Mercedes, thank you for telling your story.  I think story telling is so
important if we are to eradicate violence and abuse.  You are an
inspiration.

I also like your ideas for establishing perimeters in the classroom.  When
it comes right down to is, it's all about boundaries.  Abuse happens when
boundaries are not respected.

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 11:04 AM, Pichard, Mercedes Dr. <
MercedesRP at leeschools.net> wrote:


>  Thanks to everyone for such an excellent discussion (and its many

> threads) and the marvelous resources which have been shared.

>

> I am also a survivor of domestic abuse by my first husband.  I can remember

> being dragged on the floor by my hair; I can remember having heavy objects

> thrown at my face; I can remember being struck in front of my small

> children; I can remember rage and anger as a daily part of life when I was a

> victim.  Most of this violence against me happened with my three young

> children as witnesses, between 1985 and 1995.  I can also remember standing

> in front of a policeman in a Swiss village police station with my three

> young children  (all four of us weeping copiously)  and begging the Swiss

> police for help getting my husband to stop the domestic abuse.  I got no

> help from the Swiss police.   I ended up "kidnapping my own children"

> (that's against the international La Hague Convention, which is another

> story)  and hiding the four of us back in the USA, living on a shoestring

> budget but finally living in peace.  The custody situation eventually got

> resolved, etc. etc.

>

> I am a proud survivor.  I got my Master's in TESOL and my doctorate in

> Curriculum and Instruction between 1998 and 2006.  I work with ELL teenagers

> and also ELL adults; I also design and create teacher-training products in

> the ESOL and EAP worlds.   My oldest son grew up and went on to beat his

> beautiful young wife, using her as a punching bag, as he had "learned" to do

> from his father.  She left him and he is in therapy.  My second son grew up,

> but is mentally ill and cannot work productively or really function in

> society.  Only my youngest, my daughter, was too little to remember most of

> the abusive events and is relatively unscathed, although she is a very

> 'reserved' young woman now.

>

> I do what I can in my own classrooms.  Someone was asking for 'practical

> applications' examples from teachers about their own classrooms and how they

> foster safe environments.   I have a large classroom with a student computer

> lab within it.  I always have many conversations with my students dealing

> with co-creating a safe and "healthy" environment for all of us, girls /

> women and boys / men.   I talk to the ELLs specifically about the computers

> and the choices of websites they visit.  (Even though there is a firewall /

> filter, people -- teens and adults -- from many countries go to sites in

> their home languages, which circumvent the firewall.)   I talk to them

> specifically about not going to X-  rated or "bad" sites (of any genre).   I

> ask the boys and men how they would feel if their mother or sister visited

> our classroom and "something nasty" popped up onscreen, or even if their

> girlfriend were sitting next to them.   This discussion -- which is not

> accusatory ---  and getting to know each other and feel safe in the

> classroom --- often leads to other talks on other days about domestic

> violence, how and why such things as abuse happen, what they all think about

> those things, what people can do to prevent those things, what people can do

> if they are experiencing those things, what the local resources are, etc.

> and the students hear a range of viewpoints and strategies.  Although

> students do come up to me and share other things privately (like the

> domestic abuse they endure), which gives me the opportunity to share even

> more specific resources they can use, I have never had a single student

> share out loud in a class that they were either a victim or an abuser.  It's

> always "about other people", which I guess keeps it safe and healthy for

> them.

>

> I know I'm a teacher and not a counselor, but I always seize the moment

> when a discussion of this type is imminent in my classroom, be it with teens

> or adults.  I do know for sure that people who are enduring abuse or

> violence cannot learn or function very well, and I do know how it feels to

> endure domestic abuse, so I'd rather have these open generic discussions

> than not, in a safe and healthy environment.

>

> Mercedes

>

>

> ------------------------------

> *From:* diversity-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of Nadia and Kevin Colby

> *Sent:* Sun 12/28/2008 9:20 AM

> *To:* The Diversity and Literacy Discussion List

> *Subject:* [Diversity 326] Re: abusers in our classrooms

>

>

>

>

> I have been looking at some of the websites recommended in the discussion.

> Jenny Horseman's suggested by Janet Isserlis, and Focus on Basics (Volume 5,

> Issue C, February 2002) in http://www.ncsall.net/?id=245 suggested by

> Kate.  I realized what I somewhat knew.   "But, I am not a therapist" is a

> legitimate concern but to an extent an easy way out.   We, as instructors,

> can go beyond referrals, which oftentimes are dealt with by overloaded

> social workers.

>

> This discussion has brought up categories such as "forgiveness",

> "privilege", "male privilege", "perpetrator", "victim", that can be seen

> through different perspectives.  Feminism, religion, education philosophies,

> moral values are all prisms that involve our subjectivity and make us shy

> away or engage (disagreements expected as we have seen).

>

> Challenge seems to be the key word.   Dealing with violence is somewhat

> similar to dealing with diversity. Difficult but not that subjective.

> Statistics talk. Just in case of violence against women:

> i) every 9 seconds a woman is physically abused by her husband

> ii) 95% of assaults on spouses or ex-spouses are committed by men against

> women

> iii) 42% of murdered women are killed by their intimate partner

> info at asafeplaceforhelp.org or

> http://www.asafeplaceforhelp.org/batteredwomenstatistics.html

>

> In the light of these numbers, reading about the work of Leslie Ridgway and

> Dale Griffith in York Correctional Institution was not only inspiring but

> productively challenging because it does provide tools and concrete examples

> of what instructors and social workers can do to help individuals deal with

> anger, fear and resentment, and open the possiblility of starting a healing

> process in different environments.

>

> As our world seems to be permeated with violence, education must be a safe

> and committed environment where children, teenagers and adults, people from

> all background and venues can reflect upon these issues.   Challenging

> privileges, assumptions, prejudices is in itself a changing agent.

>

> Yet, knowing how hard it is for Mexican men to deal with their privilege,

> aware of the potential sense of humiliation that comes with the change of

> roles from "the man of the house" to Mexican immigrant, and thinking of my

> very traditional family and friends (loved people all)  my first reaction

> was "no way".  I can not deal with domestic violence and I can not challenge

> male privilege because whenever I did,  I got in trouble.   Another piece is

> that in my experience students do know each other quite well, and even with

> potential perpetrators (which I might have recognized intuitively) they tend

> to be very protective because there is another intersection, quite poweful,

> that connects them all: adjusting with difficulty to a different culture,

> and sharing the joy and pains of learning a second language under stressing

> financial, emotional, and personal circumstances.

>

> Questioning ourselves, looking for relevant information (such as the sites

> provided by Janet Isserlis and Kate Nonesuch), finding the time to talk with

> the social workers in our work sites, asking colleagues with experience in

> the topic,  might all represent that  "extra mile" but, I am hopeful

> that it can pay off.

>

> Anecdotal information.  During the first year I lived in New York City, I

> had the honor to work with El Barrio Popular Education Program.

> Unfortunately I needed help myself and ended working only one semester

> there.   However, as I look back I remember that students made

> a "fotonovela"  whose main theme was sexual harassment.  All students

> participated and using a Freirean approach the plot built up and culminated

> with the main character's  liberation from her perpetrator.   Good

> information about this program  is found in Rivera, K. M. (1997), El Barrio

> Popular Education . In D. Taylor (Ed), "Many families, many literacies: An

> internatinal declaration of principles, pp. 128-133, Portsmouth, NH;

> Heinemann.

> http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/education/home/faculty/rivera_bio.html

>

> Nadia Quiroz-Colby

> Houston, TX

>

>

>

> --- On Wed, 12/24/08, Janet Isserlis <Janet_Isserlis at brown.edu> wrote:

>

> From: Janet Isserlis <Janet_Isserlis at brown.edu>

> Subject: [Diversity 303] Re: abusers in our classrooms

> To: "The Diversity and Literacy Discussion List" <diversity at nifl.gov>

> Date: Wednesday, December 24, 2008, 12:32 PM

>

>

> thanks very much for this Karen.

> I think a lot about 'school' privilege as well.  For some of us,

> learning/complying with the expectations of the classroom came far more

> easily than for others.

>

> When we're teaching (and learning) it's really important to be mindful of

> that particular form of privilege (being good at doing school).

>

> Many have written about the multiple layers of privilege and oppression –

> and as Karen and others have said here, the more we understand about how

> those forces act on ourselves, our colleagues and our students, the better

> able we are to be responsive and proactive in our teaching strategies and

> practices.

>

> Janet

>

>

>

>

> From: Karen Wyman <Karenw at nmcadv.org>

> Reply-To: The Diversity and Literacy Discussion List <diversity at nifl.gov>

> Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:08:40 -0700

> To: The Diversity and Literacy Discussion List <diversity at nifl.gov>

> Conversation: [Diversity 301] Re: abusers in our classrooms

> Subject: [Diversity 302] Re: abusers in our classrooms

>

> Dear Kearney,

> I have to disagree that Kate's comment is sexist. While most men are not

> abusers and are not violent, most abusers are men, and most acts of

> violence, particularly those acts against women, are committed by men. It is

> not unreasonable, inaccurate, or sexist to conclude that "in any ordinary

> group of men that some will be violent to a greater or lesser extent." I

> think Kate was being very careful not to be sexist with her language and

> word choice.

>

> Also, I'd like to suggest that students are not in classes to "handle"

> their classmates; they are there to learn. It is the instructor's

> responsibility to create an environment in which that can occur, and that

> often includes being aware of potential problems before they happen and

> intervening on behalf of the safety and wellbeing of all students. I think

> it is an interesting assumption to think that these hypothetical students

> are necessarily "non-feminist."

>

> I think that privilege is an important piece of this conversation that is

> being left out. I believe that, in addition to confronting racism and

> sexism, we also have a responsibility to interrupt male and white (and other

> kinds, too) privilege when it rears its head. I wonder if that might be an

> interesting discussion: what can we do to confront the use of unwarranted

> privilege in our classrooms? How can we interrupt those conditioned

> behaviors that come with that privilege? Male privilege is one of the many

> tools that abusers employ to exercise power and control over their victims,

> and there are a number of ways in which we, as educators, have the

> opportunity to either challenge or reinforce that privilege.

>

> Respectfully,

> Karen

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

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-- 
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt
www.LuxuriousChoices.net
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