In this course on Facilitating Online Communities we have come to "facilitating, moderating or teaching". To facilitate we must have some overall organization, some system or path laid to help people move together. Anyone can lay their own individual path but if we are to walk together on a shared journey we must use a common route, such as a course outline.
In order to make the journey, it may be required to have certain tools and skills. In teaching and learning these skills, we develop coordination as a community. I think of this aspect as a disciplined effort as if we were going to play on a ball team and needed to learn the skills and coordination necessary for throwing or kicking a ball through the goal.
The traditional democratic skills of moderation are needed in times of conflict.
In all these instances, we humans have a complete ready-to-use set of traditional democratic arts that we can apply once we learn and know them. Throughout this course, I am going to continually be looking to our common traditions for solutions.
Extremism Redefined: Caught in a Mouth Trap
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Last month, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and
Communities, Michael Gove MP, announced a new and expanded definition of
extremism as part...
2 days ago
Artie
ReplyDeleteYou are sparking my thinking about what are common traditions, especially in a group as diverse geographically as this one, and then how to use them in an on-line community. I read posts elsewhere about talking sticks or walking away from the computer for a moment. I would like to see how and what we can use.
That sparks my curiosity and my energy - much more than the discussion is when is a community a community.
Thanks
Lynne
I'm fairly certain that the circle form is an ancient tradition going back hundreds of thousands of years. Of course, it has adapted itself to many human habitats, which is a testimony to it's versatility, it's functionality and it's adaptability. The Talking Stick and it's variations will be something to investigate because it is proven to adapt and what we face in this new era is a test to our ablitity to adapt. So I will constantly be referring myself and my buddies here to traditional form.
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