Category: culture of love

Context for Group Process for Reconciliation (and other hard things)

I snipped the quotes below from Chris Corrigan back in December (Some things that work in real reconciliation dialogue – Chris Corrigan ), meaning to write more about it. I think it is too important to wait for my “round to it” to happen, so here it is. Chris is writing about reconciliation. In our current political environment (especially here in the US) this is becoming a core competency, and can’t be left to luxury. The BOLDING is mine, with comments between points.

Very small groups – no more than four at a table – meant that there was no need for people to “take their best shot” as they would have in a larger plenary format. Groups smaller than five reduce the performative nature of conversation and allow dialogue to fully unfold.

This is where I constantly get push back from convenors and people in authority. They want whole group for fear of missing out on something, or having something happen that they can’t see/control. Working with positional leaders to move past these fears is important prep work, and resisting their urge to derail small group practices mid-stream.

The questions for the dialogue were very broad. Sometimes the most powerful question is “what are you thinking and feeling about what you just heard?”

This was interesting to me as part of me seems to push for sharper, focused questions. I think I have been confusing sharpness and focus. Broad questions can have the stimulating characteristics of broad questions. Or maybe it is the invitation process (see next point.) I clearly have more thinking/learning to do here.

The invitation process is everything. We helped our client design an invitation process but she took the lead in going to each group separately and talking to them about why they were needed in the conversation.

The practice of “everything from the front of the room to all groups” had not been working for me so I’ve started to encourage very broad instructions at the front, then travel to each table/group. People use their questions to me to sharpen their own thinking and understanding. It is far less passive than just waiting for instructions!

There were no observers. Everyone in the room was at a table except for me and our graphic recorder. Everyone at a table had a question they needed answered or a curiosity about the outcome.

I just say, “Amen!”

There was no certainty in the room, no positionality, and yet, each person spoke about their own experience and their own perspective and listened carefully to what others said.

It was interesting to see Chris put certainty and positionality in the same sentence. Chris, was there a reason?

 … everyone in the room had to stretch their perspectives to participate. This was not comfortable for anyone, because this work isn’t comfortable for anyone.  It is literally unsettling. …there is a tremendous amount of emotional labour involved in talking about traumatizing history.

Here is the other area I need to learn a LOT more about. It goes to the whole other side of preparation, including self awareness and my own power and how I do or do not use it.

What are your practices for context setting and facilitating for reconciliation?

Singing our way in…

Back in 2006 I was a participant in a remarkable gathering called the Evolutionary Salon. It was  an intense soup of ideas, feelings and energy. In these contexts a lot of that can overwhelm me. Luckily, I was not alone. Chris Corrigan and Kenoli Oleari and I were doing a little music jamming and a response to all that energy was born. We called it Euphoric Bullshit, a gentle jab at our own sense of self importance. Originally it was just for us, but our four fearless hosts decided it might help shift the  energy on the third and final day.

Ashley Cooper (who, by the way has restarted her coaching practice if you are thinking about getting a coach), reminded me of all this with a link back to  the debrief the PoP facilitators did.  All of a sudden I vividly remember the moment (and almost the tune!)

I have always found that gentle humor, music, visual arts and dance can open up different channels of connection, communication and meaning making. So literally we can sing our way into better work together. (Speaking of singing, if you haven’t seen this, take a peek.) I need to make sure I keep weaving them in.

Digging around in an old thread in the Open Space email list, I found the lyrics. Um, impolite language warning… but know this was joyously and lovingly sung.

Euphoric Bullshit  by Nancy White, Kenoli Oleari and Chris Corrigan and 90 amused muses

We come into the circle with our passions and resolve
We each have a lot of issues that we really want to solve
But we all start a talkin’, and things get out of hand
So take a little breath (breath) and settle down and we’ll ease into the plan

CHORUS:
Euphoric bullshit is the name of the game
We take the sacred and we make it profane
You can’t come in, unless you bear your pain
Euphoric bullshit is the name of the game

We’re calling a lot of sessions, with various intents
Some get a little bit impatient as we sit upon the fence
But emergence growing edges will carry us all along
We are but one great voice in the universal song

Chorus
Instrumental break

Now the time has come for us to go out into the world
And throw our great intentions into the cosmic swirl
Hey you don’t need to worry that these things will come to pass
Because evolution’s arrow will kick you in the ass

Source: Re: open space poetry

If Teaching is Relational, How Does That Inform Online Teaching?

learningI was in my car the other day, thinking about all the workplace learning projects I’m currently involved in. At times, I feel like I’m moving a giant rock up a hill, with gravity being “lets push content to our learners.” I keep pointing to the importance of practice, context, reflection, informal learning. But I realize I have not sufficiently highlighted the importance  of teaching as a practice about relationships. About being human. About, liberation and yes,  about LOVE.

On our local public radio station, KUOW, ran a story about Nate Gibbs-Bowling reflecting on segregation in Washington state schools and what he is doing about it. At the core of his thesis was that teaching was relationship centric. His success with students of color was not dependent on his subject matter expertise, but his relationship with those students. If you have five minutes, take a listen: Washington Schools Are Segregated And That’s Not OK | KUOW News and Information

Nate’s experience in K-12 education rang a bell with me in my experience with workplace learning. To get the engagement that leads to gains in the application of learning, I use two things. The first is to work as hard as I can to make sure the learning offering has real, applicable relevance to the learner in doing their job. The second is to get to know them and use that relationship to engage with the learners to co-discover ways to liberate the application of the learning.

So if we believe (and hopefully can prove) that teaching is relational, what does that imply for online learning and teaching online, especially the proliferation of self paced, content centric elearning? Or worse, online teaching as enforcement and control.

It means we have to challenge the status quo of content-centricity! This does not mean throwing out content, but it means starting with relationship in the appropriate contexts.

My friend and colleague, educator Brad Beach of Australia and I have been having a years long, very slow conversation on what unlocks learner engagement online and if it varies by domain. I have changed a lot of my thinking about online interaction over time, both as I’ve learned and the environment has evolved, but one thing has always been central. Treat people like real, human beings. Use what the Dali Lama calls being “heard, seen and loved.” We may use the word “respected,” but I think it really is about love. But suit yourself! 🙂

A week ago during one of these conversations (they usually happen very early my Friday morning, Brad’s late Friday night) Brad came back again after working with some folks trying to do more vocational education online, with, as they call them in Australia, the “tradies.” He said “Nancy, you were right.” There had been a lot of push back that tradies don’t hew to this idea of relationship building online. Well heck, they do. It might look and sound different, that’s all.

I asked him, “so what does that say about the facilitation of online learning?” Brad, smart man that he is, answered “it is about good teaching. Period. Online or offline.” And together, our experience tells us that good teaching is, among other things, relationship centric.

handsRelationship Centric Practices in Online Teaching

So let’s name some of these practices. I’ll share a few of mine. Please share some of yours in the comments.

  1. Bring your whole self. A workplace learner is juggling many things. Compartmentalization takes more energy to maintain. Bring a little bit of who you are, and find out a little bit of who they are. This helps identify opportunities to liberate learning, often in unexpected ways. For me, a little goofiness goes a long way. Just a little bit.
  2. Bring your unknowingness and curiosity along with your knowledge. As adults, we are co-learners. We learn with and from each other through our conversations, activities and reflections. If we are “know it alls” we often block this co-learning.
  3. Bring human expression into all forms of communication. Use text based body language. (I’m jumping up and down in my chair as I read your response!) Add pictures and images (even silly little sketches) that not only contextualize the content, but our engagement with it and its application in our lives.
  4. Keep the content tap turned to low. This is really, really hard for me. Look at the length of this blog post. I’ll be working on this until the day I die. But pouring more on rarely is the key to engaged teaching and learning.

What do you suggest?

Edit on 2/11: Some related links:

Please Donate to Help Nepal’s Earthquake Victims

Give. Just sayin…

Next of course, my attention went to the question of “Where to donate?”   I received several emails from charities that I already support that do work in the area.   I donated to Save the Children.   On Facebook, I noticed a list of vetted charitiesshared by another trusted colleague who works in the nonprofit sector, Peggy Duvette.  I shared the article on my wall.   This sparked a few other recommendations from friends about where to donate.  Knowing that Robert Rosenthal had been working and living in Nepal, I was curious to see if he had any recommendations.  He posted a link to this Global Giving Fund, a giving network of charities in Nepal, vetted for impact.  In the thread was a comment from Nancy Schwartzsuggesting that we all share this wide and far.   So, I shared it on my wall tagging friends, many of whom re-shared the post, and made a donation.

via Please Donate to Help Nepal’s Earthquake Victims Now | Beth’s Blog.

Biscuits and Being Better Together

biscuittweetAll it takes is a tweet about grating frozen butter to make better biscuits to get me to click into a web page. And when I arrive, I find this most wonderful quote that can certainly apply to far more than biscuits. (Emphasis mine)

Sitting down to a plate of towering warm biscuits, with butter, sorghum and orange-blossom honey, we get philosophical on details, like placing biscuits so they’re touching.“When you’re touching, you lift each other up and you rise higher,”

Duvick agrees. But if they rise too high and slump over, they still taste good.

via What’s the secret to really tall biscuits? | CharlotteObserver.com.