NVC Dojo

On the wall of the two UK NVC Assessment weekends there has been a flipchart with the words, 'What is your relationship with authority here?' or something. If I get the time I will try to hunt out a photo.

I have been so curious about this. Why is it on the wall? Is it something to do with Paolo Freire's work? It took me years to find a clip of Marshall Rosenberg citing Freire, and enumerating the ideas that contributed to the formulation of NVC. When I first read Pedagogy of the Oppressed I was highly impacted, and enjoyed how it supported me to examine my relationship with authority, and gave me some idea of how I have internalised this relationship, perhaps largely as a result of my western education. Furthermore Freire offers a method of education that can support us to examine this question. A couple of months ago I was delighted to hear from Dominic Barter who confirmed and expanded my curiosity around how Freire had influenced Rosenberg.

Now what I am curious about is, ‘How is Freire's work alive in NVC Training today?’ I am not sure how much of it there is or is not. Sometimes I see glimpses of it, sometimes I see it infused into the practise and sometimes I see NVC trainers ‘teaching’ NVC as if teachers in school. My understanding is that without exploring this question directly or using problem posing pedagogies it is hard to deconstruct the authority within us. Unfortunately whilst this question is on the walls of the two assessments I have been to, there has been little time to be in discourse around it. Assessments are busy times.

So I am curious as to how and when I might get to hear something of what contributes to this question being on the wall? Is it simply something to do with the power dynamic between an assessor and a candidate or is there something deeper? How much of Friere's ideas are still embedded into our NVC training practices?