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Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion

This eye-opening and inspiring book is absolutely a core text for anyone interested in conflict resolution or violence prevention--and much more broadly, for anyone interested in school reform and social change.

Like other conflict resolution programs, this book explains a fairly simple communication process, involving a few straightforward steps. Yet I have not seen another program that seems as deep and transformative as this one. In its attention to the ways in which we speak and listen to one another, the Nonviolent Communication process has the potential to help us see the humanity even in those for whom we have lost respect, to suspend judgment, to speak honestly and listen fully, and to transform alienation into a powerful sense of mutual understanding and connection.

Rosenberg is a lifelong peace activist who has brought NVC to some of the most troubled places on the globe--including Rwanda, Palestine and Israel, gangs in East Saint Louis, high security prisons in the U.S. His stories of reconciliation--of former enemies finding compassion for one another--are amazing. Just as moving are the stories from more mundane daily life--parents and children coming to understand one another, teachers and students building trust across lines of color and class. nvc seems to me to be a perfect–perhaps essential--complement to our work in ces, giving us the practical tools we need to create a "tone of decency" and to build the equitable, democratic schools for which we yearn.

reviewed by Kathy Simon, Director of Research at CES National and author of Moral Questions in the Classroom, Yale University Press, 2001.

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This resource last updated: April 15, 2003

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