Rather than a behavioral approach, Gentle Teaching has evolved into a process of seeing others and ourselves as morally connected and when we or others are suffering it is our role to heal the person’s connectedness, promoting the welfare of others as a means of preventing harm, and maintaining these healthy relationships grounded in interdependence. Gentle Teaching has evolved into a philosophical psychology with a pragmatic set of teaching techniques.

This asks us to understand the developmental and moral nature of ourselves and those around us. We are all in the midst of a process of becoming that started in our mother’s womb and only ends upon death’s beckoning. This process is a winding road with many detours, ups and downs, and unknown futures. Yet, at the center of everything is a hunger and thirst for each of us to feel safe and loved and form these feelings that ground us we then become loving and engaged in our particular life-projects.

 

In the first dimension of our existence we seek companionship and community/. Without these we are rudderless ships in a tempestuous sea. Safe and loved are at the very center of the human condition and their lack is at the center of marginalization—the extremely poor, the mentally ill, the neglected, the abused, the intellectually disabled, the enslaved, prostitutes, street children, children in gangs, the institutionalized in buildings big and small, addicts, the chronically ill, and an endless list of the suffering of the earth.