The Digital Story for this week is by Middle School percussion teacher James Reynolds. In his own words, “I just finished teaching a 5-week percussion class I designed for middle school students with the Building Educated Leaders for Life program.
The curriculum included social/emotional development and conflict resolution skills based on the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) model developed by Marshall B. Rosenberg.
I produced this digital story as a personal reflection on my first comprehensive attempt at NVC pedagogy as outlined in Rosenberg’s book, Life-Serving Education.
On the last day of class, I played it for my students as a way to humanize and demystify the Teacher role, and to demonstrate the mutual growth that results from teachers sharing power with students and students taking responsibility for their learning.”