{"id":896,"date":"2009-03-24T17:07:04","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T17:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=333"},"modified":"2009-03-24T17:07:04","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T17:07:04","slug":"32409","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=896","title":{"rendered":"3\/24\/09"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shootings at Columbine, at Virginia Tech and at so many other \u00a0schools these days are the far end of a violence continuum. \u00a0 The other night I went to an information session in Cleveland about how to short circuit some of this violence. \u00a0 And more, how to teach youth healthy coping skills in general. \u00a0 Morris Ervin, from the Los Angeles area, is a teacher who stresses non-violent approaches and he has been featured in several documentaries. \u00a0 He works with Black and Latino gang members in L.A. \u00a0 He said a key is to create safe venues for, not only dialogue, but the healthy expression of feelings. \u00a0 And Ervin stressed it’s essential, when possible, for \u00a0this to begin at home… This evening there were also students from instructor Kathleen McDonell’s peer support group at Euclid High School. \u00a0 Each shared how learning about “non-violent communication” and processing feelings in general have helped them. \u00a0 One youth, who was rather large in stature, said he had a lot of problems at home. \u00a0 Consequently, he’d take his anger out on the football field or with his peers. \u00a0 “I was mean,” he lamented. \u00a0 But after getting involved with Ms. McDonell’s group, he said he learned to open up about his feelings and be more empathetic towards others having problems as well. \u00a0 As a result, he said he’s become a lot more relaxed, friendlier and is now a volunteer peer mediator when conflicts come up at his school. \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> \u00a0 Several years ago, I researched the “Ulster Project.”<\/em> \u00a0 Host families in the U.S. would take in one Catholic youth and one Protestant youth from Northern Ireland for a year. \u00a0 The intent was to break down prejudices, to break down hate and create hope for peace in the next generation. \u00a0 After hearing the tremendous changes these Euclid High School students had gone through in their own journey towards “peace,” I couldn’t help but think there is, indeed, hope yet for this world. \u00a0 Note 2:<\/strong> \u00a0 Our administration would propose a U.S. Department of Peace<\/a> that would rely on such consultants as Ms. McDonell and Mr. Ervin to ramp up non-violence efforts in schools across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shootings at Columbine, at Virginia Tech and at so many other \u00a0schools these days are the far end of a violence continuum. \u00a0 The other night I went to an information session in Cleveland about how to short circuit some …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}