Saturday 14 October 2006

Imagine that!

 Did an educational exercise with a group on Thursday night in which I invited them to imagine themselves (the committee) as a person and to then answer some questions about that person?It needs to be said about this exercise that it is an IMAGINAL exercise as opposed to an IMAGINARY exercise. We are developing an Image  rather than fabricating an unreality.
Indeed the theory would seem to suggest that the Image is to help us better understand the reality.
The group; older rather than younger, male more than female; struggled with even consenting to this imaginal exercise. Part of my reflection to them was  that we are "such victims of our education".
They protested this some what....but they did keep saying "Tell us what you want us to say"
This is really my point. Our education system so often skills us in telling the teacher what they want to hear, rather than in investigating concepts or ideas.
This sort of IMAGINAL exercise of course is designed to get us thinking. So it was interesting to experience the genuine puzzlement and even pain...I can't see the point!
The book from which I had drawn this exercise warned me of all these potential issues.
Nevertheless, we did discern a few things about our committee. Conservative but not overly formal, fairly relaxed, probably male.Enjoys quality but in a restrained way. Needs to relax and spends a bit too much time getting things done.
We even got something of a name...Bernard Jones....which seems to me to be about right. Even now just saying ...well what would Bernard think about that has developed an interesting shorthand way of viewing our little group.

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