Inquiry Education

How can I best help bring out the best in others today?

If You Can Dream It

Last night I dreamed that I was a competent and efficacious facilitator. I moved fluidly and confidently around the room, and I helped elicit the best from everyone present. The space was open and charged with energy.

I've never had such a beautiful dream before.

The One Who Stays in the Room

From John Ettore's blog Working With Words.

Working With Words

I need a room to stay in.

Two Turntables and a Microphone

We received a list of the readings for Harlow's class this week. It's perfectly reasonable and logical to expect us to do pre-reading, of course. However, with all that's due in other classes in the next few weeks, I have a distinct sense of being dumped on. Not Harlow's fault, or anyone else's for that matter. Just my 'perception of the day.'

I need to focus on completing the writing (and the project activities) for other classes and then concern myself with reading for Harlow. The danger is that I prefer to read. So it will be a struggle to buckle down for the writing and ignore the tantilizing books and articles that legitimately await my attention. See, it's legitimate reading . . . I'll just open Dinosaur and take a peek . . .

January Made Me Shiver

It's cold out there!

My car window is stuck, and since Wednesday I haven't been able to roll it down to access drive-thru windows. Until this happened, I didn't realize that I use a drive-thru two or three times daily to get my Starbucks, get money from my favorite fee-free ATM, or pay a toll on the turnpike.

Parking the car, opening the door, and walking across a frozen parking lot makes me think twice about how much I need that cuppa Joe. I notice that it hasn't stopped me yet, though!

We May Never Pass This Way Again

Now that Uncle Ted is gone, what will bring my cousins back to Ohio after everything is settled? The answer, of course, is nothing. At the funeral, we talked about staying in touch and family reunions and the like. If we haven't been willing or able to pull such a feat off all these years, what makes us believe that we'll be willing or able to do it now?

Super Mario Brothers

The kids lost Gameboy privileges until Saturday, so this afternoon they sketched and wrote poetry.

I once told a friend that buying Gameboys was the biggest parenting mistake I'd ever made. Those words ring in my ears, especially when I see what they can do when they aren't preoccupied with Yoshi eggs.

But first, are you experienced?

So many times during this program I have felt at a loss for how to move forward. Very early on I didn't even know what I was studying, or what the purpose of it was. I knew I was engaged and enjoying it, but I was clueless.

Last night during our family call I was able to draw on experience and come up with something useful to share with one of my family members for his project. It was a small thing, but it made me feel like I actually am gaining some efficacy with this OD stuff. That's definite progress. (For posterity, the learning point was around how to share and debrief survey results.)

I had lunch with former MOD Melissa yesterday, too. I enjoy spending time with her; she's insightful and we share this common language and academic heritage.

Blink

I listened to the audio tape of Blink this week. Malcolm Gladwell, the author, reads it himself, and his delivery kept me interested and coming back for more.

Definitely worth a listen!

Uncle Ted

With about a year between them, my Dad and his older brother Ted were constant companions and best friends growing up. Moving into adulthood, they took very different life paths. Ted entered the Navy at 17 during WWII, and my Dad went off to Ohio State to study chemical engineering. Ted eventually became a tool and die maker with a blended family (before the term was coined) living in small town Ohio, and my Dad became a chemical engineer living in the suburbs of Cleveland.

Despite the differences in their lifestyles, they came together regularly to celebrate family and heritage. At family gatherings, they would sit around the dinner table for hours and tell stories from their youth. Greek sailors at heart, in their middle years they both purchased big boats and shared a passion for pouring money into those 'holes in the water.'

Dad passed away unexpectedly in 1993. He was 64. Right now, Uncle Ted is lying in a hospital bed connected to a lot of life support 'stuff.' The family is gathering from all over the country - scratch that, all over the world - to wish him well and godspeed. Although Uncle Ted is sedated, and his eyes are closed, he reacts to our questions and inane bedside banter by raising his eyebrows and shrugging. His most animated reactions yesterday came when the 'discussion' turned to Chris (my Dad).

Uncharacteristically, I dumped everything at work yesterday and drove 3 hours to the hospital to be with my Uncle Ted and my cousins. Other than my Mom, I think Uncle Ted was the person closest to my Dad. As I leaned over his hospital bed to give him a kiss on the forehead, the force of genetics and culture and family history combined, and I felt powerfully connected to my Dad and this little cluster of people who make up my extended family.

We all know that everyone dies. So why are we sad? It happens! To everyone! The sorrow must come from more than the loss of the individual. It comes from the loss of shared meaning and memory and a way of life that really only exists in our relationship with that person.

Apparently I'm Gandalf

I'm not sure whether to be pleased or annoyed.

Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be All Right

Seven years ago today Sam was born.

Throughout my pregnancy I sang Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" aloud over and over again to calm and reassure myself (and Sam!). The morning I was induced, I asked Ed to play "Three Little Birds" for me on the way out of the house. He indulged me, which is unusual. I'll never forget how grateful I was at that moment.

Labor was pretty easy with Sam (thank goodness for the epidural), but I remember the look on Dr. Parnes' face when he told me that the umbilical cord was wrapped around Sam's shoulder. Dr. Parnes' moved more quickly than I'd ever seen him move after that, and Sam was 'extracted' at 6:30 p.m. He was all wrinkly and red!

Within a minute or two Max greeted his new baby brother.

Last night I watched Max give Sam a good-night hug, as he does every night. I'm so glad they have each other.

Senioritis

One word says it all.

Hat Duties

Today I was the 'Grammarian' at Toastmasters. It seemed like such a simple job when I volunteered for it! As usually happens, all my preparation flew out of my head when I stood up to speak.

Now you know why I joined Toastmasters.

WWaLD?

My favorite birthday cake is calling a meeting to call me on the carpet. I really, really don't want to attend, and I don't know what to do about it.

What would a good leader do?

Diva-lution

I'm drafting a section of the final team paper for sustainability this weekend. To refresh my memory, I re-read all of the previous project documentation we've created. It truly is remarkable! At the time we wrote some of our papers, I felt very tenuous and uncertain about what I was thinking and writing about sustainability and how we could apply our learning with our client. But what we wrote almost a year ago holds up pretty well to the more substantial and sophisticated understanding I have today.

I'm both humbled and proud to be a Diva!

Stop Making Sense

I hate it when people try to reason with me. Especially when they are right. Fred is maddening, *and* he can be a good friend. When he feels like it.

Amalgamated Tina, Inc.

Last week JP suggested that I am a "connector" and a "maven" according to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. Of course, since I hadn't read it I had to rush out and borrow the audio cassette from the library!

Having listened to some of the book, I think JP is right about my being a connector. It isn't that I 'know everyone.' It's that I know one or two people from a lot of different, disparate groups.

This weekend I worked on a project to connect the two MPOD classes with each other. Two weeks ago I worked on a project to connect the AMOC, CIGO, and MPOD groups. I like this kind of activity. As I said to JP, help me find a business model that will pay me for doing this sort of thing!