Dear Organlearners,
Charlie Saur <csaur@remc8.k12.mi.us> writes:
> I have been learning from your list for over a year; and only hope
> everyone who participates in this dialogue realizes how important this
> ongoing event really is. I thank you all.
>
> What moved me to begin my own participation was At's latest offering on
> fruitfulness. (As you may suspect, At)
Charlie, welcome.
You have made a begetting connection (effective contact) on
fruitfulness.
Last night I have been to a montly dialogue on learning
organisations. Of the eleven people there, three of them had
difficulty to participate. In each of them I sensed at least an
impairing of this essentiality.
> My ten year old son, Dan, has cerebral palsy and cannot talk or ambulate
> on his own, and has motor problems in his arms and hands as well. He is
> well adjusted and has a great sense of humor. We know that he is creative
> if you choose to observe this. It takes time and patience, and any
> emergence might rarely approximate the norm for his age. (something that
> our culture in the USA continually throws up as a measure of worth.)
I agree and will soon show you why. But first I have to deal with
this foolish norm stuff.
In my explanation of fruitfulness in terms of KMT (Kinetic Molecular
Theory), I have drawn your attention that only few out of many
collsions between molecules of two different reagents are effective
(plastic, irrversible and productive) and thus contribute to the
chemical reaction. The reason is that they must have suffucient high
kinetic energy and appraoch each other in a matching orientation.
When they have sufficient high kinetic energy, they are usually far
away from the norm. In Afrikaans we describe them by the word
"uitskieters" (outshooters, outcasts). In other words, fruitfulness
and the norm very seldom coincide.
Dan is definitely far from the norm of kids of his age. But what is
at stake here, is not Dan, but our theories and practices of
learning. Sould these theories and practices work for normal children
(which we know is actually not the case for many of these kids), it
is not a sign that these theories and practices are good enough
(effective). They are good enough only when they work also for kids
like Dan.
I want to draw your attention to the essentiality wholeness and
especially the associativity X * Y * Z of it. The Y is the "umlomo"
(mouthpiece, mediator, facilitator) which inproves wholeness. For
us "normal" people the physical world is an important umlomo to
connect our spirits mutually. In the case of people with serebral
palsy like Dan, far less of this physical world is available as
unlomo since they have such difficulty to interact with it. In the
case of a blind person a dog often performs as umlomo. What wonderful
friends of humans are dogs not? But in the case of serebral palsy,
even the friendship of dogs are not enough, neither even the
friendship of angels. Only the friendship of other human beings will
suffice.
I admire you and your wife for being Dan's friends and not merely his
parents.
> But recently, Dan came home from school with a coupon for a free meal at a
> local restaurant. He had won an art contest. We thought it was wonderful
> and congratulated him, but he seemed a bit indifferent.
(snip)
> Several weeks later, I came home from work to find a large painting and
> asked my wife what it was. She replied that it was Dan's winning artwork.
> It was a watercolor of a perfectly proportioned and painted giraffe. It
> was smiling profusely. In the corner was Dan's name penned in as
> the artist. Dan has not learned to write, nor draw or paint in a way
> that we can recognize objects.
What happened to Dan is most saddening and maddening. It is
episodes such as this which drives us to the chair of Moses.
Yet God command us to learn rather than to judge.
What can we learn form this episode?
Dan is a wonderful kid. Should the teacher gave him a voucher or the
picture, but not connecting the one to the other, Dan would have been
delighted for both gifts. But as you have noted in the understatement
of the year, "he seemed a bit indifferent". Dan knows that an
effective connection between the voucher as prize and the picture can
never be made. His knowledge of fruitfulness is far better than that
of the teacher.
> Not only had the art teacher who submitted the
> drawing on Dan's behalf not valued what Dan had to offer, but she had
> apparently assured that he learned a most pitiful lesson about the
> self-value of his own creativity. We asked Dan if he had participated in
> this artwork, and he shook his head "no".
Dan also have a fine sense of the essentiality sureness ("identity-
categoricity"). He is aware how much reduced his reactive centres are
and how much unreactive of the rest of his phsyical identity is with
which he have to cope. His simple shake of the head said it all.
Charlie, I am going into debt with you know. Please buy for me a
voucher and a nice big picture. Ty to make them slightly different
like a voucher for ice cream and a picture of a lion. Hug him for me,
give both to him for me, explain to him that both are gifts and that
they are not connected to each other, except that they are given by
the same person to show his gratitude that Dan behaved so creatively.
I think I do not speak only for myself, but for the majority of us on
this list. Somehow I will try to pay the debt.
I wonder -- if 200 others on this list express the same feeling for
Dan's excellent behaviour -- how will Charlie cope with giving 200
hugs!
Come on learning friends, send you name to Charlie, using the address
<csaur@remc8.k12.mi.us> AND NOT <learning-org@world.std.com>
and using the subject name "Hug Dan for me".
> My interest in the discussion of fruitfulness (and sureness) that you have
> presented At, seems to center on the possibility of suspending the
> judgements and assumptions you describe in your entry.
I am not even sure whether I remembered to write that we should
suspend judgements when making effective connections. If I did not,
then please add this to the complexity of fruitfulness.
It is most interesting that this suspending of judgement even applies
to the christian rebirth - the most profound effective connection to
be made. No judgement is involved when a person connects with Jesus
as the Christ. That judgement was finished off one day long ago on
Golgota.
> I would like, if
> you will, to go into that deeper; as it relates to all seven
> essentialities. When I suspect that with regards to the essentiality
> "Openness", open is being impaired in both Dan's and the art teacher's
> case, but I am not sure. I also suspect that this story represents a sad
> immergence that you have been so thoughtful in coaching me to avoid.
Yes, you are right, all the essentialities have played a role in this
episode. With respect to openness (I do not want to write too much
about the last three essentialities now), I want to note that Dan
may try to close himself up in order to prevent a similar thing
happening. That is why I want you to present him the two objects
again, slightly different so as not to confuse this event with the
previous one.
I have commented on wholeness and sureness above. Although Dan's
liveness (the "becoming" of it) is seriously impaired on the phsyical
side, the mental-spiritual side is functioning normally (in context).
As for immergences, Dan did experience an immergence. But please
remember, immergences are not bad per se. Sometimes we have to
destroy what should not have emerged in the first place. I think that
Dan will now have less trust in people now.
As for me, I learnt in 1969 a most valuable lesson: trust only God
while encouraging other people to become trustworthy, but not
trustees. This is just one of the many ways how God helps us to
become His friends. He is the Creator. How can we become His friends
if we care so little about creating. It seems as if He was very cruel
to let such a thing happen to Dan, but He knows how to guide Dan to
learn what friendship is about.
> I find that the assumptions others make about the "unreactive rest" of a
> person to be the cause of most misunderstanding and failure to create
> emergences. I have read of many models and attempts which try to clarify
> this phenomenon (ladder of inference, unconditional positive regard,
> Krishnamurti, etc) but see the essentialities as going deeper. How may
> this (giraffe story) be used as a model to help explain so I may move from
> tacit to a more formal understanding of your model?
If there ever was a case to be reported in Alfie Kohn's book
"Punishment by reward", it is the story of Dan and the giraffe.
The story is a perfect example to illustrate the difference between
identity and categorical identity. Very few "normal" kids would have
reacted in the same manner as Dan. They would have been delighted
with both the voucher (prize) and picture, thinking very little of
the fact that a lie has been created. It is because physical
emergences come much easier for them. But for Dan every physical
emergence is as important as a metal emergence is for a theoretical
physicist working at the frontiers of physics.
Dan will have to learn to live with it that very few people will be
able to identify him categorically. His "unreactive part" on the
physical side is a complete mystery to the rest Thus they will
conclude that Dan is mentally dumb. Consequently they will try to
overdo whatever idea they have just to make an impression on him and
others like him.
> Thank you all for this opportunity to participate.
Thank you Charlie for sharing this episode with us. It helped us
tremendously through the essentiality otherness ("quality-variety")
to learn more of the other six essentialitiies.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>