Why NVC?
I believe that person-centred approach could help facilitate positive and connected relationships with students. Non-violent communication (NVC) was chosen because of its potential to enhance my own empathy, interpersonal communication skills, as well as create the conditions for less judgemental language when discussing work.
NVC Fundamentals
The honest connection and expression of one’s feelings and needs, as well as being able to connect empathetically when listening to the feelings and needs of others.
The four primary steps that are part of NVC’s teaching model are observations, feelings, needs, and requests.
Step 1: Observations
Step 2: Feelings
Step 3: Needs
Step 4: Requests
Observations
Need to be free of judgement. Intrinsic to this, is that an observation is made without adding one’s own interpretation into the mix. For an example, a student started using oil paint for the first time and was very self critical. In the first few sessions, she would say, I am so bad at oil painting. In the second session, we were able to change this from an evaluation to an observation I have not used oil paint very much before. It is a simple, but significant shift in how she talked to herself.
Feelings
Feelings must be expressed as feelings, not as emotional states or thoughts or judgements. Feelings are not I think this is not very good. In NVC language, this would translate to I think this is not very good because I want it to have more colour/texture/time spent working on it etc.
Needs
This is what is behind the feeling. NVC is based around all people sharing universal needs. In addition to this, self ownership and connection to these needs is important, Rosenberg states:
“others can be the stimulus for our feelings, they are not the cause”1
Rosenberg states one of the fundamental principles in NVC is a literacy and access to ours and others feelings: “In the second step, attention is given towards the feelings that are being experienced in any given moment” 2
Requests
Are communicated clearly, they are specific, they are present actions, they include what I want, Would you work on the banana in the still life drawing for longer rather than general, future tense, or behavioural you need to work harder on this piece. In summary, if I think that a student in not making work that is as good as it can be, I can formulate this as a questions, I would say:
Could you tell me what is keeping you from connecting with this drawing more?
One of my students struggled with this in particular, and I would received in reply either a No or a I don’t know. This is not the end of the conversation, it is the start and if the relationship has been formed limiting the hierarchical student-teacher dynamics, it should be the start of a compassionate and empathetic conversation. As Rosenberg states:
“affective sharing between the self and other, self-other awareness and mental flexibility to adopt the subjective perspective of the other, and also regulatory processes” 3
This requires a literacy in hearing the needs behind the expression of feelings from others.
- helping students connect with their intrinsic motivations for learning, rather than extrinsic motivators such as reward or punishment.
- Moving away from power over to a power share and away from verbal feedback on student work being good or bad onto asking questions which help students to come to their own conclusions.
Communicating in NVC
I applied NVC communication in my conversations with students. For example an NVC based conversation could go as follows:
Observation: I noticed that you stopped working on this section of your drawing
Feeling: Are you feeling frustrated
Need: because you would like to have figured out a solution by now?
Request: Would you like some help with that problem?
This way of communicating shows empathy and also asks the student if they would like help
Marshall Rosenberg says “Power-Over leads to punishment and violence. Power-With leads to compassion and understanding, and to learning motivated by reverence for life rather than fear, guilt, shame, or anger.” 4
Empathy
NVC requires empathy for others but also for one’s self. It requires us to be aware of and connected to the needs of others as well ourselves. Rosenberg says:
“making choices motivated by our desire to contribute to life rather than out of fear, guilt, shame, duty or obligation” 5
For me there is a correlation between the emotional intelligence needed in NVC and teaching and making art. NVC helps to create intrapersonal intelligence which allows us to communicate with one another on a deeper level as Gardener puts it:
It is the intelligence we use when we try to understand other people’s feelings, life situations, ways of thinking or when we empathize with them. 6
Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman’s work where he identifies five aspects of emotional intelligence. These are:
- knowledge of one’s emotions and having the capability to express them;
- recognition of emotions in others;
- the ability to self-monitor and regulate emotion;
- being able to motivate oneself and others; and
- having the necessary social skills to implement these aspects in real life 7
This is where NVC comes in again, in increasing and giving strategies to manage and raise awareness of one’s emotional states.
Flow State
Daniel Goleman states in Emotional Intelligence “more than 100 different research studies made on over 36,000 individuals show that anxious students generally receive lower test grades. Worrying simply decreases mental capacities which are necessary for the execution of an intellectual task and the transfer of information; if we are preoccupied with failures, our concentration, which oversees helping to form an answer, decreases.”8
NVC and Emotional Intelligence are simple things that can be learned but they have the potential to have a profound impact on how we navigate relationships inside and outside of education. Within education, simplifying things, if we can connect with students empathetically, we can create the space for students to trust us, to connect with themselves and together we can build the conditions for personal and embodied inquiry through our thinking and our making.
References:
- Marshal Rosenberg, Non-violent communication: A language of life (2nd ed.). Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2003
- Marshal Rosenberg, Non-violent communication: A language of life (2nd ed.). Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2003
- Marshal Rosenberg, Life-enriching education: Non-violent communication helps schools improve performance, reduce conflict, and enhance relationships, Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2004
- Marshal Rosenberg, Non-violent communication: A language of life (2nd ed.). Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2003
- Marshal Rosenberg, Non-violent communication: A language of life (2nd ed.). Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2003
- Daniel Goleman, Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. London, UK: Bantam Books, 1995
- Daniel Goleman, Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. London, UK: Bantam Books, 1995
- Daniel Goleman, Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. London, UK: Bantam Books, 1995