from Ed Ford (930510:1340)
Bill Powers 930510.0830
...every person grows up faced with a wide choice of reference levels
for the kinds of experiences that occur, including not only different
reference levels but contradictory ones. The most difficult part of
growing up is the realization that the world pulls in many different
directions at the same time, and that there is no source of guidance for
which of all possible lives to seek, how to act with other people, how
to speak, what kinds of manners to adopt, what brand of politics to
espouse -- or ignore. Even if there are choices of guidance -- role
models, teachers, helpers in general -- one is still left with the
ultimate decision of whose advice or help to accept. And there is only
one person who can make that choice, and only one set of criteria in one
place that applies. That is why individuals do not turn out all
alike... There is no standard person influenced in a standard way by a
standard society.
I spent that last several months working in a number of school
districts, teaching teachers, administrators, parents, and counselors
PCT. A critical part of my teaching was to help them visualize their
children as living control systems, each with their own reference
levels (wants and goals), their own created perceptions, their own
style of controling their variables (feedback), and especially
how they deal with the various disturbances they encounter. I showed
them how creating a disturbance (traditional S-R approach) was useless,
which brought many Amens! I taught the participants the most efficient
way to access children was through asking the children questions about
their worlds. In this way, children are taught through the
experience of reflecting on what they want, how they perceive their
actions and rules, then comparing whether what their doing is getting
them what they want and is what they are doing against the rules?
Then the children are asked if they want to work at resolving their
problem? Finally they're taught how to create an effective and
efficient plan, including the establishment of measurable goals.
One such place was a very small boarder town in Texas, San Elizario. I
found the teachers, administrators, etc. warm, compassionate, and highly
frustrated. Many had to dash out to solve crisis problems while I was
conducting my sessions. But the reaction to their newly developed
skills would bring tears to a PCTer's eyes. Listening to the expressed
amazement of the principal of the intermediate school (grades 3 thru 6)
on how easy it was to deal with two young girls who had pushed another
girl to the ground. No screaming or yelling. No lectures or
threatening. Just quietly asking the girls what they wanted, what were
the rules, what they did, getting them to compare what they did to the
school rules, and if what they did was going to help them get what they
wanted (to be in class and not get in trouble is what they wanted).
Asking them what the consequences and their choices were and whether
they were willing to work at resolving their problem. Once they said
they wanted to work at the problem, one of the two volunteered to
apologize to the offended girl and the other suggested they ask her
to play with them after school.
Bill's comments above brought this all to mind. Those two young girls
DEALT WITH THEIR OWN ADVICE, their own world, their own sense of what
was right, just, in short, their own set of beliefs and values, their
standards, and their choices. Rather than lecture these girls, perhaps
threaten them, as he may have done in the past, this principal learned
to see these young girls through PCT eyes as living control systems, and
he dealt with them very efficiently after learning how to effectively
access their systems AS THOSE SYSTEMS WERE DESIGNED.
We have to keep comparing our standards and values/beliefs and the
choices we make to the goals or wants we have created for getting along
with those we meet every day in all the various situations in which we
find ourselves. There are many who teach system concepts and standards,
but I would think the ultimate test of standards and system concepts is
whether living accord to their precepts, it brings us a fully satifying
life. And the greatest source of guidance comes from those who
patiently keep asking the kinds of questions that help us to learn how
to control our own systems in the most effective way possible.
Best, Ed
Ed Ford 5913466@MCIMAIL.COM
10209 N. 56th St., Scottsdale, Arizona 85253 Ph.602 991-4860