Distasteful training
CISV president says there was a significant misunderstanding
Two Newfoundland students have quit their association with Peace Bus after leadership training left them feeling uneasy about the organization.
Two Newfoundland students have quit their association with Peace Bus after leadership training left them feeling uneasy about the organization.
They say when they went to London, Ont., for training with umbrella organization CISV, they were disturbed by some of the methods leaders used to build empathy with children — including pretending to have disabilities.
But Mary Shantz, president of CISV Canada, said it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding — one she hopes to follow up with the Newfoundland students about.
The organization describes itself as “a global organization dedicated to educating and inspiring for peace through building inter-cultural friendship, co-operation and understanding.”
Among its local programs is the Peace Bus, which travels across Canada with youth delegates, stopping in communities to learn and volunteer. It also holds camps, or villages, around the world, bringing children and youth together from their respective countries.
Nicole Withers, a social work student from Mount Pearl, said at first it seemed right up her alley. She had taken part in Katimavik and thought Peace Bus seemed to align with that programming. But after taking part in a training camp for CISV volunteers, she walked away.
“I walked into a cult, I’ll be honest with you,” she said, laughing. “I was shocked by what they were doing and what they were playing.”
Withers was being trained as a Peace Bus leader alongside Tyler Colbourne of Nova Scotia, who is studying in Newfoundland. She said they learned of a few games they objected to, including one in which children are treated differently based on their imagined socioeconomic status.
“Then they play games like the psychiatrist game, where one person pretends to be the patient and one person pretends to be the doctor, and they act out psychiatric symptoms. So they have to pretend to be a psychiatric patient, and this is supposed to build empathy. But that’s not building empathy. It’s actually segregating people, in my opinion,” she said.
“As a society, we’re trying to move forward with mental health. We’re trying to move forward with inclusion, but they’re not doing that.”
Withers told The Telegram they also learned of a “disability day,” during which children pretend to have various disabilities, with the intention of teaching empathy. She said she learned children are also segregated by gender and told not to mingle, which doesn’t sit right with her.
“I just can’t imagine teaching children that. We confronted them about it and … they weren’t open to it. They said, ‘We’re not going to apologize for how we teach the children.’ So anyway, I came home and I resigned,” she said.
‘They’re not games’
Before addressing the content of the activities, Shantz wanted to clarify the use of the word “game.” She said CISV is an international organization that operates in many countries, and while English is the organization’s language, it is a very simplified version of the language.
“So when they use words like ‘games,’ they’re not games. They are scenario-based learnings, they are activity simulations and different experiential learning activities, and they call them ‘games.’ And so I recognize that that could lead to the impression that we’re trying to gamify social issues, and that is not at all what we’re doing,” she said.
“We have activities that are developed and they are monitored and continually evaluated over the years, and they are conducted in a camp environment by trained leaders, and then there’s always, always, always a debrief based on the activity, where the learning can be summarized and the participants have a chance to reflect on what they’ve learned and think about how they’re going to turn that into action going forward.”
Shantz said she doesn’t know much about the game Withers referred to as “Psychiatrist,” but “as with any other, it wouldn’t be a game where people are acting out particular mental illnesses. That is absolutely not what it would be. It would be you have a perspective on an issue and we’re trying to question you and find out, how did you come to have that perspective?” she said.
She said there also seems to be a misunderstanding about the activity referred to as a “disability day,” during which participants are given a challenge for the day, such as not using their hands or sitting back on to everyone. Shantz said children are not asked to act out physical disabilities.
“I know it is colloquially called that sometimes, but we’re trying not to use those words. But again, when you’re working with an international organization with limited language skills, those names do creep into the discussion, and when they do, we say, ‘Don’t call it that, that’s not what it is.’ We do the education and we continually work on that.”
Shantz said she plans to follow up with Withers and Colbourne about their reasons for quitting.
“I was aware that two leaders had quit, but I didn’t know why they had quit until recently. So we really need to go back and talk to them, because not only do we refine our education programs, we refine our training, and so — do we need to revisit this? Do we need to be more upfront? These leaders were new to CISV. They didn’t come with a history and understanding and the trust in where the program is going to be, so we need to work on that, and we will work on that.”