BySteven Krolak
(NEWALBANY, Ind.)—John-Robert Curtin, adjunct instructor of criminology andcriminal justice, is from New England. Gentle in his delivery, yet he doesn’tmince words: The first assignment his students receive in CJ 313: Peace,Conflict and Social Justice is to write their own obituaries.
Asa way for an instructor to hammer home the personal relevance of a course, a memento mori is pretty much unbeatable.
Butbeyond the shock value, the assignment encapsulates the philosophy and method ofan educator who moves between academia and the “real world,” obliterating theline that can sometimes separate the two.
Inthe process, he has fostered a conversation that enhances both teaching andlearning, to the benefit of students, who internalize the larger dialogue in away that enables them to be at productive peace with themselves, and with theworld.
The moving business
Curtinteaches a range of courses involving conflict management, ethics, mediation,restorative justice, business, and behavioral transition.
He likes to say that he’s in the moving business.
“We are assisting students of all ages to move to the nextphase of their lives,” Curtin said. “It is my job to help them equip themselveswith the necessary skills and tools to make a successful transition.”
Those skills and tools include competence in effectivelistening and communication, knowledge of the sources of conflict, the abilityto differentiate between different mediation processes, the ability todemonstrate ethical standards, and perhaps most importantly, the capacity tounderstand their own unconscious biases.
His methods include lectures, groupdiscussion, mediation simulations and role plays, alongside readings andvideos. Students also participate in practice mediations, receiving individualfeedback from Curtin.
At the core of Curtin’s philosophy, reflected in his lessons,is a conviction about the human condition.
“Humans were designed for cooperation and interconnection,”Curtin said. “So I spend time at the beginning of each class helping studentsto understand that their interconnection with others is vital if they are totruly understand the nature of human beings.”
To spur discussion, Curtin begins his classes with four basicquestions:
- When did we as human beings begin to think of some other human beings as disposable?
- Is punishment the only way to control negative behavior?
- Is it possible to hold another human being accountable, or should the purpose be to help others personally accept accountability for their actions?
- What is the nature of the world and what is my personal role in the world?
The discussions that emerge, like the obituaries, compelstudents to confront their fundamental world views.
In the criminal justice context, this means questioning thevery concepts of “criminal” and “justice”. It means sacrificing any notion of acut-and-dried outcome – based on whatCurtin calls seeing other humans as disposable – to a messier but more honestand compassionate vision of a very nonlinear process of improvement.
“Criminal justice students need tounderstand more than policing, courts, and corrections,” Curtin said. “Theyneed to understand the nature of human beings and our need for connections toeach other, and they need to understand that society cannot continue to believethat some people are disposable.”
To dispose of people is to avoid a conversation that notonly resolves conflict, but forces us to define our own humanity. It is theultimate cop-out. By challenging students to remain inclusive, Curtin alsogives them the opportunity to solve, rather than evade, tough decisions, evenif that can only be accomplished by altering one’s own point of view.
“By the end of the class students will know a great dealmore about themselves than they ever have before,” Curtin said. “They willthink critically about their assumptions and judgements and will understandthat they have an obligation to test their assumptions before acting uponthem.”
Statesof being
“The skills needed to be aneffective mediator are also life skills to be an effective professional, spouse,friend, colleague, neighbor,” Curtin said.
He arrived at this conclusion byliving life, and confirmed it through academic accomplishment.
Raised in a small seaside town inRhode Island, he advanced through various trades, spurred by curiosity and hisknack for being at the right place at the right time, and recognizing both assuch. He studied poetry, yet opportunity pushed him in another direction, andin the early 1980s he became the youngest director of a PBS affiliate stationin country. He moved to Louisville to lead WKPC-TV, and when that stationmerged with Kentucky Educational Television, Curtin entered a transition. Helaunched the Connected Learning Network, to produce online learning resourcesfor colleges and universities. One of those modules, on bullying, opened thedoor to the next chapter in his life.
As Curtin delved more deeply intothe field, he recognized the need for more formal expertise, and earned adoctorate from the University of Louisville with a dissertation comparinganti-bullying statutes in different U.S. states.
He then founded 4Civility Institute,which provides best-practices skill sets, reporting tools andtraining in techniques to deal constructively with conflict, to correct andbuild proper relationships and to move all participants to improve personallyand professionally.
To date 4Civility has offices inLouisville and Dublin, Ireland, and has worked with entities in the U.S., Barbadosand several European countries.
All of that experience funnels intothe classroom experience at IU Southeast, which resembles a professionalworkshop that he might offer to a group of corporate executives or to the leadershipof government agencies.
While applicable in any field, hisexpertise is especially valuable for students of criminal justice, who dealwith conflict in a very real way, as a core part of their field.
For Curtin, conflict is aninevitable feature of life. But how we handle conflict determines positive ornegative outcomes for us as individuals, and for our society.
Over the years, Curtin has refinedhis vision of human awareness and behavior into “Seven States of Being.” This formsthe theoretical framework of his approach.
The states—mental, emotional,physical, transpersonal, values, ethical, historical—are aspects of ourpersonal existence that we encounter in everyday interactions. Each of us hasthe potential to express these states positively or negatively, depending onour level of self-awareness and degree of control. Ideally, we understandourselves and others, and exhibit a positive stability.
“When one does not have positivecontrol over one or more of the seven states, there is a tendency to compensatefor the lack of control, typically with negative thoughts, actions and deeds,”Curtin said. “Control is then established through conscious or unconsciousrationalization as justification for negative behavior.”
While the need for a sense ofcontrol is universal and foundational for our comfort in the world, Curtinmaintains, if it not coupled with a sense of connection to oneself and others,it will become destructive.
“The road to insanity is paved withrationality, fantasy and paranoia,” Curtin said.
Emotional intelligence, on the otherhand, fosters empathy and ultimately compassion.
With this theoretical framework,students come to understand the reasons for their own choices, and the choicesof others.
Further exercises, such as those in Curtin’sportfolio assignment, task students with a variety of activities that call forreflection and re-orientation.
They must compile a list of strengths and weaknesses, thencompare it with how others see them. They must show appreciation to bothstrangers and those in their orbit, and reflect on how it felt and how theother people reacted. They must ask themselves difficult questions like, “In what ways are the advantages I experience disadvantagesfor others?” and “What am I afraid of when I am angry?” They must generate alist of ten to 15 ways that empathetic listening might change the outcome of aconflict-prone situation. In these and many other exercises, students learn tounderstand their own approach to conflict, and to find ways to make it moreconstructive.
The benefit isn’t a world without conflict, but a world inwhich individuals who understand themselves also understand how to address thatconflict.
The root of civilization
Criminaljustice isn’t the division of the human community into two groups, the criminaland the just. It is in many ways a dynamic and ongoing conversation betweenintention and action and the community standard of acceptable behavior asenshrined in law.
InCurtin’s view, self-awareness is the root of empathy, which supportscompassion, which is the key to being a good citizen.
Forstudents, the value of this process transcends the course, touching every aspectof their personal and social behavior.
“If we follow this logic we come to a place where we see the concept of civility being truly essential to concepts of compassion, dignity, justice, fairness, and democracy,” Curtin said. “We come to a place where civility truly becomes the root of civilization, and a civilized society.”