By JON KENT

As part of an experimental program supported by the Probation Department of a Massachusetts District Court (and Quabbin Mediation), we've had the experience teaching non-violence to so-called "bullies" for over five years. I want to share the surprising results with Aspire Project readers and the wider community.

Our program, called Transforming Community Violence, works with criminal defendants convicted or accused of violent offenses. Our job is not to judge right or wrong or the morality of what our students are accused of doing. That's the job of judges and juries.

Our job is simple, but not always easy: to facilitate the experience in the classroom of using empathy to see ourselves and each other as human beings, not as objects.

To do this, our teaching staff of three trainers has each worked for over five years to apply a teaching model developed by the psychologist Dr. Marshall Rosenberg.

The model is called Nonviolent Communication or NVC, a website followed by over 25,000 readers. We invite ourselves and our students to connect by identifying in words our specific feelings and needs. We also guess at our students' and our own feelings and needs.

Sometimes we even tell our students what we are feeling and needing, especially when we feel angry.

This last technique models an alternative to bullying which likely caused our students to be part of the criminal justice process.

Our students are both men and women of varying ages ranging from 17 to 50. Before being required to take our six-session workshop, they have been taught in the ways of violence for decades and probably generations.

They have been raised in violent homes; they are victims of drug and alcohol abuse; they have had to survive in prisons; almost all are victims of poverty.

I must admit that I was skeptical about whether our program would have any effect in just six sessions. I continued to hold that skepticism for years until, one day, I collected five years worth of feedback forms and verbal testimonials.

I was shocked.

Nearly every student that was mandated to take our workshop, or face going to jail, reported changed attitudes. In a number of cases, there were testimonial reports of what I might call awakenings to connection with others.

One student who worked in a repair shop told us that his co-workers and family thought he was on drugs -- not because his behavior was violent, but because he was so cooperative with everyone.

I've said to others, "Don't take my word for it. Go to our website and tap on the link where we've posted copies of the actual feedback forms. See for yourself. Read the students words with your own eyes."

You won't be as shocked as I was because you didn't see and experience the "before." But, you might at least raise an eyebrow and say to yourself, "Maybe?"

Maybe change is possible, maybe people really do want to get along with one another, maybe just the experience of being heard without judgment can awaken natural impulses to follow life serving patterns of behavior.

Jon Kent, an Aspire Project contributor, is an attorney with an master's degree in conflict resolution. He can be reached at jonk@igc.org. He teaches NVC with Marilyn Andrews and Lorraine Pearson.