The story part3 ….I take the army seriously
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………………............... ..
There is an old saying in the military “Mess up and move up”
Actually that's the nice version.
Well, I was guilty of a few mess ups.
The first is when I told “The Old Man”. The Division Commander that that Battery Commander had called a men only meeting about the sexual harassment in which he told his men to not even talk to the girl. The Old Man relieved him of his command of the HQs Battery a week later, So much for his career.
Because of that firing he had to appoint a new Commander for the HQ Battery. Of all things he replaced him with an Administration Female Captain. OH! Noes!
You all know that I am not against women being in the military, however an admin person of any sex is not a good idea. They have never been in a combat unit and know nothing of how to run a field unit.
My Poor Ratt Rigs! Every commander that takes over a command has to pull an in-depth inspection on every part of the Battery. In other words every piece of equipment has to be field stripped, taken completely apart.
Here is where I had my first run in with her. I just told her flat out, if we do that to our Ratt Rigs none of them would work afterwards. She said in so many words that I was nuts. Very respectively I told her I would be the first at her desk to say “I told you so!”
Man did that piss her off. Strike one!
By the way I was right…not one worked……she was in disbelieve. No I didn't say it.
Sure wanted to though.
Next up Christmas time, The CO said that every one in the battery would work half a day, everyday through the Holidays. I went to see her again. Captain that's not being fair to our troops. Why not rotate them off one day and on the next.? My order stands Sgt!
OK, you know what I did, she went on leave and I let my folks off a day at a time.
When she came back she fired me! Mess up and move up! Let her worry about the Ratt Rigs.
Believe it or not they made me the NCO In Charge of the Division Education Center! Yay Wahoo!
As I was moving in the Ed Center, the Division Commander came in and shook my hand. Then he started laughing “I heard what you did!” That's when I moved you up here by me. “I needed a good NCO up here!”. He wasn't kidding either. The LT that was the Education Officer was a mess. OK! I kinda ended up the Commanders NCO advisor. I helped him get rid of the worthless LT.
The worse thing the LT did was not counseling solders when they had trouble, which was part of his job. Case in point, on a late Friday afternoon a soldier came in for counseling, he looked awful, he needed help. The LT told him to come back Monday. I stopped the kid and asked if I could help and he said no only the LT could help. 2 hours later the kid killed himself. Good Bye LT.
The C.O and I worked together allot……he did me favors…and I did some for him…..like being the MC for the Army Ball. Actually that was fun.
To Be Continued……………………………………………………………………………..
The Story Continues….........................
Being in the Ed Center was great. One of our main duties was getting troops to go to schools to help them make rank faster and to have better jobs. Yes, you know I looked for me too. I found one and it was right there at Ft. Ord. “Organizational Effectiveness”.
The write up was kind vague…”You will be doing things that will change the Army and make it modern.” Other than that a clip that said that I would clarify what each part the Army does. So much for that. That was tease enough for me. The only problem I saw was the requirement that I had to be an E-7 up to a Full Bird. I was an E-6.
I thought about that for awhile and came to the conclusion that it was worth a try.
There are always exceptions. The next day I went over and picked up my Military Records and headed to see the Commandant of the school. I got right in. He said no salute. So I stated my case and left my records for him to look over. He thanked me for my for my interest and said he would think about it.
Soon as I got back to the Ed Center, here came the Old Man. “You trying to jump ship? I just talked to John (The Commandant)”. Well, yes. I said. “We will see!” he said and left.
Couple days later I was called over to the Commandant's. This time he walked around the desk and said “You are in.” with a smile and a hand shake.
"By the way your C.O. Recommended you highly". I really didn't know my life was going to change so drastically.
To Be Continued………………………………………………………………………….
The Story Continues ……………………………………………………………….
I haven't mentioned a man that I had become very good friends with. He was a Chaplin's Assistant. He did counseling and visited the all the Batteries in the Division. He was basically a very good person. He had an IQ of around 160 and it was evident by the things he did. Jo and I had just started dating on and off and we went to see him a few times at his home. He had raised his two kids by himself. You could not tell them apart! It was so bad you couldn't tell which was male or female. They looked like clones! They even had the same tone of voice. They were great kids, but strange. A boy and a girl.
He had been an E-6 for 15 years. Not much upward advancement for Chaplains Assistances. The school that I was going to had not started yet, so I was just hanging around in the Ed. Center. He stopped by and asked if I thought that the “Old Man” would let us see the new promotion list before it was released. I said let's go see.
The Commander let us see it. I really wasn't too interested…..I hadn't thought much about getting promoted. His name was not on the list, but mine was! In two days I would be an E-7!! We thanked the Commander and left. My friend was white as a sheet. He went home and went to bed. I felt terrible for him.
This was a changing point for me. First it dawned on me, I may have gotten in to my school anyway. However I think I had made a good impression doing what I did to get in.
Then I realized I was high enough in rank that when I retired I would have a pretty good retirement. That was the day I quit smoking weed. No use taking chances now.
A bit more about my friend. He started applying for different schools. He got one and learned to speak German. Then he applied for attaché duty. He went to embassy school in Washington. After that they sent him to Belgium. He made E-7 and they gave him a beautiful house in Belgium all expenses paid. He and his kids loved it.
To Be continued………………………………………………………………………..
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………………..
Finally it was time to start my new school. From day one it was evident that this was no typical Army School, We had 501 students.
The Commandant welcomed us all and then he surprised us. “Gentlemen and Ladies,
there will be no rank differences!” “Everyone will go by their first names!”
That brought a rush of talking and grousing. We had from O-6’s to E-7s in the course. Obviously some of the older high ranking officers were not buying into that rule.
I thought to myself “This is going to be fun”. Little did I know!
The Commandant was quite for a while, letting his opening remarks be digested.
Then he looked at me and said to me “Mr. XXXXXX” please come up here with me”.
I guess he remembered me because I had asked for a wavier. I thought to myself “Oh! Boy! First out of the box!”
When I was up on the stage he handed me a microphone and said “Please give me a 5 minute summary of Ducks”. Say what?
Luckily I had 3 ducks when I was a kid in Arkansas, so I did five minutes on Huey, Dewy, and Louie. I was yammering on and he stopped me. He thanked me with a “Well Done!” and called the next person. This went on for the full first day and everyone had a go at it. Some were good and some were awful. That was the end of the first day.
The second day. There was 380 of us left. He had immediately cut that many students and some of the older Officers choose to go home, they were having no part of this.
This whole day was strange. We played the old “What you be?” game.
He called a few students at a time to the stage, Then he gave them a story that they had to describe what kind of animal that they would be after hearing the story.
The first story went like this:
You woke up in the morning and the sun was shinning across your bed. You dressed and went down stairs, your spouse had a wonderful smelling breakfast ready and the kids were there ready for school. Your spouse gave you big kiss and off you went. As luck would have it, you hit nothing but green lights and arrived early at work. What kind of animal would you feel like?
The answers were these animals. A frog. A bushy lazy cat. A zebra. An Owl. A happy puppy. A race horse. That was jus a few of the answers.
Then he told the next story to them.
You woke up in the morning and it was raining outside. You couldn’t find you slippers, in fact, where were your shoes? You heard a commotion downstairs, so you went down to see what was happening. Breakfast was not ready and the kids were late for school. It was getting late so you got in your car and backed over one the kids bicycles. Your car had a new dent too. On the way to work some SOB pulled right in front of you and you had a screaming bout with the other driver. You didn’t make one green light the whole way to work. When you did get to work, some ass had taken your parking space.
What kind of animal would you be then?
The answers were. A Python. A Skunk. A Bear. A lion. A wildcat. A porcupine. You get the idea.
The whole point was we could be different kinds of animals depending on what had happen to us that day. If this sounds meaningless, don’t believe that at all. Later in the real world we used it as a tool. In change of commands, it was very important to know what the CO was. If he was an Owl in most situations and his next in command was a Lion, look out! The second in command would actually be the mover and shaker of the unit...
That folks was day two.
Day three we had 180 people left. Some just didn’t get it. I remember thinking “How many are going to be left tomorrow?”.
To be continued……………………………………………………………………….
Warning! The following post has some sexual content. It may offend some people!
Now, everyone will read it! Knowing you folks!
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………………..
The third day of School.
They divided the 180 folks that were left into smaller groups of 20.
All throughout the course we had special speakers come in and tell us about their theories and experiences about all kinds of things. Remember this was quite a while ago and some of the subjects were just turning into actual sciences. For the time it was mostly cutting edge technologies. Unfortunately some of the things we were exposed to never went anywhere.
The first group that I was in was a class on Body Language.
I was astounded by the whole thing. At the time I had no idea of how you could read from people's bodies. We all read body language with out knowing it, it's kind of second nature to us. Obviously we all know when someone is ready to fight. Truthfully, if you know what to look for, you can tell whether a person is introverted, open, available, friendly, not friendly, having a bad day or a good one. The list is long.
Once the Speaker introduced himself and his subject, he asked if any of us had seen any men and women getting together in what would be considered a "Romantic Way" during the first two days of school.
5 hands went up, including mine. He picked a woman to answer his question.
She said that she had noticed in the very first hour that a woman and a man couldn't keep their eyes off each other. By the third hour they were sitting together. At the end of the day they left together. The second day he had his arm loosely around her. When they left for the day, she was holding his arm.
That was the couple I had seen. It turned out there was another couple in a different part of the large group that did almost the same thing.
I thought to myself “Wow! I can read body language!” Only very basically, I found out.
Actually we were using another kind of process called "Group Dynamics" with out knowing it. We had been watching the content of the meeting with some of our brain and with another part we were watching process. In other words some of our brain was listening to folks talk about ducks, owls, coffee machines and what ever their subjects were the first day. The second day the content was “good day….bad day” and the process was watching the things that were happening between people.
This process/content thing drove some folks right out of the school. For some they just couldn't get the hang of it for a long time. Try it yourself. Next time you go to Mickey D’s or the Big Depot were we get allot of our supplies from.
Watch the content, a store doing business. Then look at the process of how it is getting done. I know some of you have thought to yourselves “I could run this place better than they are!”. Unconsciously you were doing process and content. This was invaluable when doing Organization Effectiveness. More on that later.
Body language is very informative in all sorts of ways. Being me, I really locked in on how to tell if you were getting some where with opposite sex. He gave us an example of men trying to pick up ladies. That had us cracking up. It didn't matter if it was a church meeting or a bar, we men do some strange things. Watch the process in action. By the way women are just as bad or good, depending on your outlook.
A man usually looks for something to lean on. If he's wearing a suit, he will unbutton the jacket. Then he will put his thumbs under his belt and spread his hands out and down, making a circle around his crouch. Yep, he's pointing out the good stuff, he thinks. He might slightly flex every once in a while to show off too. If all that doesn't work, he pulls up his socks? If that fails he will try to talk to any woman he thinks was watching him. No joke.
Women on the other had will primp. They sit with crossed legs showing a bit of leg. The uncrossing and crossing of legs can be quite spectacular. Then there's the hair, they touch it allot. Sometimes giving it a great shake and puffing it up. I'm beautiful. They lean back allot too, got to get the old chest out there. You get the idea.
My favorite was the straight on approach. Just walk up and start talking to a Lady.
If she turns full face to you…keep talking and it doesn't seem to matter what you're taking about. She is not interested. If she turns half towards you, forget it, she's not interested. You could talk all day and never get anywhere.
Me personally, I like the lady's in Biloxi Mississippi. Both times I've been down there they just walk up and say “I like you” and away you go!.
My bad, I getting a bit off track here. Actually, I haven't really; we do this stuff all the time. Being able to see it, is the point. I've kind of did it this way so you can see the behaviors of people in everyday life and how important it is to read people. Jo is a natural at it. She reads people like a book at times.
If you are in a meeting and you look at people's body language, you can tell if you're getting things across or not. If the person you are talking to looks out the window occasionally, you better change your approach. There you go, content and process.
One other thing about body language. It's called being incongruent. Sure wish I had known this back when I was with RS. Sometimes she would say things and I didn't realize why I felt so funny. She was saying one thing and her body was saying something else. Now I realize why I felt funny around her sometimes. What she was saying was not what she felt. Live and learn.
To Be Continued ……………………………………………………………………….
The Story Continues………………………………………………………………..
One of the most interesting special classes they gave us was Neurolingustics.
Neurolingustics is the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language. As an interdisciplinary field, Neurolingustics draws methodology and theory from fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, neurobiology, communication disorders, neurophysiology, and computer science. Researchers are drawn to the field from a variety of backgrounds, bringing along a variety of experimental techniques as well as widely varying theoretical perspectives. Much work in Neurolingustics is informed by models in psycholinguistics and theoretical linguistics, and is focused on investigating how the brain can implement the processes that theoretical and psycholinguistics propose are necessary in producing and comprehending language. Neurolinguists study the physiological mechanisms by which the brain processes information related to language, and evaluate linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, using aphasiology, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and computer modeling.
OK, that is the definition from Wikipedia. As you can see, it covers many different aspects of communications between individuals. The discipline has gone far beyond what we used it for. If I were young this would be something I would consider looking at in a serious way. There are even folks working on Neurolingustics as a program language for better communications between individuals. Programming minds to take in all visual, emotional, and the other activities that make communications possible.
This is much more than we used it for. It was in its infancy when we studied it.
Our main interest was reading people's facial expressions. If they are lying, making something up on the spur of the moment, remembering something they had visualized before, or just didn't know an answer.
If you asked a question that people had thought of before, they will look up. Sorry, I've forgotten most of it. It's been years since I have put it into practice. If they looked down to the right and tell you something, most likely they were lying. You get the idea. If you're interested you will have to dig through a Neurolingustics site for the answers. I believe they gone much further in this part of the science today. I'm just telling you that it works.
There are many things that you can do to your body language to get folks to talk more openly to you. If you have had training in conducting personal interviews, you are using part of this science.
Body language is very important. Sit with arms and legs not crossed……you are open and non-threatening. Sometimes mimicking a person helps too. Sit like they do, cross your legs the way they do, it makes folks trust you.
If you're in sales like Closet Farmer, knowing this information is a must. He's been successful in sales for a long time, so he has practiced this for years.
One can also pick up hints on how the person you're taking to receives information. They will actually tell you how the best way to present information to them. Listen to what they say.
If they are like me and visual, they will say things like “I can see that”. “Paint me a picture of that” and so on. Obviously, show them information in a visual way. They will really understand you.
If they are tactile. “I feel what you mean” or “I can't feel it”. Then give them something they can touch and hold on to.
If they are audible. Then talking is how they process information. Don't show them pictures, or give them something to hold, just talk.
By the way, listen to your boss or your spouse, they will unconsciously tell you how to really exchange information with you. Speak their language to them. You may find you will get along much better.
To be continued…………………………………………………………….
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The Story Continues…………………………………………………………………..
Group Dynamics or Group Processing
Group dynamics is the study of groups, and also a general term for group processes. Relevant to the fields of psychology, sociology, and communication studies, a group is two or more individuals who are connected to each other by social relationships. [Forsyth, D.R. (2006) "Group Dynamics"] Because they interact and influence each other, groups develop a number of dynamic processes that separate them from a random collection of individuals. These processes include norms, roles, relations, development, need to belong, social influence, and effects on behavior. The field of group dynamics is primarily concerned with small group behavior. Groups may be classified as aggregate, primary, secondary and category groups.
In organizational development (OD), or group dynamics, the phrase "group process" refers to the understanding of the behavior of people in groups, such as task groups, that are trying to solve a problem or make a decision. An individual with expertise in 'group process, such as a trained facilitator, can assist a group in accomplishing its objective by diagnosing how well the group is functioning as a problem-solving or decision-making entity and intervening to alter the group's operating behavior.
Because people gather in groups for reasons other than task accomplishment, group process occurs in other types of groups such as personal growth groups (e.g. encounter groups, study groups, prayer groups). In such cases, an individual with expertise in group process can be helpful in the role of facilitator.
Well researched but rarely mentioned by professional group workers, is the social status of people within the group ( (i.e., senior or junior). The group leader (or facilitator) will usually have a strong influence on the group due to his or her role of shaping the group's outcomes. This influence will also be affected by the leader's sex, race, relative age, income, appearance, and personality, as well as organizational structures and many other factors.
OK. That's the official take on group Dynamics. If you are company or any body of folks that are trying to accomplish a goal or a task by doing so in a group it is a slice of group dynamics. Our groups in school were sometimes led by a Facilitator. In the next part of the story, I’ll talk about them in detail. Facilitators can handle many kinds of tasks.
The way we introduced group processing was to gather a group of people to solve a problem. The very first thing we did was give a group a task to solve. Mainly the first session was an ice breaker to get the group to interact with each other.
There can be many groups working on the same problem and then talk about how each group solved the problem after it was over.
OK. We would gather a group together and had them printed paper explaining what must be done.
Actually in their first group session we handed them both a written instruction sheet and a box containing a task to accomplish.
It went something like this:
Your first task is to elect a leader. Once this is accomplished open your box and start working on the task as per the instructions inside.
The Instructions inside the box also listed what was in the box.
A pair of scissors
18 rubber bands of different sizes.
A roll of string
6 Balloons.
Scotch tape.
4 8 x10 pieces of card stock.
16 paper clips of assorted sizes
2 rubber insoles for a pair of size 9 men’s shoes.
8 chopsticks
1 Fresh egg
Your task is to create something that will allow you to drop the egg from a height of 4 feet and not break the egg. You can also make secondary items out of what is left, which will give your project more value. You have one hour from now to finish this task.
The day we did this first group task, all groups that were left did the same task.
Usually two members of our staff walked in and out of the groups to observe “What and how things were getting done.”
I'll stop here and let you think of what went on in the groups and how they did their tasks
To be continued………………………………………………………………………..
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………..
The results of the first task they gave the groups.
There are some things that happen in all groups, especially with their first task.
“The Egg” was ideal for watching what happened and to see how people assumed roles.
Almost every new group has some people in them that show typical roles people assume naturally. Modern Group Dynamic pundits have really confused something that’s pretty darn basic. Roles that people assume naturally are these:
Invariably there is some one who wants to be the leader.
Someone will pull out some paper and will start taking notes = The Recorder
There will be one who watches the time = the Time Keeper
Others will kind drift along and really aren’t part of the group. We say they are in “Inclusion”. They want to be part of the group, but feel left out. They fade away.
A good leader/team will pull them back into the group and make sure that they feel needed.
I want to talk about one particular group for a minute. It was so unique it had to be dealt with. I have worked with many groups of all kinds; this was a one and only kind of group. They could not elect a leader. After a verbal fight between two strong willed people. It was between a woman and a man.
The school gave the group 15 more minutes to elect a leader. They failed.
The school expelled them both on the spot. Neither was willing to take one for the group and defer to the other. No win-win here. You can rest assured a letter was sent to their Commanders.
They gave that group another hour to complete the task. They elected a leader immediately. They did well on the task too.
Sending that pair home was the last cut. We were on our way to graduating.
That left 160 of us and we would all graduate. We would be sent all over the world
in teams of 4. That meant there would be 40 locations that had an OE team.
Back to Group Dynamics.
Which is to say, back to process/content.
The Egg exercise was a way to break the ice in each group. Each group elected/decided on a leader. Once that was done, they could come up with ideas to save the egg.
The recorder would write it all down. Once that was done they picked the strategy that they would use and what extra items they could make. The observers watched us
work on the content = getting the egg protected. The process was how we came together as a group to succeed. If they saved the egg didn’t matter at all. They just watched us as a new team. It mattered to us….big time.
After the hour was up they had all the groups meet in a large room and show them what we had come up with. Most of it was hilarious. Most broke the egg. Two groups did save the egg and were roundly applauded. Both had used the same strategy. Using the balloons as a cushion. The tie breaker came down to what extra items we had made.
One of the groups had made a paper airplane out of the card stock and rubber bands and it flew across the room.
Everyone was having a good time and they had succeeded in making each group cohesive and a team. That afternoon and for a few more days, they gave us many more tasks to complete. Each group got better and faster with each task. The last day, I remember the feeling in my group. Bring it on, we are ready and we were. Our group felt that no matter what they gave us, we could do it.
Later after working with groups in the field for a while, I was still amazed at what a group could accomplish.. .
Next up……..how to facilitate groups in action.
To be Continued…………………………………………………………………………
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………………….
Facilitation
Prior to a meeting, facilitators:
Research the meeting before it happens
Find out the purpose and goal (if any) of the meeting
Establish who needs to attend
Draw up a draft agenda and design the group processes to attain the necessary results
Share the agenda with potential attendees, changing it as necessary
Ensure everyone gets fully briefed for the meeting and that everyone knows the purpose and potential consequences of the meeting
During the meeting, facilitators:
Monitor the agenda
Keep time
Manage the group process
Encourage participation from all attendees
Help participants understand different points of view
Foster solutions that incorporate diverse points of view
Manage participant behavior
Create a safe environment
Teach new thinking skills and facilitate structured thinking activities
The facilitator may write up and publish the results of the meeting to everyone concerned including those who could not attend.
The above are some of the things that Facilitators do. That's the rough outline of what we would follow, however we actually simplified it in the Army. We knew ahead of time what results we were looking for.
Let's take a real world example.
When a new Base Commander takes over a new Command, historically the Command losses almost a year of efficiency. The worse part happens at the six month period.
So we would hold a meeting to try to help the command from losing this valuable time.
When the local Marine Base here in Hawaii changed Commanders, he lasted 6 months and then was fired. We could have helped him I'm sure, it's too bad. At that level his career is essentially over. He probably was asked to retire.
Any move, no matter who you are, is a big stress time for any family. New job, new home, new schools for the children and the wife has many obligations to join and chair The Officer's Wives group. You get the idea.
As soon as we possible could, we would get the new Commander and his staff of Officers and the Command Sgt. Major into a large group. The process usually only took one day.
I loved doing these kinds of groups, we would see immediate results.
OK, the meeting!
Usually 2 facilitators worked as a team and no one was the boss.
We always had a stand holding newsprint paper……..we carried them everywhere we went. Those were the staple of our business. One person would ask open ended questions of the group and the other would write all the answers on the newsprint paper.
A closed end question would be like this…….How do you like your job?
Asking something like this was a waste of time. The answers would be short and would have no real meaning.
Instead, How about this one as an open ended question?
If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?
Believe me everyone knows an answer to that question! We would fill up pages on our newsprint paper.
The new Commander would have the option of watching the process or not.
Some only wanted to see the results. That was the option most wanted to see.
The First Session
The entire staff that was mentioned above would be there.
We would introduce ourselves and would ask the first question.
What does the new Commander need to know about this organization?
We wrote down every answer. We were not there to judge. Every answer was equal.
When we had everyone's answers, we would then ask the group to put the answers in a prioritized list. Which answers were more important?
Depending on how long this took we would either break for lunch or have the Commander come in and ask questions about the list and get more specific answers.
Sometimes we would go back in a group to get the answers to some of the more important questions. This would continue until everything was clear.
Doing this usually shorted the time the organization would be back up to speed to 4 months.
I'll be back soon to go into other things we facilitators would do as part of our jobs.
To Be Continued………………………………………………………………….
The Story Continues…………………………………………………...................... .
I think I will continue the Facilitator explanations in my next grow. That will be an explanation of all the things we did on the job, which will be lengthy.
Here is one of the nutty things we were exposed to in class.
The Development of Man
Sorry, I am doing this from memory….I did not take notes on this class. Things maybe in the wrong places. Sorry, but you will get the basic ideas.
Stage 1…….man developed and was mainly just trying to survive.
Stage 2…….man lived in scattered groups and developed basic language skills.
Stage 3…….man started to develop tools for farming. Wheels were put into use. Boats appeared.
Stage 4…….man developed weapons to fend off other groups who tried to take their food and women.
Stage 5…….Man developed basic religions. Sometime the sun or animals that were dangerous and fearful.
Stage 6……Man started living in large groups for safety. The also agreed on leaders and had formed basic ways to defend their communities. The basis of a written language was starting to form. Using basic metals they found were put into use. The first metal workers appeared
Stage 7……Man learned to plant seeds and grow their own food. They also had learned to create much better houses and places to live in. Cities started to form. Religions based on humans started to come into being. They started to develop countries and named them.
Boarders were defined. The first military units were formed.
Stage 8…….Philosophies were started and learning was deemed something that all citizens should be educated. We are still working on that one. Historians were born. Exploration of the world began. Some wanted to conquer the known world. I.E. Alexander the Great.
Europe was being populated. Traders took to the sea. Explorers roamed the known world.
Stage 9……Religious wars began. My way is right, not yours. Body counts were enormous. The Romans conquered the known world. Then England deiced to purge all other religions. More killing.
Stage 10…….The New World was found. The earth was not flat. More wars to conquer the new worlds.
Enough of this memory stuff!
Remember this was the early eighties. We had not invaded the Middle East yet.
Stage 20 Was the Hippie days and the first plea for world peace.
Stage 21 Was about what we should do for the starving and sick in Africa.
His solutions was…….Screw em! Let them die!
And that was the end of that idiot! Class over.
Note: Do you think we Humans like war?
The Story Continues .................................................. .........
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………………
Super Learning
This was actually a very good class.
The Instructor told us he would teach us how to speak enough Italian for us to at least survive until we could learn more. I had a bit of a head start, but not much.
The first thing he did was give each of us an Italian name. I was Giuseppe the town barber. He gave us all a role to play in the little village we lived in. Others were customers, other business owners, and some were members of the village population.
He then explained that we were no longer ourselves and that all the junk in our minds about not being able to learn a language was gone. I was no longer OMM, but Giuseppe the barber.
Then he gave us a list of common words in Italian and they’re meaning to study for 5 minutes. After that we spoke only Italian.
I kid you not, by lunch time we were speaking Italian only and were having a ball.
I gave quite a few haircuts and actually talked about the local soccer team to my customers.
This was Super learning. Get rid of our blocks to learning and we could learn.
I wanted this class to continue. I wanted to learn more about removing blocks that were holding us back from learning new things. Alas it was only a morning class.
This will probably be my last story in this Journal, unless I remember another special class.
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………………............... ..
There is an old saying in the military “Mess up and move up”
Actually that's the nice version.
Well, I was guilty of a few mess ups.
The first is when I told “The Old Man”. The Division Commander that that Battery Commander had called a men only meeting about the sexual harassment in which he told his men to not even talk to the girl. The Old Man relieved him of his command of the HQs Battery a week later, So much for his career.
Because of that firing he had to appoint a new Commander for the HQ Battery. Of all things he replaced him with an Administration Female Captain. OH! Noes!
You all know that I am not against women being in the military, however an admin person of any sex is not a good idea. They have never been in a combat unit and know nothing of how to run a field unit.
My Poor Ratt Rigs! Every commander that takes over a command has to pull an in-depth inspection on every part of the Battery. In other words every piece of equipment has to be field stripped, taken completely apart.
Here is where I had my first run in with her. I just told her flat out, if we do that to our Ratt Rigs none of them would work afterwards. She said in so many words that I was nuts. Very respectively I told her I would be the first at her desk to say “I told you so!”
Man did that piss her off. Strike one!
By the way I was right…not one worked……she was in disbelieve. No I didn't say it.
Sure wanted to though.
Next up Christmas time, The CO said that every one in the battery would work half a day, everyday through the Holidays. I went to see her again. Captain that's not being fair to our troops. Why not rotate them off one day and on the next.? My order stands Sgt!
OK, you know what I did, she went on leave and I let my folks off a day at a time.
When she came back she fired me! Mess up and move up! Let her worry about the Ratt Rigs.
Believe it or not they made me the NCO In Charge of the Division Education Center! Yay Wahoo!
As I was moving in the Ed Center, the Division Commander came in and shook my hand. Then he started laughing “I heard what you did!” That's when I moved you up here by me. “I needed a good NCO up here!”. He wasn't kidding either. The LT that was the Education Officer was a mess. OK! I kinda ended up the Commanders NCO advisor. I helped him get rid of the worthless LT.
The worse thing the LT did was not counseling solders when they had trouble, which was part of his job. Case in point, on a late Friday afternoon a soldier came in for counseling, he looked awful, he needed help. The LT told him to come back Monday. I stopped the kid and asked if I could help and he said no only the LT could help. 2 hours later the kid killed himself. Good Bye LT.
The C.O and I worked together allot……he did me favors…and I did some for him…..like being the MC for the Army Ball. Actually that was fun.
To Be Continued……………………………………………………………………………..
The Story Continues….........................
Being in the Ed Center was great. One of our main duties was getting troops to go to schools to help them make rank faster and to have better jobs. Yes, you know I looked for me too. I found one and it was right there at Ft. Ord. “Organizational Effectiveness”.
The write up was kind vague…”You will be doing things that will change the Army and make it modern.” Other than that a clip that said that I would clarify what each part the Army does. So much for that. That was tease enough for me. The only problem I saw was the requirement that I had to be an E-7 up to a Full Bird. I was an E-6.
I thought about that for awhile and came to the conclusion that it was worth a try.
There are always exceptions. The next day I went over and picked up my Military Records and headed to see the Commandant of the school. I got right in. He said no salute. So I stated my case and left my records for him to look over. He thanked me for my for my interest and said he would think about it.
Soon as I got back to the Ed Center, here came the Old Man. “You trying to jump ship? I just talked to John (The Commandant)”. Well, yes. I said. “We will see!” he said and left.
Couple days later I was called over to the Commandant's. This time he walked around the desk and said “You are in.” with a smile and a hand shake.
"By the way your C.O. Recommended you highly". I really didn't know my life was going to change so drastically.
To Be Continued………………………………………………………………………….
The Story Continues ……………………………………………………………….
I haven't mentioned a man that I had become very good friends with. He was a Chaplin's Assistant. He did counseling and visited the all the Batteries in the Division. He was basically a very good person. He had an IQ of around 160 and it was evident by the things he did. Jo and I had just started dating on and off and we went to see him a few times at his home. He had raised his two kids by himself. You could not tell them apart! It was so bad you couldn't tell which was male or female. They looked like clones! They even had the same tone of voice. They were great kids, but strange. A boy and a girl.
He had been an E-6 for 15 years. Not much upward advancement for Chaplains Assistances. The school that I was going to had not started yet, so I was just hanging around in the Ed. Center. He stopped by and asked if I thought that the “Old Man” would let us see the new promotion list before it was released. I said let's go see.
The Commander let us see it. I really wasn't too interested…..I hadn't thought much about getting promoted. His name was not on the list, but mine was! In two days I would be an E-7!! We thanked the Commander and left. My friend was white as a sheet. He went home and went to bed. I felt terrible for him.
This was a changing point for me. First it dawned on me, I may have gotten in to my school anyway. However I think I had made a good impression doing what I did to get in.
Then I realized I was high enough in rank that when I retired I would have a pretty good retirement. That was the day I quit smoking weed. No use taking chances now.
A bit more about my friend. He started applying for different schools. He got one and learned to speak German. Then he applied for attaché duty. He went to embassy school in Washington. After that they sent him to Belgium. He made E-7 and they gave him a beautiful house in Belgium all expenses paid. He and his kids loved it.
To Be continued………………………………………………………………………..
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………………..
Finally it was time to start my new school. From day one it was evident that this was no typical Army School, We had 501 students.
The Commandant welcomed us all and then he surprised us. “Gentlemen and Ladies,
there will be no rank differences!” “Everyone will go by their first names!”
That brought a rush of talking and grousing. We had from O-6’s to E-7s in the course. Obviously some of the older high ranking officers were not buying into that rule.
I thought to myself “This is going to be fun”. Little did I know!
The Commandant was quite for a while, letting his opening remarks be digested.
Then he looked at me and said to me “Mr. XXXXXX” please come up here with me”.
I guess he remembered me because I had asked for a wavier. I thought to myself “Oh! Boy! First out of the box!”
When I was up on the stage he handed me a microphone and said “Please give me a 5 minute summary of Ducks”. Say what?
Luckily I had 3 ducks when I was a kid in Arkansas, so I did five minutes on Huey, Dewy, and Louie. I was yammering on and he stopped me. He thanked me with a “Well Done!” and called the next person. This went on for the full first day and everyone had a go at it. Some were good and some were awful. That was the end of the first day.
The second day. There was 380 of us left. He had immediately cut that many students and some of the older Officers choose to go home, they were having no part of this.
This whole day was strange. We played the old “What you be?” game.
He called a few students at a time to the stage, Then he gave them a story that they had to describe what kind of animal that they would be after hearing the story.
The first story went like this:
You woke up in the morning and the sun was shinning across your bed. You dressed and went down stairs, your spouse had a wonderful smelling breakfast ready and the kids were there ready for school. Your spouse gave you big kiss and off you went. As luck would have it, you hit nothing but green lights and arrived early at work. What kind of animal would you feel like?
The answers were these animals. A frog. A bushy lazy cat. A zebra. An Owl. A happy puppy. A race horse. That was jus a few of the answers.
Then he told the next story to them.
You woke up in the morning and it was raining outside. You couldn’t find you slippers, in fact, where were your shoes? You heard a commotion downstairs, so you went down to see what was happening. Breakfast was not ready and the kids were late for school. It was getting late so you got in your car and backed over one the kids bicycles. Your car had a new dent too. On the way to work some SOB pulled right in front of you and you had a screaming bout with the other driver. You didn’t make one green light the whole way to work. When you did get to work, some ass had taken your parking space.
What kind of animal would you be then?
The answers were. A Python. A Skunk. A Bear. A lion. A wildcat. A porcupine. You get the idea.
The whole point was we could be different kinds of animals depending on what had happen to us that day. If this sounds meaningless, don’t believe that at all. Later in the real world we used it as a tool. In change of commands, it was very important to know what the CO was. If he was an Owl in most situations and his next in command was a Lion, look out! The second in command would actually be the mover and shaker of the unit...
That folks was day two.
Day three we had 180 people left. Some just didn’t get it. I remember thinking “How many are going to be left tomorrow?”.
To be continued……………………………………………………………………….
Warning! The following post has some sexual content. It may offend some people!
Now, everyone will read it! Knowing you folks!
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………………..
The third day of School.
They divided the 180 folks that were left into smaller groups of 20.
All throughout the course we had special speakers come in and tell us about their theories and experiences about all kinds of things. Remember this was quite a while ago and some of the subjects were just turning into actual sciences. For the time it was mostly cutting edge technologies. Unfortunately some of the things we were exposed to never went anywhere.
The first group that I was in was a class on Body Language.
I was astounded by the whole thing. At the time I had no idea of how you could read from people's bodies. We all read body language with out knowing it, it's kind of second nature to us. Obviously we all know when someone is ready to fight. Truthfully, if you know what to look for, you can tell whether a person is introverted, open, available, friendly, not friendly, having a bad day or a good one. The list is long.
Once the Speaker introduced himself and his subject, he asked if any of us had seen any men and women getting together in what would be considered a "Romantic Way" during the first two days of school.
5 hands went up, including mine. He picked a woman to answer his question.
She said that she had noticed in the very first hour that a woman and a man couldn't keep their eyes off each other. By the third hour they were sitting together. At the end of the day they left together. The second day he had his arm loosely around her. When they left for the day, she was holding his arm.
That was the couple I had seen. It turned out there was another couple in a different part of the large group that did almost the same thing.
I thought to myself “Wow! I can read body language!” Only very basically, I found out.
Actually we were using another kind of process called "Group Dynamics" with out knowing it. We had been watching the content of the meeting with some of our brain and with another part we were watching process. In other words some of our brain was listening to folks talk about ducks, owls, coffee machines and what ever their subjects were the first day. The second day the content was “good day….bad day” and the process was watching the things that were happening between people.
This process/content thing drove some folks right out of the school. For some they just couldn't get the hang of it for a long time. Try it yourself. Next time you go to Mickey D’s or the Big Depot were we get allot of our supplies from.
Watch the content, a store doing business. Then look at the process of how it is getting done. I know some of you have thought to yourselves “I could run this place better than they are!”. Unconsciously you were doing process and content. This was invaluable when doing Organization Effectiveness. More on that later.
Body language is very informative in all sorts of ways. Being me, I really locked in on how to tell if you were getting some where with opposite sex. He gave us an example of men trying to pick up ladies. That had us cracking up. It didn't matter if it was a church meeting or a bar, we men do some strange things. Watch the process in action. By the way women are just as bad or good, depending on your outlook.
A man usually looks for something to lean on. If he's wearing a suit, he will unbutton the jacket. Then he will put his thumbs under his belt and spread his hands out and down, making a circle around his crouch. Yep, he's pointing out the good stuff, he thinks. He might slightly flex every once in a while to show off too. If all that doesn't work, he pulls up his socks? If that fails he will try to talk to any woman he thinks was watching him. No joke.
Women on the other had will primp. They sit with crossed legs showing a bit of leg. The uncrossing and crossing of legs can be quite spectacular. Then there's the hair, they touch it allot. Sometimes giving it a great shake and puffing it up. I'm beautiful. They lean back allot too, got to get the old chest out there. You get the idea.
My favorite was the straight on approach. Just walk up and start talking to a Lady.
If she turns full face to you…keep talking and it doesn't seem to matter what you're taking about. She is not interested. If she turns half towards you, forget it, she's not interested. You could talk all day and never get anywhere.
Me personally, I like the lady's in Biloxi Mississippi. Both times I've been down there they just walk up and say “I like you” and away you go!.
My bad, I getting a bit off track here. Actually, I haven't really; we do this stuff all the time. Being able to see it, is the point. I've kind of did it this way so you can see the behaviors of people in everyday life and how important it is to read people. Jo is a natural at it. She reads people like a book at times.
If you are in a meeting and you look at people's body language, you can tell if you're getting things across or not. If the person you are talking to looks out the window occasionally, you better change your approach. There you go, content and process.
One other thing about body language. It's called being incongruent. Sure wish I had known this back when I was with RS. Sometimes she would say things and I didn't realize why I felt so funny. She was saying one thing and her body was saying something else. Now I realize why I felt funny around her sometimes. What she was saying was not what she felt. Live and learn.
To Be Continued ……………………………………………………………………….
The Story Continues………………………………………………………………..
One of the most interesting special classes they gave us was Neurolingustics.
Neurolingustics is the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language. As an interdisciplinary field, Neurolingustics draws methodology and theory from fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, neurobiology, communication disorders, neurophysiology, and computer science. Researchers are drawn to the field from a variety of backgrounds, bringing along a variety of experimental techniques as well as widely varying theoretical perspectives. Much work in Neurolingustics is informed by models in psycholinguistics and theoretical linguistics, and is focused on investigating how the brain can implement the processes that theoretical and psycholinguistics propose are necessary in producing and comprehending language. Neurolinguists study the physiological mechanisms by which the brain processes information related to language, and evaluate linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, using aphasiology, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and computer modeling.
OK, that is the definition from Wikipedia. As you can see, it covers many different aspects of communications between individuals. The discipline has gone far beyond what we used it for. If I were young this would be something I would consider looking at in a serious way. There are even folks working on Neurolingustics as a program language for better communications between individuals. Programming minds to take in all visual, emotional, and the other activities that make communications possible.
This is much more than we used it for. It was in its infancy when we studied it.
Our main interest was reading people's facial expressions. If they are lying, making something up on the spur of the moment, remembering something they had visualized before, or just didn't know an answer.
If you asked a question that people had thought of before, they will look up. Sorry, I've forgotten most of it. It's been years since I have put it into practice. If they looked down to the right and tell you something, most likely they were lying. You get the idea. If you're interested you will have to dig through a Neurolingustics site for the answers. I believe they gone much further in this part of the science today. I'm just telling you that it works.
There are many things that you can do to your body language to get folks to talk more openly to you. If you have had training in conducting personal interviews, you are using part of this science.
Body language is very important. Sit with arms and legs not crossed……you are open and non-threatening. Sometimes mimicking a person helps too. Sit like they do, cross your legs the way they do, it makes folks trust you.
If you're in sales like Closet Farmer, knowing this information is a must. He's been successful in sales for a long time, so he has practiced this for years.
One can also pick up hints on how the person you're taking to receives information. They will actually tell you how the best way to present information to them. Listen to what they say.
If they are like me and visual, they will say things like “I can see that”. “Paint me a picture of that” and so on. Obviously, show them information in a visual way. They will really understand you.
If they are tactile. “I feel what you mean” or “I can't feel it”. Then give them something they can touch and hold on to.
If they are audible. Then talking is how they process information. Don't show them pictures, or give them something to hold, just talk.
By the way, listen to your boss or your spouse, they will unconsciously tell you how to really exchange information with you. Speak their language to them. You may find you will get along much better.
To be continued…………………………………………………………….
.
The Story Continues…………………………………………………………………..
Group Dynamics or Group Processing
Group dynamics is the study of groups, and also a general term for group processes. Relevant to the fields of psychology, sociology, and communication studies, a group is two or more individuals who are connected to each other by social relationships. [Forsyth, D.R. (2006) "Group Dynamics"] Because they interact and influence each other, groups develop a number of dynamic processes that separate them from a random collection of individuals. These processes include norms, roles, relations, development, need to belong, social influence, and effects on behavior. The field of group dynamics is primarily concerned with small group behavior. Groups may be classified as aggregate, primary, secondary and category groups.
In organizational development (OD), or group dynamics, the phrase "group process" refers to the understanding of the behavior of people in groups, such as task groups, that are trying to solve a problem or make a decision. An individual with expertise in 'group process, such as a trained facilitator, can assist a group in accomplishing its objective by diagnosing how well the group is functioning as a problem-solving or decision-making entity and intervening to alter the group's operating behavior.
Because people gather in groups for reasons other than task accomplishment, group process occurs in other types of groups such as personal growth groups (e.g. encounter groups, study groups, prayer groups). In such cases, an individual with expertise in group process can be helpful in the role of facilitator.
Well researched but rarely mentioned by professional group workers, is the social status of people within the group ( (i.e., senior or junior). The group leader (or facilitator) will usually have a strong influence on the group due to his or her role of shaping the group's outcomes. This influence will also be affected by the leader's sex, race, relative age, income, appearance, and personality, as well as organizational structures and many other factors.
OK. That's the official take on group Dynamics. If you are company or any body of folks that are trying to accomplish a goal or a task by doing so in a group it is a slice of group dynamics. Our groups in school were sometimes led by a Facilitator. In the next part of the story, I’ll talk about them in detail. Facilitators can handle many kinds of tasks.
The way we introduced group processing was to gather a group of people to solve a problem. The very first thing we did was give a group a task to solve. Mainly the first session was an ice breaker to get the group to interact with each other.
There can be many groups working on the same problem and then talk about how each group solved the problem after it was over.
OK. We would gather a group together and had them printed paper explaining what must be done.
Actually in their first group session we handed them both a written instruction sheet and a box containing a task to accomplish.
It went something like this:
Your first task is to elect a leader. Once this is accomplished open your box and start working on the task as per the instructions inside.
The Instructions inside the box also listed what was in the box.
A pair of scissors
18 rubber bands of different sizes.
A roll of string
6 Balloons.
Scotch tape.
4 8 x10 pieces of card stock.
16 paper clips of assorted sizes
2 rubber insoles for a pair of size 9 men’s shoes.
8 chopsticks
1 Fresh egg
Your task is to create something that will allow you to drop the egg from a height of 4 feet and not break the egg. You can also make secondary items out of what is left, which will give your project more value. You have one hour from now to finish this task.
The day we did this first group task, all groups that were left did the same task.
Usually two members of our staff walked in and out of the groups to observe “What and how things were getting done.”
I'll stop here and let you think of what went on in the groups and how they did their tasks
To be continued………………………………………………………………………..
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………..
The results of the first task they gave the groups.
There are some things that happen in all groups, especially with their first task.
“The Egg” was ideal for watching what happened and to see how people assumed roles.
Almost every new group has some people in them that show typical roles people assume naturally. Modern Group Dynamic pundits have really confused something that’s pretty darn basic. Roles that people assume naturally are these:
Invariably there is some one who wants to be the leader.
Someone will pull out some paper and will start taking notes = The Recorder
There will be one who watches the time = the Time Keeper
Others will kind drift along and really aren’t part of the group. We say they are in “Inclusion”. They want to be part of the group, but feel left out. They fade away.
A good leader/team will pull them back into the group and make sure that they feel needed.
I want to talk about one particular group for a minute. It was so unique it had to be dealt with. I have worked with many groups of all kinds; this was a one and only kind of group. They could not elect a leader. After a verbal fight between two strong willed people. It was between a woman and a man.
The school gave the group 15 more minutes to elect a leader. They failed.
The school expelled them both on the spot. Neither was willing to take one for the group and defer to the other. No win-win here. You can rest assured a letter was sent to their Commanders.
They gave that group another hour to complete the task. They elected a leader immediately. They did well on the task too.
Sending that pair home was the last cut. We were on our way to graduating.
That left 160 of us and we would all graduate. We would be sent all over the world
in teams of 4. That meant there would be 40 locations that had an OE team.
Back to Group Dynamics.
Which is to say, back to process/content.
The Egg exercise was a way to break the ice in each group. Each group elected/decided on a leader. Once that was done, they could come up with ideas to save the egg.
The recorder would write it all down. Once that was done they picked the strategy that they would use and what extra items they could make. The observers watched us
work on the content = getting the egg protected. The process was how we came together as a group to succeed. If they saved the egg didn’t matter at all. They just watched us as a new team. It mattered to us….big time.
After the hour was up they had all the groups meet in a large room and show them what we had come up with. Most of it was hilarious. Most broke the egg. Two groups did save the egg and were roundly applauded. Both had used the same strategy. Using the balloons as a cushion. The tie breaker came down to what extra items we had made.
One of the groups had made a paper airplane out of the card stock and rubber bands and it flew across the room.
Everyone was having a good time and they had succeeded in making each group cohesive and a team. That afternoon and for a few more days, they gave us many more tasks to complete. Each group got better and faster with each task. The last day, I remember the feeling in my group. Bring it on, we are ready and we were. Our group felt that no matter what they gave us, we could do it.
Later after working with groups in the field for a while, I was still amazed at what a group could accomplish.. .
Next up……..how to facilitate groups in action.
To be Continued…………………………………………………………………………
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………………….
Facilitation
Prior to a meeting, facilitators:
Research the meeting before it happens
Find out the purpose and goal (if any) of the meeting
Establish who needs to attend
Draw up a draft agenda and design the group processes to attain the necessary results
Share the agenda with potential attendees, changing it as necessary
Ensure everyone gets fully briefed for the meeting and that everyone knows the purpose and potential consequences of the meeting
During the meeting, facilitators:
Monitor the agenda
Keep time
Manage the group process
Encourage participation from all attendees
Help participants understand different points of view
Foster solutions that incorporate diverse points of view
Manage participant behavior
Create a safe environment
Teach new thinking skills and facilitate structured thinking activities
The facilitator may write up and publish the results of the meeting to everyone concerned including those who could not attend.
The above are some of the things that Facilitators do. That's the rough outline of what we would follow, however we actually simplified it in the Army. We knew ahead of time what results we were looking for.
Let's take a real world example.
When a new Base Commander takes over a new Command, historically the Command losses almost a year of efficiency. The worse part happens at the six month period.
So we would hold a meeting to try to help the command from losing this valuable time.
When the local Marine Base here in Hawaii changed Commanders, he lasted 6 months and then was fired. We could have helped him I'm sure, it's too bad. At that level his career is essentially over. He probably was asked to retire.
Any move, no matter who you are, is a big stress time for any family. New job, new home, new schools for the children and the wife has many obligations to join and chair The Officer's Wives group. You get the idea.
As soon as we possible could, we would get the new Commander and his staff of Officers and the Command Sgt. Major into a large group. The process usually only took one day.
I loved doing these kinds of groups, we would see immediate results.
OK, the meeting!
Usually 2 facilitators worked as a team and no one was the boss.
We always had a stand holding newsprint paper……..we carried them everywhere we went. Those were the staple of our business. One person would ask open ended questions of the group and the other would write all the answers on the newsprint paper.
A closed end question would be like this…….How do you like your job?
Asking something like this was a waste of time. The answers would be short and would have no real meaning.
Instead, How about this one as an open ended question?
If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?
Believe me everyone knows an answer to that question! We would fill up pages on our newsprint paper.
The new Commander would have the option of watching the process or not.
Some only wanted to see the results. That was the option most wanted to see.
The First Session
The entire staff that was mentioned above would be there.
We would introduce ourselves and would ask the first question.
What does the new Commander need to know about this organization?
We wrote down every answer. We were not there to judge. Every answer was equal.
When we had everyone's answers, we would then ask the group to put the answers in a prioritized list. Which answers were more important?
Depending on how long this took we would either break for lunch or have the Commander come in and ask questions about the list and get more specific answers.
Sometimes we would go back in a group to get the answers to some of the more important questions. This would continue until everything was clear.
Doing this usually shorted the time the organization would be back up to speed to 4 months.
I'll be back soon to go into other things we facilitators would do as part of our jobs.
To Be Continued………………………………………………………………….
The Story Continues…………………………………………………...................... .
I think I will continue the Facilitator explanations in my next grow. That will be an explanation of all the things we did on the job, which will be lengthy.
Here is one of the nutty things we were exposed to in class.
The Development of Man
Sorry, I am doing this from memory….I did not take notes on this class. Things maybe in the wrong places. Sorry, but you will get the basic ideas.
Stage 1…….man developed and was mainly just trying to survive.
Stage 2…….man lived in scattered groups and developed basic language skills.
Stage 3…….man started to develop tools for farming. Wheels were put into use. Boats appeared.
Stage 4…….man developed weapons to fend off other groups who tried to take their food and women.
Stage 5…….Man developed basic religions. Sometime the sun or animals that were dangerous and fearful.
Stage 6……Man started living in large groups for safety. The also agreed on leaders and had formed basic ways to defend their communities. The basis of a written language was starting to form. Using basic metals they found were put into use. The first metal workers appeared
Stage 7……Man learned to plant seeds and grow their own food. They also had learned to create much better houses and places to live in. Cities started to form. Religions based on humans started to come into being. They started to develop countries and named them.
Boarders were defined. The first military units were formed.
Stage 8…….Philosophies were started and learning was deemed something that all citizens should be educated. We are still working on that one. Historians were born. Exploration of the world began. Some wanted to conquer the known world. I.E. Alexander the Great.
Europe was being populated. Traders took to the sea. Explorers roamed the known world.
Stage 9……Religious wars began. My way is right, not yours. Body counts were enormous. The Romans conquered the known world. Then England deiced to purge all other religions. More killing.
Stage 10…….The New World was found. The earth was not flat. More wars to conquer the new worlds.
Enough of this memory stuff!
Remember this was the early eighties. We had not invaded the Middle East yet.
Stage 20 Was the Hippie days and the first plea for world peace.
Stage 21 Was about what we should do for the starving and sick in Africa.
His solutions was…….Screw em! Let them die!
And that was the end of that idiot! Class over.
Note: Do you think we Humans like war?
The Story Continues .................................................. .........
The Story Continues……………………………………………………………………
Super Learning
This was actually a very good class.
The Instructor told us he would teach us how to speak enough Italian for us to at least survive until we could learn more. I had a bit of a head start, but not much.
The first thing he did was give each of us an Italian name. I was Giuseppe the town barber. He gave us all a role to play in the little village we lived in. Others were customers, other business owners, and some were members of the village population.
He then explained that we were no longer ourselves and that all the junk in our minds about not being able to learn a language was gone. I was no longer OMM, but Giuseppe the barber.
Then he gave us a list of common words in Italian and they’re meaning to study for 5 minutes. After that we spoke only Italian.
I kid you not, by lunch time we were speaking Italian only and were having a ball.
I gave quite a few haircuts and actually talked about the local soccer team to my customers.
This was Super learning. Get rid of our blocks to learning and we could learn.
I wanted this class to continue. I wanted to learn more about removing blocks that were holding us back from learning new things. Alas it was only a morning class.
This will probably be my last story in this Journal, unless I remember another special class.
