Goals of the exercise: To identify the ways of communication that are disturbing or not disturbing the participants in their schools. To teach the participants about the techniques of non – violent communication. To develop skills for non – violent communication.
Age of the participants: 14- 17 years old
Number of participants: 15 to 20 participants
Duration of the exercise: 40 minutes
Materials: two hammers

Step by step

1. Place the two hammers on the wall and on the first one write “what I like the most in the communication with my friends” and on the second one write “what I don’t like in the communication with my friends”.
2. Everyone has to write their thoughts/feelings on the hammers.
3. After they finish the writing, the group will continue with the discussion and explanations by the trainers about violent and non-violent communications, how to pass the conflict situations and how to have bigger threshold of tolerance.

Note

This exercise is showing the problems that occur by the violent communication and the punishments that it causes. In this exercise the trainers are explaining the meaning to respect your friend, the meaning of respecting the difference and not using power of violence.

Examples of feelings/thoughts for encouraging the participants:

• He/she is very friendly
• Patience
• Always helping
• Trust
• Angry
• Violent
• Smiling
• Likes the same things as me
• Stubborn
• Not carrying
• Gossiping
• Loyal
• Honest
• Listener
• Good friend
• Nervous
• Kind
• Respect
• Liar
• Sense of humor

Debriefing

• What are the forms or shapes of violent and non-violent communication?
• What is that way of communication that hurts your friend and makes him/her use violence?
• How to help your friends not to use violence in school?
• What should the punishment be for the children that are using violence in school?
• How to be a good pupil with good behavior?

Authorship/adaptation or source: unknown source, adapted by Association PEL
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