The magic that happens...

Elena A. Marchuk marco at mail.nsk.ru
Tue Sep 3 17:24:59 PDT 2002


Hi Jully, I just answered Peggy's question, so you will recieve this both
letters at once,
and ... the problem is .. I never tried it with 'human beings' sorry with
students of the University.
When I proposed the course, I've asked if they have any courses like this -
No,
they were much intreaged and said that they are happy to have somebody
experienced in working with non-profits, with their management, as it is
still a new area for our country, though there are some courses in Moscow
trying to teach some NGO/NPO management for about 3 or so years.

The meaning of Democracy even not came yet  to our life changed to 'so
called democracy' and to 'so called democrats' - when they show the
parlament members beeting each other in face...

We did discuss a lot with many people, that there is no real democracy in
the world, but still some countries pretend to 'have' it. And I was very
much looking for the way of doing things in US, so did find a lot of
opposite examples too..

so OST for me is the way to show democratic way of doing things (untill we
come to voting....), though I do repeat the phrase Birgitt Williams told us:
It doesn't mean that the other topics are not important....

but here in the class of the last year University students, who mostly work
for making their lives while studiing and now they need to finish their
diploma work, ....just quick 3 hours event whether to talk on concrete
things which are interesting for them and to recieve the sence of
'democracy' or about democracy itself - the course I'm going to start.

Thank you for asking - some more thoughts, and I do have some time yet.

best wishes

elena



----- Original Message -----
From: "Julie Smith" <jsmith at MOSQUITONET.COM>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2002 11:48 PM
Subject: Re: The magic that happens...


> Dear Peggy and Elena,
>
> I'm just curious about the focus on democracy.  In using that term, do
> you mean the concept of "one person, one vote" and the idea that "the
> majority rules?"  I wonder if the concept of democracy itself can be
> limiting.  Kerry posted an interesting observation about voting in his
> post this morning.
>
> Elena, could you define the purpose of your class as an exploration of
> OST as a means for helping groups of people solve important and complex
> problems?  If that is the purpose, then you could approach the students
> as sponsors from the very beginning.  They could define the complex
> problem that is important to them, they could decide who to invite, and
> how to address the logistical questions (where and when to hold the
> event).
>
> If your students want to give the process a try in the classroom before
> expanding to a larger group, simply ask them to come up with a theme
> they want to discuss, and then do it.  If your class meets for three
> hours at a time, you could use one of those class periods to define the
> theme (and perhaps make posters), and the next class period to do the
> opening, meet in one or two sessions, and then a closing.
>
> Thanks for this interesting discussion ~
>
> Julie
>
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