Live Encounters

Lacking Trust

“If we lack confidence that life is truly trustworthy, that a life of live encounters will take us toward wholeness, then we will forever feel the need to manipulate, and goal setting will be one of our major strategies. Once we begin to see that life is a live encounter whether we like it or not—once we begin to understand that we can't get out of it, so we must get into it—then this concern for results will take its proper place in our active lives.”

Parker Palmer (The Active Life)

Parker Palmer is one of the wisest men living on our planet today. If you've never read his books, I hope you will. He is a teacher of teachers, and as such has learned that people learn best from personal encounter with intelligent, benevolent, informed and interested people. They learn best when all their senses are engaged; hands on, dig in and experience the lesson. Every teacher I know would love to do this, but they are hampered by 'achievement' requirements that drive them to teach to the tests rather than to prepare students for life.

I have had jobs in the past where half my time was taken up with paperwork—goal setting, steps toward achievement, check off successful results, reset goals, etc. I don't think anyone was better off for my having spent all that time writing goals; mostly they sat in a file cabinet in some 'overling's' office where no one ever read them. Supervision,too, ought to be a live encounter. Supervisors should spend their time in the classroom, or in the work environment, hands on, digging in and seeing for themselves what's happening rather than pontificating from on high about goal writing.

When I taught high school special education, the single goal was to get students through the eleventh grade exam and out of the classroom. Since my students were already behind the eight-ball, very few were going to pass that exam or even be able to read the questions with comprehension. Instead, they needed life skills, job skills, and specific work training so that they could possibly make a living in the real world. But there was no time for that. They had to learn long-division so that they could pass that exam. It was a travesty.

“As long as 'effectiveness' is the ultimate standard by which we judge our actions, we will act only toward ends we are sure we can achieve.” (Palmer) When we take one-to-one, intelligent human interaction out of the equation, we limit what can be done in any arena. No amount of technology can make up for a deficiency of experience.

In the spirit,

Jane