Greetings on this Thanksgiving Eve ~ I have a story to share.
Last week I was invited to facilitate an open space event for 30 middle school girls who were routinely engaging in verbal conflict. The time constraints were extremely limited: the sponsor (my friend and fellow OSLISTer Dave Frey) had been able to eke an hour and 15 minutes from the school day. The time period spanned the students lunch time, so we also had to squeeze in time for pizza. We both thought the time constraints were formidable, especially for a relatively high-conflict situation. After talking about the reasons to do it and the reasons not to, Dave and I decided to give it a go. We figured we probably wouldnt do any harm, there was a good chance the process would prove helpful in some way, and we might learn something that would help us expand our tools for helping students and using OST in school settings. A few weeks ago we opened space for a very successful OST in 2 hours, so we felt like we were in somewhat familiar territory. The theme the students chose for this OST was Unleashing the Drama. I woke up early the day of the event and spent some time thinking about what I wanted to say in the opening. In recent OST openings, Ive enjoyed inviting participants to take three breaths together. With the first breath I invite them to acknowledge and then let go of whatever they brought into the room with them: their worries, obligations, thoughts about past and future events, anything not in the here and now. With the second breath I ask them to increase their awareness of themselves, how theyre feeling, what they hope for during the time we spend together. With the third breath I ask them to think about and become aware of others in the room. I invite them to look around the room and notice who is there, and to recognize the wisdom and goodness of the people gathered there. And then were off, and I begin explaining the OST process. This has gone off quite amazingly well several times with both youth and adults. Ive observed people visibly relax during this very brief opening, and then easily enter into the OST process. Tried and true. Or so I thought. On the morning of the day I was destined to become a space invader, I pondered the opening for a good long while. One part of me told me to go fast: I didnt want to use any more of their precious time than was necessary to explain how the process works. Another part of me told me to go slow: to help create a sense of ease and calm, to give people a chance to get a sense of the vibe of the room before asking them to reveal themselves by posting topics. And I felt I needed to acknowledge the conflict that was in the room, to name it and invite discussion about it. And then I started thinking about what I had learned about conflict in the many thousands of hours Ive spent with people struggling their way through life-altering conflict, and I identified three things I saw in almost all those conflicts: people made assumptions about what another person had done and/or their intentions behind what they had done, those assumptions led to misunderstandings that multiplied and gave birth to additional misunderstandings, and those misunderstandings led to people choosing to be unkind to each other. Assumptions, misunderstanding, unkindness. I decided to adapt my three breaths idea to invite consideration of these three aspects of conflict in my opening. It seemed like a good idea at the time. (If theres an understanding out there about the kinds of things to say or not say in the opening, now would be a really good time to let me in on it.) Maybe it could have been a good idea. Theres really no way to know based on how very flat my opening felt because there was another problem I didnt know about until the whole thing was over. Unlike any other opening Ive done, almost no one made eye contact with me. The few who did were staring daggers at me. A few girls whispered and glared at me. I wasnt sure what to make of things, so I bumbled along as best I could, hurried to the part where I explained how the process works, and let them have at it. Topics were posted. Pizza was devoured. Discussions were engaged in. Quality of discussion was mixed. Time was very short, issues were intensely personal, and eating was a significant distraction. Still, the effort was made. Not everything was said, but it was a start. Closing circle was chillier than usual. Connections hadnt really been made. And then, the debrief. Thats when I learned I had invaded their space. In addition to all the other limitations we were operating with, there was a misunderstanding about process. In the planning session (which I didn't attend), the students understood they would be in charge of what happened. Im not sure how they expected things to unfold, but whatever that was, they thought, would come from THEM. So when I was invited into their circle to facilitate the process, their interpretation was that I was invading their space. They were surprised. And angry. At ME! (All of which is a good example of why I dont like the term space invaders. I think space invaders exist only in the eye of the beholder. Now that I've been beheld as one, I'm even more convinced this is true.) Come to think of it, we should have done a better job preparing participating adults beforehand. I was surprised by the prolonged advice giving of some of the adults who attended. Oh dear... is there a contest for how many mistakes its possible to make in a single OST? I feel like a mad scientist with way too many changing variables: dramatically shortened time frame exacerbated by food as a significant distraction, new opening, unintentional space invading, inadequate preparation of adult participants in an event intended for youth... And still... Im glad we did it. It was a new and interesting experience for all of us. The problem was named. The intentions were good. People talked. We all did the best we could with what we knew at the time. Thinking back on it, it feels good to me. I like the energy of movement and engagement, even when it feels more like stumbling than gliding. I just like the fact that we were all in the room together, trying. Julie * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
