A while back, I mentioned Christy Lee-Engel’s use of OpenSpaceTech in her classroom teaching and university adminstration work. Here is a bit more from another of her spaces…
“movement,and the space to move in, is the common center”
Last term, I had a class of around 50 students, more than half of them new to me. As I launched into my explanation of the objectives and parameters and expectations, etc. of the class, my colleague who was sitting in and I noticed that the students looked a little drab. So we decided to talk to them about how they were feeling, especially in terms of how healthy they felt in that moment (the course is called The Determinants of Health), one thing led to another, some students wanted to rearrange the room so we were in a circle, some didn’t, some wanted to discuss it and vote…
I invited them to just stand up. That movement thing. In a few moments we were in a big circle, and indeed some of the Bigger/Deeper stuff did come right up. Including some of the students being very angry with me that it didn’t turn out the way they wanted! I had already introduced the principles of Open Space and most of the folks took them right to heart, but one or two of them are still mad at me! I don’t mind too much–part of inviting that Bigger and Deeper stuff to come on out.
Thanks for posting this comment, Christy! All good, and all true! …and yes, I have been busy, mostly internally I think. So much so that apparently even simple blog entries could not escape the gravitational pull of the movements underway. [grin] It’s good to be back!