Fred, your theme, caught for me by
>In very unpolite, enlisted-Navyman-chief-petty-officer terms, I called
>them liars. They had designed the structure of the session, I said, and
>that implied intent, which they were refusing to share.
and the enquiry from Fides which you quoted [with an example of unintended
gender bias that I cannot resist pointing out]
=======start=======
In responding to LO7923, Fritz Matzdor writes (in part):
-- Since then I have begun to think even more carefully about the method of
a learning event reflecting its end... Does this make sense? --
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[Host's Note: Well, I'm a little slow on the uptake after a week of
smashing the golf ball into howling seacoast winds, so where is that
unintended gender bias? Oh, yes... It's Fides Matzdorf, not Fritz...]
both make an interesting question. What does the spatial and temporal
structure of a learning event have to provide and can it be separated from
the intent of the designer?. I offer the question in the hope of
discussion about the deeper answers and not an exchange of 'our workshop
does this' type posts.
Manipulation [as per your example Fred] and incompetence or ignorance by
designers [as per your hypothesis concerning Fides' example] are two
possible causes of intended or inadvertent manipulation of the outcome by
the method. I guess another is that the minds of facilitators/ teachers/
event designers tend to be infected by particular patterns [or workshop
memes]. In terms of ends and means this is equivalent to saying that the
means have their own end which is their replication [I do not imply that
they have foresight].
In practical terms it behoves us all to experiment with ourselves at
times. As I write this and reflect back the occassions when I have
remembered to do that, or have had the courage to try something different
and involve participants in redesigning even a spatial structure, have
been the occasions when a different level of result got generated.
BTW - having raised unintended gender assumptions let me share and
acknowledge what struck me as a perfect piece of email etiquette from
Sudhak who began a recent message
>Dear Mr.Price (forgive me, if I am wrong on the gender)>
If Price
The Harrow Partnership
Pewley Fort Guildford UK
101701.3454@compuserve.com
--Dr Ilfryn Price <101701.3454@compuserve.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>