The center of all care-giving (mothering, fathering, grand parenting, teaching, psychiatry, psychology, all clinical supports, mangers, and all hands-on care giving) is our encounter with marginalized others. The caregiver is the “I” who comes into contact with the “Thou” in a process of emerging interdependence. If “I” feel safe and loved on this earth and we come together, then that encounter will eventually lead to a sense of the other person feeling safe and loved. At the start, it might consist of a coming together together for brief and fleeting seconds that rapidly turn into longer periods of time. Some of these encounters are simply in the flow of the day and in a sense are accidental encounters; others are scheduled in small blocks of time and are very intentional and have the purpose of directly teaching the person to feel safe and loved. These encounters create a new energy, grace, and an electricity. .

If the most marginalized are to be well served in inclusive settings with a full spectrum of human and legal rights, new assumptions must be asserted along with those of the past. These are philosophical in nature and call for an evolving collective embrace.

 

A nonviolent and justice-based view of the world requires a move away from an interpretation of marginalized persons as “machines” and toward one of sentient beings who require a focus on their interior healing rather than behavioral control. It is from this healing process that behaviors ameliorate rather than vice-versa. Gentle Teaching’s primary concern is to create a healing alliance that starts with a sense of connectedness and evolves into community-making.