Last night I attended my own group and related the preceding story of getting one of my own students to take the group. I was a bit worried about saying anything because I thought it might be taken as a criticism or a demand that the tutor 'decontrol his assets'. It wasn't, I hope. The tutor made a remark about "the attention of the students" being the only important thing in a group.
I was most struck, though, by the difference that sitting in an arc makes to the group dynamic. The conversation remains like a game of tennis with 9 people on one side of the net, and one on the other: the tutor is 9 times more prominent than a group member. Even beyond that, though, the shape feels squashed and compressed by comparison with what's been experienced sitting in a circle. William Isaacs in Dialogue: the Art of Thinking Together speaks about "a conversation with a centre, not sides". That's what "talking in a circle" is about - it's not a "headless chicken" situation, but one where the intelligence of the whole group is active in the space between them. I can't see that the parabolic arc with the tutor at the focal point has the same potential.
What I observe about it is the way it can divide the students from each other. A very perceptive crack from a friend of mine was about the way people "observe against each other" - apparently philosophical comments that are in fact highly critical, and known to be so. I have never known a tutor to pick someone up on this, although I did hear a story once of it happening. In a way the non-response is a safety mechanism - everyone knows that it won't escalate into a fist-fight. The low-level pain is bearable by comparison with open humiliation. Harshness is taken to be an aspect of wisdom.
Another thing mentioned by William Isaacs is a cartoon with two frogs swimming in a blender, switched off. One says to the other, "And they expect us to be relaxed". The point of this, of course, is that it's much easier to tell people to be still than it is to address what you are doing that makes them so damned tense.
This is the dark place that we fear to look into. But just as we fear the dark, we fear the light maybe more. In the grey artificial half-light of the familiar we need not address our fear and guilt, nor admit to ourselves that at the bottom of the sea somewhere there might be a locked box with something like a heart in it.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Headless Chickens, Legless Frogs
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6 comments:
May I just say that I wrote this before the release of Pirates of the Caribbean II, which features a locked box with a living heart in it.
Any similarity between this blog and a ridiculous Jerry Bruckheimer video game trailer extravaganza is purely coincidental.
I'm rather enjoying the similarity - does the heart get free in the end?
The last paragraph of your post keeps on returning to me - the 'familiar half-light'. This is where a shock is so helpful - the trouble is you can't get one to order.
Yes, other people can cause fear but much of the fear - and I take very much onboard what you say about fearing the light as well as the dark - is self-generated.
Now that's another matter altogether.
We sat in a circle (more of an oval actually) for group last week.
Did it make a difference? I'm not sure really. People commented on it.
We've talked here about the centre of the circle. I did notice that those nearest the tutor tended to turn to her when they spoke, thus making it difficult for others to hear.
That could be corrected if we were asked to address the centre of the circle rather than an individual -the tutor.
I think it's something that has to be persisted with. What I found in this was that the group members were quite resistant to it, not obviously but subtly. Probably this is because it puts more emphasis and responsibility on them. Na found the same thing.
The tutor has to stand for what's right, whether or not the group are comfortable with it!
I think that what you suggest about addressing the centre is interesting. I'd like to use that David Bohm quotation with a group and consider the question.
Interestingly, I have a real old stager in my group - an 82 year old who was in the School back in the 60s and who has seen it all. He told me the other day that he thought the idea of one of the students taking the group was "rubbish", until he saw it in practice. Tutors need to accept that the students will probably be having these kind of uncharitable thoughts ...
There will always be resistance to change, that's inevitable. People may not always be satisfied but they resent change, they've got used to the status quo and accommodated themselves to it. It's a Great Tamas, that resistance to change.
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