providing information -- (long from Ed Ball)

Julie Smith jsmith at mosquitonet.com
Sat Aug 3 10:16:25 PDT 2002


Gosh, Ed!  Thanks!  What a great story.

This part of your story is especially useful to me:

>>
Visualize, if you will, a university course on intercultural
communication.  37 upper division students taking a required course.
The first class meeting was devoted to sharing the departmental and
university requirements for the course (typical lecture format) with an
assignment to come back the next week prepared to document for the dean
of the school the "contract" we would develop regarding the operation of
the class by discussing the question:

"What are the issues and opportunities facing the class in meeting all
the requirements for the class, cover the entire syllibus, document
performance for grading purposes, and LEARN the challenges associated
with intercultural communication in Southern California -- and by
extention to other cultural groups."
<<

Since I'm not the official teacher in the high school classes I'm
working with, I can do exactly the same thing, only have the students
report the contract to their teacher.  Ohhhhh..... this is great.....
the contract is between the students and the teacher.  I'm not stuck in
any conception of either role.  That means I can simply support learning
and being/becoming in whatever form it takes.  I can just be me.
Ahhhhhhh, the lightness when the hats and constructs fall away!  Thank
you!  :)

Now I'm curious..... given the openness of your approach, the students
could accomplish their goals in many ways, with much good energy, with
or without OST.  It's clear that the principles of OST are embedded in
the format of the class, but I wonder if you did the formal opening and
closing, the marketplace, and all of that.  (I can see how this might
work either way, and I'm curious how it worked for you.)

Thanks again, Ed.  I'm beginning to see how I might be able to structure
my work and define my role in a way that is consistent with where I am
on that spiral of expanding consciousness.  Thank you for this most
wonderful gift.

Julie

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