TEDx Tallaght - Michelle Stowe
Michelle Stowe, who lectures the PMEs in Restorative Practice and works as a University Tutor in the Education Department in MU, was invited to share her passion for Restorative Practice in the Civic Theatre at TEDx Tallaght on 12th Oct. 2017.
Her talk, ‘Empathy; the Heart of Difficult Conversations’, outlined the restorative values such as respect, empathy, personal accountability and community that we can easily migrate from in times of conflict. She outlined that although values light the way, what she loves about Restorative Practice is that it offers an explicit language, such as the restorative questions (below), to breathe life into the values so that they are values in action. These are especially helpful in times of challenge when we can easily armour up, disconnect from our best selves and lose our values in power struggles.
“There is a huge empathy deficit in our culture”, says Stowe, “and this is a skill set that we can teach and grow, and restorative questions can facilitate this. They invite us to see each other's perspective and to feel WITH one another which are key ingredients of empathy.” Simply asking 'What happened that the homework isn't done?' instead of 'Why did you not do your homework?', can open up a dialogue that allows us to turn towards one other. A restorative approach moves us from blame and attack to empathy, the heart of difficult conversations.
To listen to the TEDx Talk, please click the ‘Play’ button below or visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UvDMQyBVLs