Dear all, First, I want to thank you, Rachel, for sharing your childhood story.
As I am father of three children myself, this story somehow touches my heart especially and gives rise to some thoughts that I in turn want to share with you: >>From an OS facilitator's point of view, there may be laws and principles that help him/her to manage to open space to/for some people. From a participiant's view, in contrast, there is only something like a "gut feeling" about a certain event. And if asked what makes the feeling being good in a particular case, the participiants might say: there was a good atmosphere, respectful communication, good results. And, in addition, there was a great amount of personal freedom. If this all holds true, than the feeling about this event cannot be bad, I think. I therefore would call this particular space "open". (In contrast, when they feel uncomfortable, or cannot rise their voice loud enough to be heard, or feel under pressure, and/or results are bad, I would call the space: not open. I don't like to say "closed", so perhaps "narrow" is the best term.) In my belief, any event or process has certain open aspects, and also an amount of narrow ones. Any (social) interaction may produce good feelings - or bad or unhappy ones. Would you agree to say, that the degree of "openess of the space" plays a major role on the quality of the feelings about the corresponding event/process? And - at least from my point of view - this is also true for family interaction. (I don't like the term "education" because it implies much more activity (of the educator on the educated) than needed for a "good education"). In simple words: the opener the space, the better the kids feel, and the better they can develop. By the way - the best "opener of space" towards my children seems to be love. I don't know if this can be compared to a facilitator's attitude. And I don't know if it can be learned in a training - but at least the OST laws and principles seem to be a substantial part of what I do when I love. Good wishes, Nino * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html =========================================================== osl...@egroups.com To subscribe, 1. Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist 2. Sign up -- provide an email address, and choose a login ID and password 3. Click on "Subscribe" and follow the instructions To unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@egroups.com: 1. Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist 2. Sign in and Proceed
