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<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Re: [OSLIST] mental meanderings - you got me going Julie (long)</TITLE>
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<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>Hello
All -- another great conversation and I've been following it for the last day or
so. Thanks for kick-starting it Julie. I have just taken the leap from a
Professor in a College to consulting -- couldn't wait til retirement for the
leap! I also worked a great deal in the public education system. And
a part of me agrees with what has been said. I also want to bring to the
discussion the hundreds of deeply dedicated educators who are offering
alternatives in their own way -- I met several while opening space in Fairbanks,
Alaska.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>On top
of my part-time consulting and facilitating, for two years I used Open Space
Technology for a Business Law course I was to "teach" in College. It was
interesting to watch students adjust to and embrace the process, and also those
who didn't want any part of it. As a transformative educator I also chose
other ways as well to explore curriculum rather than deliver it. I
delighted in using OST as one way, not the way. Parker Palmer and John
Gatto also have some compelling writing on education. In 1997 I
participated in a Spirituality in Education (Education and the Heart of
Learning) conference at the Naropa Institute. The transcripts can be found
online at <A
href="http://csf.colorado.edu/sine/trans.html">http://csf.colorado.edu/sine/trans.html</A> the
Dalai Lama also contributed.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>I also
noted in the discussion that Julie wrote: That by
providing open/safe/voluntary/equal space we're implicitly offering a new
set of rules and beliefs that can be approached and understood at the
level and pace each participant is prepared to
comprehend? </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>Is
implicit in that statement the assumption that when we facilitate using open
space technology that the space is open/safe/voluntary/equal? In my
experience as a facilitator I do my utmost to open the space, I cannot guarantee
a safe, voluntary or equal space.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>I also
offer here the words of one of my "teachers" Tich Naht Hahn -- they often speak
to me in my "inquiries":</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002>Instead of only criticizing our
culture,</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>devote
mind and body to practicing this simple way.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>Then
society and culture will grow out of you.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>There
should be no traces in our activity.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>The
trust is always near at hand, within your reach.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>Before
we act, we think, this thinking leaves some trace,</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002>activity is shadowed by some preconceived
idea.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>When
we do something with a quite simple, clear mind,</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>we
leave no notion or shadow and our activity is </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>strong
and straightforward.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002>Ciao</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002>Judi</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=510593800-30102002></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=510593800-30102002>
<P><FONT size=2>Judith Richardson<BR>Pono Consultants
International<BR>Facilitating the Flow<BR> of Inspired
Collaboration<BR>www.ponoconsultants.com<BR>(902) 435-0308
</FONT></P></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV align=left class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> OSLIST
[mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]<B>On Behalf Of </B>Chris
Weaver<BR><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, October 29, 2002 11:48 AM<BR><B>To:</B>
OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: mental meanderings - you
got me going Julie (long)<BR><BR></DIV></FONT>Julie and Friends,<BR><BR>Julie,
you have such a gift for spinning out questions that are both precise and
open-ended and tantalize us with the secret heart of the matter.<BR><BR>In
fact, your questions about education resonate so with what I am working on
these days that I am squirming with excitement, with the challenge of crafting
a brief response. Here are some of your words again, followed by my own
brass tacks & pigs ear...<BR><BR>> ...For example, they<BR>>
identify three simple beliefs/rules that are imbedded in our
educational<BR>> system:<BR>> <BR>>
Only experts create
knowledge.<BR>> Teachers
deliver knowledge in the form of information.<BR>>
Children are graded on how
much of the information they have<BR>>
stored.<BR><BR>Yes, I too
think that these are fundamental rules, or unexamined givens, that have an
enormous effect on how self-organization manifests in schools and school
systems.<BR> <BR>> They hypothesize that the reason most educational
reforms don't foster<BR>> much real change is because the underlying
beliefs/rules aren't<BR>> changing...<BR><BR>>...Hence, they say, to
deeply change the educational system,<BR>> we must begin by changing the
basic underlying beliefs of educators: we<BR>> must change those simple
rules/beliefs that educators self-organize<BR>> around.<BR>> <BR>>
Aye, there's the rub. I'm wondering if people here agree with that.
<BR><BR>Yes, I agree with the part of that which suggests, "begin with a
new set of simple rules" (shying away, of course, from the mission of
"changing someone's basic beliefs" - I'd rather set out to roll in poison
ivy.)<BR><BR>> ...Do we initiate the kind of change we desire by
challenging another's model<BR>> of the world and attempting to replace it
with our own, or do we simply<BR>> start with self-organization itself?
Arghhh..... scratch that<BR>> question. Faulty on too
many levels.<BR>> <BR>> So let me go here..... is it self-evident that
self-organization itself<BR>> (as we know it through OST) frequently
expands people's beliefs and<BR>> understandings and the rules they operate
by? That by providing<BR>> open/safe/voluntary/equal space we're
implicitly offering a new set of<BR>> rules and beliefs that can be
approached and understood at the level and<BR>> pace each participant is
prepared to comprehend? That the process<BR>> itself is the answer to
the problems we pose? Or how about this: That<BR>> what matters is
how we relate to each other, how we treat each other,<BR>> how we think of
each other. That everything else, every problem we<BR>> think we
have, is a vehicle for testing THESE questions.<BR><BR>Yes, yes,
yes...and...<BR> <BR>> I keep asking questions I know the answer
to..... so what is it? Just<BR>> some mental meanderings on a
malingering Monday morning? Don't know.<BR>> There's still that
unexpressed idea lingering at the edge of thought....<BR>> how to
participate politely and lightly in the bettering of it all.....<BR>>
finding new layers of comfort in the process we're in..... easing into<BR>>
and resting in the goodness and fullness of what we already know.<BR><BR>Thank
you again Julie, because these last words, that "unexpressed idea," is a good
articulation of a many-year search for me. The search has been restless,
because what began within myself was called into the scale of an elementary
classroom, and what I learned in the classroom grew into questions about the
team and the school as a whole, and what was accomplished in a school waited
and grew and ached for three or four years like a seed wanting to
burst.<BR><BR>You know that feeling? That longing for an invitational
methodology that will catch the right wind and dance in the air like a
milkweed pod? (I trust you do, with all the Open Space experiences that
have sprouted in Fairbanks.) So I have been looking for a way to
participate lightly and politely in the bettering of entrenched schools and
districts, and here's the brass tacks & pig's ear of the moment.<BR><BR>We
have a program called "Self-Discovery Days" at our camp. We marketed it
with a brochure, delivered to about a hundred public schools, all levels K-12
across an eight county region in the North Carolina mountains. Since
early September we have served about 1,500 students and their teachers,
primarily in one-day field trips.<BR><BR>One of our big objectives is, in your
own words, to provide "open/safe/voluntary/equal space, and implicitly offer a
new set of rules and beliefs that can be approached and understood at the
level and pace each participant is prepared to comprehend."<BR><BR>The process
is not OST, but it is a big step towards OST, and marvelous in its own right.
We have dubbed it "open learning process." It shares with OST:
opening circle, talking circles, 90-minute sessions, freedom of choice for
participants, philosophy of invitation, and equality (teachers participate in
exactly the same manner as their students). It differs from OST in that:
in most cases, the offerings, though open-ended and interactive, are
pre-planned by instructor/mentors on our staff; group sizes have maximums
(average ratio of 1:7); participants stay with the session they choose, and do
not move between them. Sessions are all experiential, in visual arts of
all kinds, expressive arts, cooking, outdoor adventure, gymnastics, edible
wild plants...whatever our instructor/mentors want to teach (and we are adding
new instructor/mentors all the time from the community). <BR><BR>Teachers have
signed up wanting a team-building, community-building field trip. But
day after day I have seen their amazement. What can happen with sixty or
a hundred kids in a single day based on a new set of simple rules is
astounding to all - including to me, even after many such
experiences.<BR><BR>We have recently changed our closing circle process into
more of a performance. We have met in a circle three times already in
the day as as a whole, so for the closing meeting we swing the benches from
circles into rows in our main lodge (a fire's going in the fireplace and in
the new configuration it suddenly looks like a church revival back in the
woods!) Each group is invited to present or perform as a group.
Students talk about the sculpture they made, or do back-handsprings, or
do a skit, or tell a group story, or dance. Teachers have told me
numerous times that their students open up, interact, and express themselves
in a way that they have never seen before in their teaching careers.<BR><BR>To
me at this point, what is significant about this work is that I feel we have
found a methodology for a deep experience of self-organization that is not
just palateable but quite delicious, digestable, and healthy for teachers and
students of all ages in mainstream public schools. The experience is
apart from their normal environment, but it is clear that seeds have been
planted and carried back, like wonderful burrs on people's socks, purple and
ringing like bells.<BR><BR>And of course, the leap from participating in an
Open Learning Process event to facilitating one is not so great a leap (we
have a training in development). And the leap from Open Learning Process
to OST, for adults or for youth, is a short leap indeed (we have facilitated
straight-ahead OSTs for high school student councils this fall too).
<BR><BR>Part of the palatability of Open Learning Process is that it feels
<I>safe</I> to educators because it keeps intact the structure of "teacher in
charge." To me, this is not just all right, but necessary. I have
personally wrestled and experimented in emergent curriculum, child-centered
learning, democratic schools, and the like for years. My current belief
about the essence of a natural learning methodology for humans is that:
young people need mentors; mentors need small groups; great mentors have
always been space holders; and the better their technical expertise with the
technical aspects of their craft, the better space-holders they are.
Being a space-holder with young people is a position of authority in the
deepest, richest sense of the word, and there are as many ways to do this
beautifully as there are people.<BR><BR>And that, in a community, the kids
need to choose their mentors. And that in the interactive play of life,
they mentor each other continually.<BR><BR>And that, through a rite of passage
(perhaps of their own creation and in their own time), children in a community
transform themselves into mentors...and then dance back and forth across that
boundary for the rest of their lives. Or something like
that.<BR><BR>Thinking Julie of your questions about to teach algebra or not to
teach algebra...I hope that by the spring we are facilitating events with Open
Learning Process that are on a specific academic theme (algebra would be just
fine), where teachers in a school get together, find some other adults who
want to lead workshops, approach algebra from as many different intelligences
as possible, keep group sizes small and session times long, and open it up.
At the end, you'd have a church revival about
algebra...(grin)<BR><BR>That's enough for this morning. I'm not asking
questions in your artful manner Julie, so pardon my pontificating...but
goodness this is exciting stuff.<BR><BR>Chris
Weaver<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>