What an honor to be part of three presentations – a forgiveness workshop, an opening plenary panel, and a youth violence presentation – at the 20th International Summit on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, which took place August 23-25 in San Diego.
I truly enjoyed the panel as it was diverse and the questions were great. I felt I learned some vital things from the other panelists.
For the plenary, there was an international audience of over 800 people. The breakout presentations consisted of social workers, educators, therapists and many who work with abuse, violence and trauma.
What I believe others will take home from my presentations:
Violence is a learned behavior but nonviolence can also be a learned behavior. You have to teach it as a main line subject like math, English and science. The subjects taught in schools have not changed much since I was in grade school. Teaching the principles of nonviolence is also important if we are going to prevent violence, abuse and trauma. In 20 years of my work in teaching nonviolence, I have learned these principles are not only teachable, our children are hungry for them.
Imagine what our world would look like if we spawned 1,000 Gandhis and 1000 MLK’s who embrace the principles fully into their lives. Imagine a world where we all held such high ideals. Imagine…
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