Breaking the Cycle of Violence and Creating Deeply Caring Communities
Breaking the cycle of violence in our homes, schools and communities involves more than merely identifying and stopping the bully. In this lecture, Barbara Coloroso will examine why and how a child becomes a bully or the target of a bully as well as the role bystanders play in perpetuating the cycle. She will explore comprehensive, multi-institutional, community-wide solutions that address the violent behavior of young people, while redressing the social conditions in which violence flourishes; reconciliatory justice as an alternative to punishment and vengeance; and the power of forgiveness, all of which are needed if we want to create more caring and compassionate communities.
Barbara Coloroso
Barbara Coloroso is an internationally recognized speaker and consultant on parenting, teaching, school discipline, positive school climate, bullying, grieving, nonviolent conflict resolution and restorative justice. She has training in sociology, special education, and philosophy, as well as extensive experience as a classroom teacher, laboratory school instructor, university instructor, seminar leader, volunteer in Rwanda, and mother of three grown children.
Barbara is the author of four books: The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander: Breaking the Cycle of Violence (2003); Just because it’s not wrong, doesn’t make it right: helping kids to think and act ethically (2005). Her latest book is Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide and Why it Matters, published by Nation Books, 2007.