the container concept: creating a sense of community in our communities experiential educators’...

The Container Concept:Creating a Sense of Community

in Our Communities

Experiential Educators’ Conclave 2014

Agenda/Flow

• Introduction/Context• Mission: What is a sense of community?• Vision: Why create a sense of community?• Strategies: Conditions for creating a sense of

community• Closing

INTRODUCTION/CONTEXT

We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time

-T.S. Eliot

Protocols

• Assume good intentions• Salad in the teeth rule• Make the experience work• Right to Pass• Others?

CONTAINER CONCEPT

Not all Containers are Alike

We Have Choices…We have Influence…

What are the qualities of your container(s)? How have you & others felt/operated in healthy containers? Unhealthy containers?

Mission: What is a Sense of Community?

From Group to Community“In genuine community there are no sides. It is not always easy but by the time they reach community the members have learned how to give up cliques and factions. They have learned how to listen to each other and how not to reject each other. Sometimes consensus in community is reached with miraculous rapidity. But at other times it is arrived at only after lengthy struggle. Just because it is a safe place does not mean community is a place without conflict. It is, however, a place where conflict can be resolved without physical or emotional bloodshed and with wisdom as well as grace. A community is a group that can fight gracefully.”

M. Scott Peck M.D.The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace

Thomas Sergiovanni states that “the need for community is universal. A sense of belonging, of continuity, of being connected to others and to ideas and values that make our lives meaningful and significant -- these needs are shared by all of us.”

“The people in one’s life are like the pillars on one’s porch you see life through. And sometimes they hold you up. And sometimes they lean on you, and sometimes it’s just enough to know they’re standing by.”

Anonymous

Community is consciousness of connection, combining and comprising: Courtesy, communication, collaboration, cooperation, consideration, caring, compassion, curiosity, commonalities, common goals, confidence, creativity, courage, challenge, camaraderie, and conceivably chocolate.

CTC Group, 2004

"… a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met through their commitment to be together.”

~ McMillan & Chavis, 1986

Vision: Why Create a Sense of Community?

• ACTIVE• AT PEACE• CARING• COMPASSIONATE• CONFIDENT • CONTRIBUTOR• CREATIVE• CRITICAL THINKER• EMPATHETIC • EMPLOYED• FORGIVING• GENEROUS • GET ALONG W/ OTHERS• GOOD COMMUNICATOR

• GOOD PARENTS• HAPPY • HEALTHY• HONEST • INDEPENDENT• INTEGRITY• LITERATE • LOYAL• MOTIVATED• PATIENT• PERSEVERENCE• POSITIVE ATTITUDE• PROBLEM SOLVERS• PRODUCTIVE CITIZENS

• RELIABLE• RESILIENT• RESOURCEFUL• RESPECT• RESPONSIBLE• SELF DIRECTED• SELF ESTEEM • SELF RESPECT • SELF SUFFICIENT• SENSE OF HUMOR• SUCCESSFUL • WELL-INFORMED

VISION

Creating a sense of community…

SUPPORTS LEARNING

Elements of Sense of Community

• Membership• Influence• Integration & Fulfillment of Needs• Shared Emotional Connection

McMillan & Chavez

Learning & emotions are intertwined

Fight, Flight, Freeze inhibits learning

Fear, embarrassment, frustration, boredom…

…can trigger fight, flight, freeze

Fundamental Elements of Brain-based Teaching & LearningCaine, et. al. Brain/Mind Learning Principles in Action

Relaxed Alertness: Creating the optimal emotional climate for

learning

Orchestrated Immersion in complex Experience: Creating optimal opportunities for learning

Active Processing of Experience: Create optimal ways to consolidate learning

Creating a sense of community…PERSONAL/SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

ThroughFOSTERING A SAFE ENVIRONMENT

Maslow’s

Hierarchy

of Needs

Retrieved from: http://two.not2.org/psychosynthesis/articles/maslow.gif

Security

Esteem

Belonging

Supports Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

See www.CASEL.org

Elements of Sense of Community

• Membership• Influence• Integration & Fulfillment of Needs• Shared Emotional Connection

McMillan & Chavez

Strategies: Conditions for Creating a Sense of Community

Conditions for Community to Develop• Intentionality

• Safe and Trusting Environment

• Balancing “Me” and “We”

• Ownership

• Positivity

• Others?

INFLUENCE

Safe & Trusting Environment

Intentionality

Balancing “m

e” & “w

e”

Ow

ners

hip

SHARED EMOTIONAL

CONNECTION

INTEGRATION & FULFILLMENT OF

NEEDS

MEMBERSHIP

Positivity

Intentionality is Key

Presenting activities do not, in themselves, guarantee the attainment of lifelong learning and skills.

The more intentional and systematic we can be, the more possible it is to achieve what we wish to achieve.

IntentionalityInvitational Education – a Container Framework

Making time for relationships

Invitational Education

www.invitationaleducation.net

INVITATIONAL EDUCATION

INTENTIONALLY UNINTENTIONALLY

INVITING INTENTIONALLY INVITING

UNINTENTIONALLY INVITING

DISINVITING INTENTIONALLY DISINVITING

UNINTENTIONALLY DISINVITING

Safe & Trusting Environment

Safe EnvironmentRelational Trust

Physical/Emotional Safety

• Physical and verbal violence has to be addressed.

• Ground rules and social commitments help in establishing boundaries.

• Instances of harassment, hitting, etc. though, must also be dealt with quickly.

Relational Trust

Relational Trust“one’s willingness to be vulnerable to another based on the confidence that the other is benevolent, honest, open, reliable, and competent.” Tschannen-Moran, M. (2004). Trust Matters: Leadership for successful schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. (p. 17)

“In the context of building a team, trust is the confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group. In essence, teammates must get comfortable being vulnerable with one another.”Lencioni, P. (2002). The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. (p. 195)

Balancing “Me” & “We”

Empowerment “Me”Social Commitment “We”

Empowerment [is] a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters power in people for use in their own lives, their communities and in their society, by acting on issues they define as important. —Nanette Page & Cheryl Czuba

Empowerment is the process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Central to this process are actions which both build individual and collective assets, and improve the efficiency and fairness of the organizational and institutional context which govern the use of these assets. —The World Bank

Youth Empowerment is the outcome by which youth, as change agents, gain the skills to impact their own lives and lives of other individuals, organizations and communities.—Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES!)

SOCIAL COMMITMENT: “WE”

The central message of the consumer culture in which we live is: You’re the most important thing on earth. You’re the heaviest object in the universe and everything orbits around you. And we’ve enshrined this idea as ‘human nature.’ Not remembering that most people in most places have had other things very near the center of their identity – the tribe, the community, their relationship with the natural world, or the Divine – something that gave them more of a sense of identity not obsessively rooted in themselves

Bill McKibbon (Interview aired on May 26, 2007)

OWNERSHIP

GOAL SETTING

The 3 ‘R’s• Routines

What are some routines you have in your setting?

• RitualsWhat are some of your family, cultural, or personal rituals? What are some of your traditions? What is a rite of passage you have experienced?

• ResponsibilityWhat do you in your setting to engender responsibility toward self and others?

Positivity

Reflections on the 10

• Joy• Gratitude• Serenity• Interest• Hope

• Pride• Amusement• Inspiration• Awe• Love

From: Fredrickson, B. (2009) Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive. New York, NY: Crown Archetype.

Positivity

1. Broadens our minds and our hearts

2. Transforms us for the better

3. Fuels Resilience

1. Asking questions and focusing outward (open to new ideas)

2. Connectivity and attunement of the team. More responsive to one another

3. Bouncing back from adversity rather than getting stuck in self-absorbed advocacy

Individuals Groups

Positivity Ratio

The Tipping PointFlourishing = 3 to 1

“… only when positivity ratios are higher than 3 to 1 is positivity in sufficient supply to seed human flourishing.” (Fredrickson, 2009)

A Place for Negativity

• Specific negative emotions help us focus and take action (such as in resolving or transforming conflict).

• Global and unfocused negative emotions overwhelm and poison us.

• The difference between anger and contempt or guilt and shame

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “the other is good – he is joy, peace, love hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

I am because we are

Yo soy porque nosotros somos

私たちがいるので、私は

Ako mao tungod kay kita我是因为我们

हम कर रह� ह� क्योंकिक म� कर रह� हूँ�Mimi ni kwa sababu sisi ni

Laurie FrankGOAL Consulting+1-608-251-2234LSFrank@mac.com

To download this PowerPoint, please go to my website:www.goalconsulting.org