Dear Tree,
ok, I smiled reading your first sentence: I have had a hunch for a long
time that nobody can actually understand what someone else tries to say.
And, even more interesting, or disturbing, if you like, I myself have
only limited understanding of what I myself say.
But there seems to be a way out, I think, and that is to relax and
listen with the notion that something new and in a way "common" will
evolve out of this muddle... if I listen. I find that the admonition in
the introduction to an open space event "Be prepared to be surprised!"
(which I translate: If you leave this event after it is over with the
same ideas and notions that you came with, you may well have wasted a
whole day/two days/three days of your life... just leave your ideas and
notions at the door for the duration of the event to make space for
surprises... when its over, take a look at your ideas and notions you
came with, and if they are still ok, keep them) is a wonderful way to
approach this paradox.
Regarding the question of children/childhood/ etc. that have been
offered in this exchange: Listening, it made me think of my own
childhood, of the childhood of our children, and the childhood of our
grandchildren. Those "childhoods" took place in very different "cultural
settings" with vastly varying different notions of the nature of
"childhood"... and heated debate on what it is that is good for
children... as if somebody actually knew! Ok, it seems to be an open
question and that makes it so interesting for me to listen to the
discussion and say my stuff...
I wonder what my observation about children (6 years and older) and
youths in opens space events might mean (its productive and fun), where,
of course, things are also agreed upon in Action Planning or wherever
and there are decisions being made. These occasions have been in the
areas of Urban Planning, Day Care, Elementary School, Highschool,
Children of Alcoholics, Conflict Resolution, Bullying, Integration...
and thinking of the "whole system in the room" meant not only thinking
of children but inviting them to take part...
Greetings from Berlin
mmp
Tree Fitzpatrick schrieb:
Michael, and other comments. .. I don't think anyone commenting actually
understood what I tried to say so I conclude that I failed to communicate.
Young humans are not yet fully evolved humans. What all young people need,
including the most precocious of them, including ones that get asked to sit
on the board of the Jane Goodall Institute, is to be children. It is only
by being children than humans can become fully realized adults.
The world needs fully realized adults to achieve our shared, highest
destiny. When we push children out of childhood and into the adult realm,
those people rarely, if ever, get space later in life to go back and fill in
the gaps of what was missing.
Michael, yes, indeed, children can bring a lovely element to any open space.
. . but that does not mean that it is right. Children should not be asked
to participate in adult matters. Ever.
The damage contemporary society does to childhood is a very serious,
long-term consequence to humanity. If we do not keep children asleep in
childhood so they might do the inner work of their inner beings, we will
have a human future full of unrealized 'grown ups'. It is casual,
nonsensical folly to bring children -- unformed adults -- into adult
discussions. It is wrong on a gagillion levels.
We are all so caught up in rushing towards the future. One thing we humans
cannot 'rush' is the slow development and incubation of fully realized human
beings: that development takes place in childhood. It is irrationally folly
to bring children into adult decisions.
On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 3:06 AM, Michael M Pannwitz <mmpa...@boscop.org>wrote:
Dear Tree,
from where I sit (public) decision making as presently practiced, for
instance in Germany, is ineffective, creates larger problems, is
lobby-infested, dogmatic, expensive, not even a good show... who would want
to be part of that?
What I have experienced often in "formal" open space events and in the
"normal" open space of everyday life (like the 1,5 year old daughter of a
neighbor visiting and taking over our household, very effectively involving
us in her life and experiments, curious, decisions?-easy for her....pure
joy)is that kids of all ages thrive in it.
But then, thats not decision making in the sense of sitting on a "board" of
whatsoever.
Day-care children, grade school kids, highschool kids, teenagers... are the
greatest gift to an open space event, so I encourage their taking part and
it seems to always have been productive, fun, healthy...
Have a great day
Greetings from Berlin
mmp
Tree Fitzpatrick schrieb:
There are many things off kilter in human culture. One thing that I think
is
off kilter is that adult humans now routinely encourage non-adult humans
to
participate in things like 'public decision making'. Where did we get the
assumption that a young person has the capacity of a fully evolved adult
human to make informed decisions that might have long term consequences on
the child, other children, the community, the culture, etc? Children are
not
yet adult.
We encourage children to 'awaken' to adulthood far too early.
I am appalled that many now take it for granted that children (a non-adult
is still a child) should sit on something like the Board of Directors of
something like the Jane Goddall Institute (whatever that is, I imagine
Ashley meant Jane Goddall).
This is a major flaw, I think, in evolving culture and it has endlessly
complex repercussions.
Children's job is to be children, to developo their own personhood fully
so
that they will one day take a place in adult community. Children awaken to
adult considerations much too early. TElevision has been a huge culprit in
this regard and now, of course, the internet.
A child's main work is being a child. It's just not right to cavalierly
get
youth input into decisioins that children cannot, just cannot, really
know.
A twelve year old, a sixteen year old, is not mature enough to make
complex
public decisions and it is wrong to ask them to: asking children to
participate in grown up life as peers with the adults dishonors children
I get my main attitudes about children from having sent my child to a
Waldorf School and having been a student of Rudolf STeiner for over twenty
years. Much of what is wrong with human culture can be traced to the
practice of stunting youthful inner development under the guise of
awakening
children too early to adult concerns. This is why we now have an education
system in USA that is focussed on test scores instead of the inner
development of children. There is a story in today's NYTImes about how
publishers are publishing less picture books and how parents pressure four
years olds to listen to long stories and skip picture books so they will
have better test scores later. . . this dynamic is connected to including
youth in public decisinmaking.
I know this is a very popular trend and I know Ashely Cooper is deeply
invested in the world and I know she is a good caring person intent on
making positive contributions in the world.
I get to have my opinion, yes? I am worried about the millions of humans
who are children today who are not cloud-gazing and spending their summers
hunting rocks and birds' nests and who are told, when they are twelve,
that
they can contribute to public decisions. Grown up humans have a duty to
children: to let them be children. Otherwise what we are creating is an
army of humans who are not fully developed humans who will make good wage
slaves for the elite billionaires running the tea part movement. Thinking
caring loving people should not participate in pushing children into the
adult arena while children.
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 6:51 PM, ashley cooper
<mail.easilyama...@gmail.com>wrote:
Hello Open Space friends,
I have fallen off of the OSlist for awhile, but I wanted to share with
you
a talk from a recent TEDx event that I hosted,
TEDxNextGenerationAsheville<http://www.tedxnextgenerationasheville.com/
.
This event was all about spotlighting the ideas of young people and
giving
them a public stage from which to share and be heard. It was also an
invitation for there to be more collaboration between youth and adults.
Chase Pickering spoke about the role of youth in leadership and how young
people can contribute to public decision-making and serve on Board of
Directors (which he did with the Jane Goddall Institute). If you are in a
position to invite a youth to serve on your board of directors or
advisory
board or encourage the clients you work with, please consider Chase's
advice!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27IJpZVP1qs
You can also watch Birke Baehr's talk about the food we eat. He is an 11
year old who is passionate about food and whose talk has gone viral and
been
viewed over 200,000 times in less than 2 weeks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Id9caYw-Y
Sending fondest regards from Asheville, NC, USA,
Ashley
P.s. If you would like to respond to me personally, please send it to
easilyama...@gmail.com . I have not been checking this account
regularly.
Thank you.
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--
Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49-30-772 8000
mmpa...@boscop.org
www.boscop.org
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 407 resident Open
Space Workers in 69 countries working in a total of 141 countries worldwide
Have a look:
www.openspaceworldmap.org
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