Convening - Less Art than Science
Spend a couple Google-minutes and look up “convening.” After the requisite bad matches and charlatans, Google, Bing or your search engine of choice gets you to some worthwhile information. I did this recently to reassure myself of what I know to be the basics of convening, something SCOPE works hard to be good at.
First let’s consider why convening matters.
John Soleau, an Episcopal clergyman, speaks about it in the Ministry of Convening. You see, convening has roots in the faith traditions and in the city-states of ancient Greece. Rev. Soleau says, “Convening — well done — puts people and groups in touch with each other and rebuilds community life. Convening clarifies relationships among groups and aids collective decision-making. Convening raises a community’s level of consciousness. This restorative work needs doing.”
Soleau goes on to identify three functions for convening.
1. “Convening brings together people representing different interests and perspectives into a discussion over common concerns.
2. Convening explores and develops constructive thinking and discovers new solutions.
3. Convening builds motivation and the will for common action.”
These are powerful and important for our community, for any community. We need to be convened around the tough issues. We need to be deliberative about solving problems, and about getting out in front of issues both to head off difficulties and to generate possibilities. Convening is about being able to inspire action even when the entire community is not in “crisis.”
Who can or should convene?
Brad Spangler from the University of Colorado program called Beyond Intractability says that, “The convener’s main role is to identify and bring all legitimate stakeholders to the table. Since it is up to the convener to persuade them to participate in the resolution process, he/she must be seen as credible, unbiased, and trustworthy.”
Rev. Soleau weighs in on this role as well. “A convener is one who is able to call ‘to assembly’ the leaders and the led, elected officials and voters, professionals and receivers of services, rival political and interest groups, and institutional executives in the public and private sectors.”
There are other important distinctions about who can convene that neither Rev. Soleau nor Mr. Spangler touch on. They are important in our community. Credibility and faith in the convener are essential and are gained not by position but rather “…earned day-by-day over time as one lives, works and serves in the community.” (Rev. Soleau)
The convener who is also a direct stakeholder raises suspicion, as does the convener who wields significant power by virtue of financial resources or political favors that can be meted out.
SCOPE as Convener
Over the past 24 months, SCOPE has been commited to the development of the national think tank and innovation center temporarily called the Institute for the Ages. However, as Mark Twain once remarked, the reports of our death (as a convener) are greatly exaggerated. SCOPE is not the only convener in Sarasota County, but is well situated to be a relevant convener of significant community concerns and opportunities. It was, in fact, this very convening capacity that delivered the Institute, and we look forward to opportunities to nurture innovations in our community that grow out of our future contributions as a convener as well.
Money and Community
After a meeting the other day, I talked with a woman about what she’d heard and how it relates to her work in her neighborhood. The meeting was called by government and focused on developing the community. I said something about how money is not the building block of a thriving community – communities start with connections, relationships and trust, and those things lead to success. The woman looked at me and said, “We need their money.”
I have been thinking about that short conversation several times since then. I think she is right. I also think I am right. That’s the problem with change, and especially change in a context as complex as community; we might both be right.
What am I talking about, you ask? Right now the economy is despairing. That is true in some neighborhoods more than others. In this woman’s neighborhood, it is true even when things are good everywhere else. So this current economic problem is a “badder” bad. She is telling me, I think, that when a neighborhood or a community doesn’t have money, then more money helps. Makes sense to me. Even if that money comes with strings, or is a temporary fix, it seems clear that economic suffering demands attention.
OK, so how am I also right? A couple years ago, Kathleen Vohs, PhD., a University of Minnesota researcher, tested the impact of money of behavior. Students were divided into two groups: one exposed to money and the imagery of money and the other was not. Both groups were then asked to work on a project and the research team paid attention to how they responded. Here’s the link: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20061116/money-may-change-how-people-act
What she discovered was that even thinking about money changes behavior. Sometimes for the good, but I think that in terms of what we know about building community it does not help much. “Voh’s team found that the students in the money group worked longer by themselves on a task assigned by the researchers before asking for help. But when asked to help someone with another project, those students didn’t help as much as those who weren’t exposed to money. And students in the money group also preferred to work and spend their leisure time alone.”
What I take away from this research is that a foregrounding of money tends to diminish a spirit of connection, the likelihood of reciprocal relationships and opportunities for synergy. Voh’s team explained their findings in this way:
“As countries and cultures developed, money may have allowed people to acquire goods and services that enabled the pursuit of cherished goals, which in turn diminished reliance on friends and family.”
“In this way, money enhanced individualism but diminished communal motivations, an effect that is still apparent in people’s responses to money today.”
Isn’t “community” generated by being and working together, more so than by being alone? If so, and if we genuinely value community, then what do we need to watch out for when money is involved?
In the meeting I recently attended, and so many others like it, those with the money often seem to believe that this is their asset, and then see money as the primary answer. It’s as if this is their “gift.” Over time, it seems like those who have been without money for so long (or ever) begin to see money as not only the answer, but the goal.
So how do those with the money see this asset as only part of the answer? How do they see themselves as “second investors,” and rethink how enduring change occurs?
How do those who have been without money for so long (or ever) first draw their existent capacities and skills together to discern when the addition of money will be that thing that transforms?
Money is one tool and it matters, but cannot be the only thing because it does not change anything by itself. How can we think of money as the second or third resource when community change-for-the-better is our goal?
What Would You Ask?
We know you’ve probably participated in “one-click” voting online with instant results. SCOPE wants to ask questions to get a sense of Sarasota County residents’ opinions. What questions would you pose to the community about local issues important to our residents?
Post your ideas in the comments below. We will run the best on SCOPE’s website with instant polling results!
Age Bias - It’s Everywhere
Guest post by Nancy K. Schlossberg, See www.transitionsthroughlife.com
Nancy Perry Graham, an editor of AARP The Magazine wrote in the January 2010 issue: “Just listen to the late-night comics. Scarcely an evening goes by that David Letterman…doesn’t mock a certain 73-year-old politician with lines such as ‘During the presidential campaign, Sarah [Palin] had to cut up John McCain’s meat for him.’ Recently Jimmy Fallon (granted, a youngster, at 35) announced that the family of a 70-year-old man who had run his 163rd marathon would celebrate by ‘taking him out to a five-star emergency room.’” Similarly, many birthday cards for those over fifty have negative comments about aging like, “It’s all downhill after 40.”
These cards and comics are merely the tip of the iceberg. We are bombarded with messages that older people have less—less energy, less opportunities, less sex, less money. Except for wrinkles it is all about less. Nancy Signorielli, Professor in the Communication Department at the University of Delaware, studied the under-representation of elderly characters on prime-time network. She concluded that “Television celebrates youth while it neglects and negates the elderly…and [while] television’s messages about young adulthood are particularly vibrant and interesting, messages about middle and old age present a very different scenario because there are so few vibrant and interesting role models.”
These negative messages about aging have reached all of us - that is part of the reason we are frantically pursuing the fountain of youth. Even though there has been a decrease in the number of people having plastic surgery, there are still millions of women and men who go in for tucks and hair dying in an attempt to look younger.
When will we honor the person who says, “You look great–your hair is white, and your wrinkles sparkle?” When will we exchange wrinkles for wisdom, when will the messages from the media start honoring age?
Part of the goal of the Institute is to change attitudes about aging—to realize that people of all ages have much to contribute. Changing attitudes means we must confront our own biases and celebrate rather than negate our age and wrinkles.
Engagement and the Digital Divide
Still, I have reservations that I hope will guide us as well. “Community” emerges from relationships, real engagement between people, families, neighbors, groups of people and, when needed organizations/institutions. “Community” is in quotes and I used the verb “emerges” for a reason. I believe community is an aspiration that we, you and I, are wanting. When there is “community” the web of relationships is potent, so as to respond when there is suffering and to celebrate thriving. When the constantly shifting web of many relatively simple relationships is sufficient, the pattern, called “community,” “emerges,” it becomes evident.
As we move forward with the idea of social media and connections coming through cyber-space, let’s pay attention to the still present “digital divide. It separates people who have constant access to the web from those who do not. It perpetuates poverty and is a tangible barrier to the success of children, the securing of jobs and the participation in civic life.
Knowing the challenge posed by the digital divide means that how we (SCOPE) go about using social media to engage people may be a little different. It may change frequently to be responsive and adaptive. We aspire for it to be co-created with you. Let’s check in from time to time to see what we are learning.
Theory of Change
We have been thinking at SCOPE about our “theory of change.” How do we think communities get better? This isn’t rocket science - but not of little consequence either. My attempt to explain this - SCOPE’s theory of change is based on the premise that transformative community change occurs when citizen-directed thinking and action are at its core. That’s a fancy way of saying that when residents work together for the greater community good…it does happen.
So what are the pieces of this? - several things come to mind: Residents are connected to each other through issues they care about. Community dialogue is inclusive of many, bringing voices from the margins that are not often invited or made comfortable. Every resident has the opportunity to participate and share his/her individual skills and talents to create change.
So connections & passion – speaking & listening – sharing your skills. These are some of the pieces that create and sustain a thriving community. What are your thoughts on how change happens in communities?
Guest Post: Respecting Environment
SCOPE is partnering with the Peace Education and Action Center and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to start a community dialogue in three important areas: Rethinking Education, Restoring Justice and Respecting Environment. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune will publish guest editorials on each of the three areas, which will be crossposted on the SCOPE blog.
On April 9th and 10th, the Peace Education and Action Center will host their second annual Teach Peace Conference with the same three focus areas. We hope the dialogue that begins through these multiple channels and the actions that result will bring about positive changes for our community.
The third installment is below. We hope you will use the commenting space to continue a dialogue about how we can Respect Environment.
What is the new green?
By Don Hall, founder of Transition Sarasota
Published: Monday, April 5, 2010
When you hear the words “environment,” “sustainability” and “green,” what do you think of?
You might think of canvas tote bags and compact fluorescent light bulbs or Al Gore and the National Parks System. I don’t mean to diminish the achievements of the mainstream environmental movement, but the approaches behind these words fall short of what is needed now to rise to the monumental challenges of our time.
Fortunately, a new environmentalism is emerging, one that fuses social justice concerns with environmental issues, bridges the gap between Democrats and Republicans, is based on a positive vision for the future, and engages the creativity of ordinary people rather than simply asking them to sign another petition to a government that often doesn’t seem to care.
This new environmentalism is manifesting at this time in many remarkable ways. Green For All is working to grow a “green collar economy” that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty. The Pachamama Alliance has joined together with the Achuar people of the Ecuadorian rainforest to change the dream of the modern world. And the Transition Movement, of which I am a part, is serving as a catalyst for rebuilding local community resilience and self-reliance worldwide.
A life-sustaining society
These three organizations are only a small part of what author and activist Joanna Macy has called “The Great Turning” to a life-sustaining society. In fact, Paul Hawken and his Wiser Earth project have now documented over 2 million such groups that collectively make up what may be the largest grassroots movement in the history of the earth.
As the founder of the Transition Movement, Rob Hopkins, has written: “While peak oil and climate change are undeniably profoundly challenging, also inherent within them is the potential for an economic, cultural, and social renaissance the likes of which we have never seen. We will see a flourishing of local businesses, local skills and solutions, and a flowering of ingenuity and creativity.”
This historic opportunity is everywhere, and Sarasota is no exception. Even in the midst of great uncertainty about our future, we still have it in our power to revitalize local agriculture, strengthen our local economy, reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and rebuild authentic community. But the choice is up to us. As the Hopi say: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”
Don Hall will facilitate a workshop on the Transition Movement April 10 at the Teach Peace Conference, 3139 57th St., Sarasota. More information: sarasotapeacecenter.org
Read the guest editorial in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune here. See the other SCOPE blog postings in this series: Intro, Restoring Justice & Rethinking Education
Guest Post: What’s in a Name…Part 1
What’s in a Name?
I have been part of a group that is trying to establish a national Institute in Sarasota County. We have been calling it the Institute for the Ages. Some have commented that people don’t want to be part of something that suggests aging. That led me to conclude that age bias is alive and well.
I want to explore two aspects of age bias. The first is our own bias about aging—the messages we give ourselves, the assumptions we have about aging. The second (to be explored in a later blog) are the messages we receive from society at large.
I will start with my own age bias. At a party, a convertible with the top down arrived. My first thought was how nice to be going to a party with younger people. I soon realized that the driver was a man who lives at the retirement community, Plymouth Harbor, with others in the car from the same place. I was startled. Is that the image I have of an 85-year-old man and if he is so “with it” why is he in Plymouth Harbor? My thought process reflected my bias about aging–that if you are in a retirement community you would not be in a convertible—especially in the back seat. I was doing is what we do all the time—we categorize people by age. We categorize teen-agers, middle agers, baby boomers and older people. But you and I know the reality—that there is more heterogeneity as people age, not less.
What do you think of the name, the Institute for the Ages? What assumptions do you have about aging?
Let us know.
Nancy K. Schlossberg
www.transitionsthroughlife.com
Nancy K. Schlossberg, EdD, counseling psychologist, is professor emerita at the University of Maryland and past president of the National Career Development Association. Her work has been showcased on the front page of USA Today and has been quoted in the New York Times, the St. Petersburg Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reader’s Digest, and Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer.
Her latest book Revitalizing Retirement: Reshpaing Your Identity, Relationships, and Purpose, gives unique guidance on how to create a happy, fulfilling retirement. Nancy is a member of the SCOPE Board.
Guest Post: Restoring Justice
SCOPE is partnering with the Peace Education and Action Center and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to start a community dialogue in three important areas: Rethinking Education, Restoring Justice and Respecting Environment. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune will publish guest editorials on each of the three areas, which will be crossposted on the SCOPE blog.
On April 9th and 10th, the Peace Education and Action Center will host their second annual Teach Peace Conference with the same three focus areas. We hope the dialogue that begins through these multiple channels and the actions that result will bring about positive changes for our community.
The second installment is below. We hope you will use the commenting space to continue a dialogue about how we can Restore Justice.
Restorative justice offers a better way to cope with crime
By Gordon Bazemore, director of the Community Justice Institute at Florida Atlantic University.
E-mail: bazemor@fau.edu
Published: Tuesday, March 30, 2010
If asked to define “justice,” most Americans use words such as fairness, similar or equal treatment, absence of discrimination, enlightenment, due process and equal opportunity. Yet, when asked what is meant when we hear that someone has been “brought to justice,” Americans inevitably think first of punishment — often severe punishment — that must serve as retribution for wrongdoing. We know that justice is a larger concept than punishment, yet we are mostly aware of a very limited set of choices about what justice means in response to crime.
It has been said that Americans are addicted to punishment. But it is more accurate to say that this addiction is characteristic of policymakers who run on “get tough on crime” platforms that seem to thrive on retribution. Crime makes us angry and afraid, but a number of surveys have shown that most of us want accountability for crimes rather than simply retribution. Of greatest concern is the fact that retributive justice is inherently offender-focused — leaving crime victims on the sidelines of the justice process.
Restorative justice is a “new” way of responding to crime and harm based on ancient practices. For advocates of restorative justice, crime is more than simply lawbreaking. Rather, because crime harms individual victims, communities, offenders and relationships, “justice” cannot be achieved simply as punishment for the offender, or even by only providing treatment and services. Justice must therefore focus on repairing the harm crime causes, while ensuring accountability to those harmed by crime rather than to the state alone.
Although most of us are clearly taught to believe in the moral “rightness” of retribution, and to some degree in its effectiveness, there is no evidence to suggest that human beings are innately punitive. Indeed, most speculation is that in early human communal societies when someone was harmed by another person(s), the response was typically some form of group dialogue. This deliberation included consideration of responsibility for the act, discussion of the nature of the harm, and consideration of “accountability” based on obligations for the offender (and often his/her family) to make amends to those harmed — rather than simply “taking the punishment.”
In contrast to the view that punishment is an innately human trait, it seems more likely therefore that we are hardwired for reciprocity and social exchange. When we use the phrase “I owe you one” or “you owe me one,” we generally imply an expectation to repay a debt or good deed that can “make things right” in a different way from individual revenge.
While revenge may be part of the human condition, it may be more accurate to say that it was collective state punishment, rather than restorative justice that was “invented” (for Anglo-European cultures at least) during the Middle Ages. Retributive punishment is therefore a more recent human “innovation” that essentially formalized the response to community and individual conflict resolution by designating theft and other offenses as “crimes” against the king (or the state).
Although more commonly employed in some eras and cultures (forms of restorative justice never disappeared in many indigenous societies), reparation and informal settlement processes, as well as formal and informal restitution and other reparative sanctions (e.g., community service) have nonetheless persisted at some level alongside retributive punishment throughout Western history.
In the past two decades, restorative justice has become a growing international movement. Indeed, restorative justice was the basis for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and even became part of post-genocide reconciliation in Rwanda. Restorative practices have also become popular in schools and universities as an alternative to suspension and expulsion.
While restorative justice led to new policy in a number of states and prompted statutory change in juvenile justice codes in 35, U.S. policymakers have clearly lagged the rest of the world, and restorative justice in many states (including Florida) is used only sporadically. The good news is that many citizens who learn about restorative justice support it, as well as many criminal justice decision makers — including prosecutors, judges, public defenders, police officers and victims’ advocates.
Read the guest editorial in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune here. See the other SCOPE blog postings in this series here and here.
Guest Post: Rethinking Education
SCOPE is partnering with the Peace Education and Action Center and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to start a community dialogue in three important areas: Rethinking Education, Restoring Justice and Respecting Environment. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune will publish guest editorials on each of the three areas, which will be crossposted on the SCOPE blog.
On April 9th and 10th, the Peace Education and Action Center will host their second annual Teach Peace Conference with the same three focus areas. We hope the dialogue that begins through these multiple channels and the actions that result will bring about positive changes for our community.
The first installment is below. We hope you will use the commenting space to continue a dialogue about how we can Rethink Education.
Educating in a democracy
By Gordon E. “Mike” Michalson Jr., president of New College of Florida
Published: Sunday, March 28, 2010
Consider this: For their entire lives, today’s college students have known only the snide exchanges and shouting matches offered by cable TV news as the chief way in which Americans discuss pressing issues of public policy. Apparently having made the decision that demonizing the opponent is more entertaining (and profitable?) than careful analysis and patient dialogue, the producers of such programs have set the tone for much of what passes for debate in our nation today.
Lost from view are some core principles of a sound education: rational argument based on true premises; the appeal to evidence; openness to alternative viewpoints, including the possibility you might be wrong; and respect for those who may view things differently when matters are intrinsically complex.
The important dots to connect here are those between the goals of education and the health of our democracy. Although higher education perhaps has a special responsibility to promote critical thinking, the habits of mind and practice at stake here are relevant to all levels of education, beginning with preschooling. After all, the vitriolic exchanges we often see in the media or experience firsthand in our own communities are simply the grown-up version of hitting the other kid in the schoolyard. It is never too early to teach the lesson that the resort to bullying — rhetorical as well as physical — can never be reconciled with the proper aims of education.
Against this background, it is worth considering how critical thinking as a community undertaking helps prepare college students for constructive lives in our democracy. It is, after all, within group settings that college students typically hone the skills of critical thinking — whether through discussing the causes of the French Revolution, comparing alternative readings of “Othello,” testing hypotheses about the causes of red tide or debating ways to distribute student government funds.
Over time, multiple experiences in such settings drive home the lesson that, the more complex the stakes, the less likely there will be one “right” answer — but even so, the world doesn’t end, and those who disagree with you are not bad people.
Somewhat paradoxically, the spillover effects of this lesson might include not only an enhanced spirit of tolerance and common purpose, but also a greater sense of personal self-confidence despite the absence of consensus about the “right” answer. The lesson here is that ambiguity and complexity are not the enemies of self-esteem.
Unfortunately, too much of today’s debate in the public arena occurs as though we need to have complete consensus — the “right” answer — about core values before we can work out the details of public policy. Ironically, this is the very thing Thomas Jefferson argued we don’t need in order to pursue our democratic practices — any more than students in my philosophy of religion classes need to agree about religious belief in order to have a successful class.
Sound education should help one live constructively with disagreement rather than always having to hammer complex issues into a single truth that only you and people just like you “own.” This educational goal has rarely seemed so timely, or so important.
Read the guest editorial in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune here. See the original SCOPE blog posting here.