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Gentle Teaching International
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Who needs Gentle
Teaching?
Gentle Teaching
and a psychology of interdependence are being used to help marginalized children
and adults around the world. Its key focus is on those who are on the very edge
of family and community life:
• Those who are homeless—living on
the streets and not knowing where their next meal will come from.
• Street children in the Third
World—little children living in sewers and gutters, finding their respite under
bridges and door stoops, and making their meals from garbage thrown on the
streets.
• Individuals locked up in long term
psychiatric hospitals—people with schizophrenia, manic-depression, depression,
and a host of other diagnostic categories.
• Institutionalized individuals with
mental disability—sometimes tossed into warehouse-like settings, sometimes in
more home-like places, but most sensing deep loneliness.
• Individuals being supported in
community living and working settings—sometimes able to connect easily with a
feeling of companionship and community, at other times left to live lonely,
empty, and sad lives.
• Elderly men and women confined in
nursing homes—often forgotten and left to die alone.
• Children and adolescents in public
schools—children with "behavior" problems, children segregated from other
children, children suspended from school, children who see violence as their
only way to live their short lives, children who find meaning in gangs instead
of in families.
Many professionals try to separate
people into distinct categories and apply specialized rules for each group.
People with autism need this… Those with schizophrenia need that… This syndrome
demands that treatment. This particular behavior should result in that
particular consequence. Words swirl around, "Use time-out. Use token economy.
Use physical restraint. Punishment is the only way to teach him/her a lesson."
Our approach is to be gentle and teach companionship and community.
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