Responses of sisters to an experience in sensitivity

Abstract

My experience with sisters began about three years ago when I was asked by the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth to participate in a Mental Health Institute. I presented a paper entitled "Teachers' Atti tudes and their Effects on Child Development." In it I indicated that children secure a sense of dignity, personal worth, self-confidence, and motivation for learning through the emotional relationships they estab lish with their teachers, and that many times the intellectual aspects of school are secondary in importance to the relationships established or lost. I pointed out that the degree to which teachers are able to provide children with such experiences is related to the degree to which they are aware of their own human needs, aspirations, frustrations, and atti tudes. I concluded by saying that sensitivity to these internal concerns should not be defended against, but rather perceived as starting points for continued professional growth, productivity, and self-realization. After I had finished, many sisters asked how I would implement such an "experience in sensitivity." I immediately thought of the possibility of forming "sensitivity groups." That is, employing group methods to help sisters achieve greater awareness of their feelings, attitudes, and motivations, and to increase their interpersonal sensitivity and com petency. This unique learning method, developed and used with differ ent professional groups over the last two decades, focuses on the in vivo experience in groups, where the personal, open, frank, feelings, thoughts, and reactions of the individuals themselves are the data and sources of learning, and where an attempt is made within the context of the here and now to create and understand those conditions in one