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Thank you, Artur and Uwe, for this thread.<BR>
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Artur wrote:<BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">>5. Finally, if changing tacit knowing (old models, values and habitudes)<BR>
>is so difficult, one must question if "training" (in any disciplines or in<BR>
>anything really) has any real value to create the free energy that will<BR>
>allow for old tacit knowing to be "unlearnt" and so replaced by a new<BR>
>tacit knowing? In other words how can we facilitate personal,<BR>
>organisational or social "metanoias"?<BR>
> <BR>
> I need not add that in my opinion the way to organisational metanoia<BR>
> is "repeated OSTs" - this also helps (but is not enough) to individual<BR>
> and social metanoias. I am still in search of ways for those...<BR>
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Let me share with you a description of a current project.<BR>
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In Asheville there is an organization called the <I>North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement</I>. The mission is about "life-long learning," community involvement, etc. The educational methodologies used have been traditional until the past few years, when one staff person began experimenting with "learning circles." <BR>
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The circles organized around a question or concept, and met for five weeks, without an "expert." The art of facilitation involved <I>generating questions that evoke stories from personal experience, </I>thus accessing everyone's experiential expertise. In light of Artur's posting, these to me are stories <I>that reveal the tacit realms </I>for the deeper understanding of both the listeners and the speaker.<BR>
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This learning circles program spawned a group that calls itself the "Transitions Think Tank." They are a powerful group of free-thinking elders. They heard about OST and invited me to work with them.<BR>
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On February 15th, this Learning Circles program will hold its first OST meeting. We have called it a "Transformational Learning Festival." The theme is "Living on the Edge of New Growth - What Sort of Learning is Relevant in our Lives Right Now?" We expect between 50 and 100 people; the majority will be retired, but all ages are welcome. One of the "givens" of our event is that we will resist straying into opinion, abstraction, and debate, and will ground our discussions in the practices of storytelling from experience, and crafting questions that evoke more stories.<BR>
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I share this in response to Artur's posting because our "festival" is a very deliberate attempt to, in Artur's words, <I>facilitate personal, organizational, and social metanoias.</I> And yes, if this event goes well, the Think Tank is ready to consider holding an OST meeting quarterly, with a multiple-group learning-circle series in homes in the community during each season in between.<BR>
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I also will share a fine quotation about this type of learning. The author is Chris M. Bache, Director of Transformational Learning at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. I don't have a link, just these words on a paper (from an article called "What is Transformational Learning?")<BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">THE DANCE OF CONTENT AND RESONANCE<BR>
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The stronger, clearer, and better focused the mental field of a given learning circle, the more likely it is that skillful inquiry will spark deep changes in people's lives. This is so true in my experience that I have become convinced that the intellectual exchange of ideas is but a vehicle for a more fundamental energetic exchange that takes place "underneath" the verbal dialogue.<BR>
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Everyone knows that words not supported by the energy of personal experience carry much less power to influence others than words which are. This happens, I think, not because the words themselves are different or are delivered with a different inflection, but because when people speak, they unleash a tangible but invisible power into the space around them. This power comes ultimately from our experience and from the energetic access that our experience has created in us. Our words float on this power, like a canoe floating on a rushing stream. Moreover, it is not just the speaker's power that is important here but the power of the mental-emotional-spiritual field of the entire group. The strength of the class's "need to know," the intensity and authenticity of their involvement in their own learning, influences the strength of the energetic stream that underpins our verbal exchange.<BR>
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In this playful dance of content and energetic resonance, ordinary learning sometimes crosses the threshold to become Great Learning. Education becomes transformational learning. What may begin a an intellectual exercise cracks open to reveal penetrating and timely truths. When learning reaches this white-hot level of intensity, old boundaries can fall away in seconds, old wounds can open and be drained of their accumulated poisons, the hard can become soft and pliant once again.<BR>
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</FONT>So, Artur and Uwe, I too am asking: What are the best conditions we can create for this to take place? Let us tell stories about what we discover.<BR>
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Warmly,<BR>
Chris<BR>
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-- <BR>
S P R I N G B R A N C H<BR>
<BR>
Opening the Space for Inspired Collaboration<BR>
P.O. Box 8234 / Asheville, NC 28814 / USA<BR>
Phone: 828 225-0007 / Fax: 828 225-0303<BR>
http://www.springbranch.net / chris@springbranch.net<BR>
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F A C I L I T A T I O N<BR>
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