of Ine van Emmerik…a White Space
How to develop a context, an atmosphere in the group that can maintain a healthy balance between structure and free space: a white space?
It can be helpful to bear the 5 dimensions from conversational learning in mind:• Integrated knowing: Is there a healthy balance between experience and conceptual knowledge? • Praxis: reflection your praxis needs a balance between action and reflection.• Don’t focus conversation on what you are doing but also on how you are being.• Intersubjectivity: is there space for individual needs and the relation between everyone? • Hospitality: is there room for both status (respect for a persons integrity) and solidarity? (Ine van
Emmerik, 2010)
Conversation under the influence of Ine van Emmerik…Intervision
In Intervision you are creating a “white space” for the participants, a space between the public/work and private space where everyone can explore freely.
• Intervision, arrangements in which peers provide critical and supportive feedback on a mutual basis to improve their professional skills. It focuses at the deeper development in your profession, which is facilitated by the process in the group.
• There has to be a true commitment by the members of the group to be in an intervision. You can learn a lot of it, but each participant also has to be willing to ‘bring’ too.
• Important conditions for a fruitful intervision are trust, safety and conscientiousness.
Conversation under the inspiration of Paulo Freire…a Conscientization
• The philosophy of Conscientization implies a political education, in the sense of the polis, where all persons have equal access to speech, where all persons may be subjects of learning.
• The philosophy of Conscientization translates into a well defined methodology: This implies: to read the world, to dialogue, to codify problems and to build the needed challenges in order to follow the process of decodification.
• The methodology of Conscientization proposes to follow a path with the aim to become aware of a problem, to act and to intervene, to change (a part of) the world.
• The process happens in groups that share the same thematic universe and are confronted with common problems (Koning, 2009).
Challenging-situation
ProblematizationFormulation of clues of
intervention
New situation
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: crossing Conversational Learning with Conscientization (Koning, 2009)
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: crossing Conversational Learning with Conscientization
Conversational Learning• Conversational learning provides a space where people are able to "slow
down“, discuss and reflect on their experiences.• Conversation with the objective of "finding new ways“ and "letting new
knowledge emerge", and thus develop a critical look on reality promoter of the construction of innovative practices. Steps:– Telling - to formulate ideas and to recognize motivations, intentions, objectives and
results.– Problematizing the told story, to examine its political and cultural context and its
regulating or emancipating effects.– Formulate alternatives to action.
In each workshop a set of challenging texts are used for stimulate reflection and promote the Pathways of Literacy (Koning, 2009).
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: influenced by Non-violent Communication of Marshall
RosenbergNon-violent Communication, according Marshall Rosenberg, author of the book "Nonviolent Communication:
disarming and effective", is to speak and listen from our feelings and the needs that underlie them. Communication starts with the observation of ourselves and the people we are communicating with:
• Observing is to note that one feels and thinks without judging. This seems easy, but in reality is difficult, because usually we make opinions about what we see or hear. Listen openly, without judgment or immediate reaction, gives us the chance to see what is really within us or someone else.
• The second step is to discover the needs that we have and the needs of the persons with whom we are communicating. These needs are not personal but human, the human specie shares a number of needs such as security, authenticity, creativity, acceptance, respect, trust, protection etc. What may differ is how we want to meet these needs.
• Taking responsibility for our feelings, thoughts and needs is the next step.• The next step: to express to others what we need from them. Is done in a concrete, clear, open,
respectful way, without reproach (Jeannette Claessen, 2010).
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: influenced by Authentic Communication of Jeannette Claessen• Open communication means to overcome your fears and connect
with the flow of life. In communication comes into play a set of:• feelings (fell and recognized them)• thinking (investigating them)• needs (recognize them and act)
• The goal is to be connected with the environment. It is not necessary to satisfy the expectations and demands of others. Authentic communication is to take the quality of your life in your own hands, to live with respect and harmony with yourself, with others and with the environment. So it is living with difference!
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: influenced by Authentic Communication of Jeannette ClaessenAuthentic communication has different basic aspects:
here and nowConnect with what is at this time, avoid words like "always" and "never "
clarityBe clear about what you want and need; run your frustration and anger differently
investigateIf you communicate your perceptions to another person, you always have to find out if she
recognizes what you perceiveconnection
With your feelings, needs, and from there to the others and the worldmovement
Of life itself, all that you fix loses qualitybreathing
We all need space, free air, freedom; the more freedom there is, the more you can express and experience all the qualities that you havetake responsibility
Nothing can make you feel happy, except yourself.
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: influenced by nomadic subjects
of Rosi BraidottiRosi Braidotti defines the subject Nomad as a "way of thinking“, this is "a critical consciousness which
refuses black rhinos through dominant patterns of thinking and acting”:“Not all nomadic dwellers travel the world outside; the best trips can be made without physically leaving the House. What characterizes the nomadic State is the escape to existing conventions, not the literal Act of traveling. On subjectivity Nomad is not 'be', but 'becoming' "(Braidotti, 2004: 72).“The nomad identity can be seen as a map of places where the subject has passed. The nomadic subject is able to reconstitute this map, as a sequence of steps in a description of the route. (…) The nomadic subject (…) is a project that aims to drop aspiration by the sources, all desire to not change”(Braidotti, 2004:69).
Pathways of Literacy to Non-violent Life: Shared Leaderships
The voices of women…“I think I read that somewhere, it was told by a feminist: 'I don't want that women have more
power than men, I want them to have more power over themselves and over their power of decision’”.
“The theme is the same respect for individuality and uniqueness of each one. If each one of you respect yourself and get respect for each other, and for the space, and the diversity that accompanies the contexts and experiences of each one, I think, there, we could, indeed, achieving gender equality”.
“The name itself indicates, Equality. Nobody is less. It is being in the same plateau, knowing that really there are gender differences. There Are! Man and woman, and they have been done differently too. But is the fight for equality, not to be higher or lower”
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: Shared Leaderships
Avoid the Silence of the profissionals…
“Knowledge is also a form of power, and power to transgress what is established and so on… and confuse things with “the natural order” as if it were so… the end. And the conversation, we realize that things are not the final point, because we did believe that were so. And in this sense, there is an action which can be liberating. And we talk a lot in question … the fact that the conversation can be associated to feelings, what people feel in these shares”
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: Shared Leaderships
Avoid the Silence of the profissionals…“We work for many years and we know that in most of the interventions is not developed the
participation or empowerment of people. Is not, because projects have a time, have a duration, then there are also goals, then there are indicators, then there's this, and that… Therefore, much of the work that is done is very much on the basis that we technicians know what is best for you. And this attitude does not promote participation, not promote self-esteem, not promote quality of life of users. We should not delude ourselves. Therefore, to promote participation, which is a bit that the concept of awareness (constientization) of Paulo Freire, is something very lengthy, time-consuming and requires a working…. And requires its own technicians have developed personal and social skills, that sometimes they do not have".
Agency to social transformation…“This shared leadership would be precisely the possibility of having voice through a negotiation to reach a
consensus on which everybody wins... coping with emotions. Because coping with emotions, is also tell impose limits. You know, get to be in place of the other, realize what is happening in the other, realize the vision of the other and the other has to realize that there are limits”.
“I will only introduce you some basic aspects of the focus group. The first, is the extent that everyone wants, everyone should take the voice, and everyone should listen to who is taking the voice at the moment. The sequence of things that will say can hold either to be reacting to something that was said but, fundamentally, it is important that, even if this happens, speak from that would have to say and then can make a linking whatever answer or connection with the intervention of others. But never cease to put what would be your contribution even if it is… even if you feel that can be replayed or … doesn't matter. Is your expression that must be registered”
Pathways of Literacy to non-violent life: Shared Leaderships
References• BAKER, JENSON and KOLB (2002). Conversational learning: an experiential approach to
knowledge creation. Westport CT: Quorum Books.• BRAIDOTTI, Rosi (2004). Op Doorreis. Nomadisch Denken in de 21ste Eeuw. Amsterdam:
Boom.• FREIRE, Paulo (1972). Pedagogia do oprimido. Porto: Afrontamento.• KONING, Marijke de (2009). “Abrandar no espaço em branco. Dar relevo ao fundo dos
textos sobre a liderança”. In: Macedo, Eunice; Koning, Marijke de. (Re) Inventando Lideranças: Género, Educação e Poder. Porto: Fundação Cuidar O FuturoLivpsic
• PINTASILGO, Maria de Lourdes (2005). Palavras Dadas. Lisboa: Livros Horizonte (pp.215-216)
