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<TITLE>Re: OSLIST Digest - 4 Sep 2006 (#2006-233)</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Times"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:18.0px'>On 9/5/06 2:00 AM, "OSLIST automatic digest system" <LISTSERV@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU> wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Times"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:18.0px'>My real fear is that all the students won't get it. I desperately want to<BR>
let go and let it happen, and I'm worried about what will happen when I do. <BR>
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Joanna, other newbies, virgins, and anyone else...<BR>
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How easy is it for students (or anyone else) to “get” open space?<BR>
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On occasions, when someone has arrived late for an OS meeting I’m facilitating, I’ve often seen the following. The person in question wants to get into the stream of things, so s/he usually seeks out someone s/he knows. Then follows an extremely brief exchange that usually includes a little pointing toward the relevant wall, a nod or two, and the two move off in different directions, with the latecomer heading toward that wall.<BR>
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I have taken all that time to provide as efficient and brief an opening as I know how, and then I see the whole thing delivered in about ten seconds to a complete newcomer.<BR>
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People get it, I think in part, because to participate in open space, there’s fundamentally nothing new they have to learn. They join some conversations, listen, speak from time to time, move around, eat something, etc. If we insist people “get it” on some deeper level that’s unnecessary for them to give what they came to contribute or learn what they came to learn, then we may be stressing ourselves uselessly.<BR>
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If less is more for us, it needs to be so, in our minds, for participants as well.<BR>
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So not only will they get it, Joanna, they already do!<BR>
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Ralph Copleman</SPAN></FONT>
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