Landing and Launching: Installment #12

24 BALLOON

Preparation time: Five minutes

Materials: One large balloon per person

Procedure:

(1)   Explain to participants that the balloon can represent our stress levels.

(2)   The balloon can hold a lot of air (stress) but if it gets too full it will pop.

(3)   Each thing that happens to us puts a little more air in our balloon.

(4)   Explain that we are going to let the air out of our balloons.

(5)   Instruct participants to fill the balloon full of enough air to represent their stress level for that week.

(6)   One at a time, participants release air from their individual balloons.

(7)   Participant releases a little bit of air, closes the balloon and explains what each release means.

Alternatives:

Notes: Inevitably with less mature groups, there will the temptation to make the balloons squeak. If this occurs repeatedly, there are a few options. The first is to do the obvious: redirect. Another option is allow everybody to make their balloon squeal. That way they get it out of their system and you can move on.

Activity Credit: Adapted from the visionary folks at Challenge Day

25 CUP 

“When your cup is full empty it; when your cup is empty fill it.” Zen saying

Preparation time: Five minutes

Materials: One empty cup per person

Procedure:

(1)   Explain to participants that our emotional body can be compared to a cup.

(2)   It has a certain capacity but when full it dumps on the ground (and other people).

(3)   Instruct participants to hold close their eyes and hold their cup in both hands close to their heart.

(4)   Instruct participants to recall everything positive and negative that has happened that day or week.

(5)   One at a time participants share both positive and negative experiences and emotions.

(6)   When participants have finished, explain that the cup is continually emptied and filled in our lives.

Alternatives: I sometimes explain to my students that emotions can be like compost. It takes manure to make flowers. When participants share negative emotions, suggest that they say “ I release this to the universe to be recycled and composted into a flower or something else beautiful. Positive emotions like joy can be shared with the group. Instruct participants to pass their cup around when they share especially buoyant emotions.”I would like to share my joy with the group and anybody that wants to can take a little sip

Notes: This is a deeper more subtle variation of the balloon metaphor. The Zen masters instructed acolytes to become an empty vessel before they could learn anything. This wisdom is reflected in the wisdom of Native American elders who instructed people to be  like a hollow bone.

Activity: Inspired by Wallace Black Elk

26 MIRROR

Preparation time: Five minutes

Materials: A small hand mirror

Procedure:

(1)Explain to participants that living a healthy life requires constant checking in with ourselves.

(2)In Alcoholics Anonymous this is referred to as a moral inventory. It requires looking at both the positive and negative aspects of one's daily life with a vigilant personal honesty and self-reflection

(3)One at a time, participants look in the mirror as it comes around the circle.

(4)Each individual in turn finishes this sentence: “When I look in the mirror today I see...

Alternatives: If you have a group with a lot of self esteem issues you can soften the individual statement:

(1)   Two things I like about myself is.....

(2)   One thing that would make me a better person is...

Notes: I generally use this activity with substance abuse education groups and that is probably its best use but I have used it with other populations. Looking in the mirror is difficult even for high functioning individuals. There may be awkward pauses. If you are using the affirmation model some participants may have difficulty saying positive things about themselves. There can also be the tendency to be completely negative about oneself (a weakness of AA). The inverse of this is the individual who is doing a lot of bad things but finds nothing wrong in any of it.

Put Up Poker

Put downs are an insidious part of the American cultural landscape. This verbal behavior becomes compounded in the school environment with its "herd" problems (many people in a confined space competing for limited resources). It looks like this:

• A hierarchical system by design of winners and losers
• Incomplete brain development of most of the residents (specifically the cerebral cortex)
• Basics of child and adolescent development including experimentation with everything from substances to identities
• Ancient biological drives
• The predominance of the amygdala (reptilian core) in many decisions
• A media (Sponge Bob) which reinforces verbal put downs as a cultural norm

Classroom teachers have a variety of responses to this. Some just get numbed into submission until they finally just tune it out or don't hear it anymore. Others deal with it head on in a variety of ways. Some use the traditional crime and punishment model and just send frequent offenders to the office or have them do detention. The more consciously aware teachers use the prevalence of put downs as teachable moments or even take class periods to address bullying on all levels.

A proactive response is set the stage before the stage sets you...and your class...on fire. One simple awareness tool I have developed over the years is an activity I call Put Up Poker.

• Start by distributing 5 poker chips to each student.
• During the course of any class or any normal activity you are playing Put up Poker
• When a student utters a pu tdown, calmly and without speaking much remove one chip from their pile.
• Have a bag or box full of extra poker chips available.
• Whenever a student gives a sincere, unplanned and spontaneous compliment, put a chip on their desk.
• I generally don't comment much on what made the student lose or gain a chip unless they ask. That way it doesn't interrupt the general academic flow.
• Explain these basic principles to the students before beginning.
• 
  

Before beginning Put Up Poker or any other awareness activity it's a good idea to start with a short script like the following:

"I've observed that we use a lot of put downs in this class.I'm not sure if it's just I'm just overly sensitive or if we really have a problem. What I would like to do is an awareness activity that will measure just how often negative comments occur."

Because slurs and put downs are such a normative part of many students' experience you will most likely have to clearly define just exactly what put downs are. I also try to explain to students that good natured teasing is a normal part of living a healthy life. Teach kids to find the balance.

I generally shy away from using these types of activities as rewards or punishments. I find it's best just to build that awareness first.There will be a variety of reactions. Some students will do the reverse of your intention and immediately lose all of their chips. Others will give a bunch of false shallow compliments just to earn chips. In both case it's best to respond without emotion. A "just the facts maam" approach works best.

At the end of the day or that particular class just ask for a quick show of hands of:

• "Who has more than they started with?"
• "Who has less than they started with?"
• "Who has the same amount?"
• "Did anybody make a compliment that I didn't hear?" (if so reward that student a chip)

If you do this for awhile, perhaps a week or two, you can ask the class to agree as a group that they want to reduce or eliminate put downs. But surprisingly, just building that awareness often has an amazing effect on the emotional safety of the classroom. Peace. Jeff

First Community: Then Education

It's not often that you see a grown man in full pow wow regalia leading a line of children, staff, students, parents and community members down a school hallway but that's exactly what happened last Thanksgiving at Wishram School. Thanksgiving can be an emotionally loaded holiday for many native people. The administration at Wishram chose several years ago to take the day before the break and create a community feast and celebration.

The day begins much like any school event. Andrea the business manager paces her office nervously waiting for phone calls and confirmations about guest speakers. The drum group has been delayed because of a severe snowstorm that blew in last night. The main speaker and announcer for the event hasn't answered his cell phone. The dancers are coming from different directions and most have to travel a considerable distance over snow packed highways. Andrea frets and worries enough for the whole school.

Children from the school who will be dancing in the pow wow are doing the normal things all child performers do. They are fretting and fussing over costumes. One girl is upset because her mom forgot a vital piece of her regalia and it's too late to go home now.

The cook and her crew are watching the salmon, venison, turkey and other main courses with vigilance and of course all are worried that the turkeys won't be done in time. She calculates the number of visitors and eyes the quantity of food. She has two primary concerns. One possibility is that there won't be enough food. The other and perhaps more problematic concern she had was that she would be left with mountains of leftovers.

The superintendent, Duane Grahams, incorporated everybody else's worries into himself and paces and runs around enough for everybody too. He picks up all the loose pieces and keeps people calm while worrying himself. And of course he can't find his cellphone again.

The gym is half filled with tables. The other half is kept open for the pow wows. Guests begin to file in. In a small town this can be tricky. The families run the gamut from parents going through a divorce and the resulting tension that brings to a public event to parents that have been married since shortly after they left high school.

In short it's community with everything that brings.

It's a far different experience in most other schools the day before Thanksgiving Break. Most of the schools I have worked in the day before the break has children plugged into movies they've seen many times before for the better part of the day. Sometimes there's the obligatory propaganda pilgrim and native people play or children singing cute songs but mostly the day is a waste educationally and socially.

Wishram decided to do something different. Duane Grahams, who is in temporary possession of his cell phone now, recognizes intuitively that education works better when people are connected to one another. He is unlike most other superintendents I have worked for. He calls his staff family. When any staff has to deal with personal issues, he sends the message clearly that the school can accommodate their needs within certain limits. The business manager who does a lot more than manage business operates with a similar understanding.The day before Christmas break she sent one staff to buy a pair of shoes for a student who had only one leaky pair of shoes.

The dinner went off flawlessly. The tables were full of community member and students all sitting and eating together. Students took alternating shifts to serve food. There was just about the right amount of food. There were enough leftovers to send home with guests but not so much that food would be wasted. After people were reasonably full the drumming and dancing began.

Teachers and staff had the opportunity to see their students dancing. The pow wow was an abbreviated version of a longer pow wow. There were women and girls in beautiful multi-colored  shawls, men with eagle bustles,  and grass dancers. At the end, the announcer asked the teachers to come forth and dance a little. With a little humor he asked the students to rate the teacher's dancing abilities. We did OK but we won't be winning any pow wow prize money anytime soon.

Pencil Moments

"I just had a 'pencil moment.'"

The rest of the girls in that group all nodded in understanding and empathy. Clearly they were speaking in a code that this 40 something boomer had not yet been privy to.

Molly, a 16 year old junior, had been unable to find her pencil in class and she had suddenly to burst in tears. The rest of the class reacted in the predictable range of ways that high school students reacted. Some rushed to be of comfort. Some looked away uncomfortably. Others looked on with some concern but confusion. The least sensitive among them, many of them males (shamefully for my gender, I am sad to still report), laughed at her.

A "Pencil Moment", in the nomenclature of that particular group can after any and or all of the following possibilities.

• Your mom/dad/guardian yells at you.
• Your family is getting evicted because money's too tight and you have to find a new place to live quickly.
• You get a bad grade on a test or homework.
• You're fighting with the girls on your team.
• You are the subject of vicious rumors.
• Your parents are getting divorced.
• Your mom' new boyfriend is moving in.
• Your boyfriend dumps you, cheats on you, sends you a mean text.
• You get busted for smoking.
• Dad is going to rehab.
• Dad is coming home from rehab.
• You can't stand the family reconciliation counselor.
• Grandma dies.
• You fight with your siblings.
• You are late to school again.

Perhaps you get the idea.

And then.....You have to take yet another of those irrelevant tests or surveys that school officials feel are so important and you need a number two pencil which you are quite sure you have in your backpack and although you have looked everywhere in your backpack and taken out and replaced the contents of that backpack three or four times just to look for that stupid pencil.

And you start crying. And even though the reactions from everybody range from support to disdain, you know that everybody thinks you're crazy. Except for your friends who understand you are just having a pencil moment.

It's not the pencil.

Students (and some teachers) all across America will be having these moments all day today. It's the first day back for many after a long break. Much will have happened in the lives of those kids during the holiday break. Good things, things not so good. Even the most functional of families have a lot of stress during the holidays, so let's take it easy on each other this morning. Peace...Jeff

Guns and Gardens

I finally had the chance to watch the much vaunted Sarah Palin reality show in which she flies 600 miles to kill one caribou. As a man who grew up with a hunting family and has spent the last 15 years living on mostly venison and elk I feel I can speak with authority on this eco porn episode. My first thought was trying to calculate how much per pound that caribou cost. They flew 600 miles to the base camp and then had to take three individual flights deeper into caribou country. This is not including the expensive tents, backpacks, meals for the trips and of course state of the art Cabela's type camouflage clothing, boots and of course the invisible camera crew.

A principle of sustainable hunting is that the taking of the animal should not consume more energy than the animal will provide.

Each fall during hunting season I walk off my porch carrying only a gun and a knife. In order to honor the spirit of the animal I fast and pray on the days that I hunt. When I am tuned in I will often have dreams about the animal and the place I will find it. When I finally encounter the animal I look in its eyes for a minute and then I take careful aim and shoot. One shot one kill is my motto. Sarah Palin relied heavily on the wise father archetype in her episode. She referred frequently to all the life lesson he had taught her. Apparently, however, he never taught her the value of sighting in your weapon, be it rifle or bow, before you head out to hunt. Maybe she just wasn't listening. Maybe both are true.

Hunting basics include sighting in your weapon before you head out to hunt.

I still have in my possession my father's machete from the Korean War.On the thin side away from the sharp side are multiple indentations. Those dents came from sharpshooter practice. We would shoot at the thin side from distances as great as 100 yards with everything from muzzle loading rifles to the Remington 30.06 I still hunt with to this day. My father took great pride in his marksman skills and although I never got so formal as to earn the patch or join the NRA  I still take great pride in my shooting skills. I try to minimize the suffering of the animal by taking a head shot. I can say with pride that 8 of the 10 last seasons I shot a deer with a head shot. This sounds brutal but it minimizes suffering . In order to keep my hunting skills sharp I shoot from the same distance that I could kill with a bow.


 Hunting is not a "sport."



Life is sacred. Life is Spirit. Spirit is Life. Food is Spirit. Spirit is Food.To me hunting is a prayer. I connect directly with my food. I pray for it before, during and after. I am continually amazed that the pro-life crowds' reverence for life does not extend to coyotes and other wild things.Nothing irritates me more than the hordes of drunk overweight slobs who infest the woods during deer season. They give this ancient ritual a bad name and their disdain for life will eventually  lead to more and more restrictive hunting laws. Whenever I see hunters on television my stomach turns and I turn to something with more honor. Even "Jerseylicious" has more honor.

Although my childhood was filled with hunting we never had a mounted animal anywhere in our house. I took this even further when I grew up. In order to honor that life I have taken I don't snap any pictures of those animals. If I don't brain tan the hides myself or make a drum, I give it to friends who will use it. After butchering the animal myself, I cook all the meat off the bones and make stock. In the way of my ancestors everything gets used.

The one aspect of the show which may have turned the stomachs of the more effete members of the audience was when she showed the animal being butchered. People got to see what real meat looks like. I reflected on a kayak expedition I led in 1989 down the Syr Darya River in the former Soviet Union territories of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. We ate lamb and some sort of fish every day. Halfway through the trip we encountered a shepherd. We were most likely the first and last Americans that man had ever met. To honor the occasion, he offered the pick of any lamb or sheep from his flock.

He gave the honor to Paul, a yuppie from Seattle who spoke the best Russian. In an almost biblical fashion he paraded the entire flock by us. He was not a rich man and this clearly was a great honor. But Paul couldn't do it. He could eat meat but he did not have what it takes to take responsibility for his own meat. Most of the flock had nearly passed by us and Paul stood there immobilized. We were just about to insult the humble and generous shepherd when Yuri, my Soviet counterpart, yanked a fat lamb from the flock. The crisis was averted.

We still had plenty of food so the lamb went in the support raft. It traveled alive with us for two more days.At night the Russians would stake it out to feed inside our circle of tents. The American who were mostly urban Seattle yuppies talked of releasing the lamb. It clearly caused them great consternation. I pointed out the sounds of jackals in the distance which we heard every night. As diplomatically as I could I informed them that either the jackals or us would be eating that lamb in the not too distant future. A few days later there was the absence of a lamb's bleat and fresh tender lamb meat on the menu. They all ate it. After that experience I came to a simple conclusion.

If you cannot kill an animal perhaps you should not eat meat.

All these thoughts were swirling around my brain as I forced myself to watch the rest of the Sarah Palin "Reality?" Show. A lifetime of hunting, conversations with others around meat and food and life.I became grateful for the experiences life had offered me. I became grateful that I lived in a place where I could still to some degree follow the traditions of my ancestors. I became grateful for the intimate connection with my food whether it was spinach from my garden, mushrooms from the forest or venison from the fields.

I began thinking of another prominent female figure who was talking to Americans about food: Michelle Obama . Michelle has a dignity and grace not often found in political figures. Intelligent,educated and insightful, she has not taken on something dainty like libraries or roadside beautification. She has taken on childhood obesity and the health epidemic that our way of eating has created.

Gardens are not glamorous or exciting. They are quiet and peaceful. They offer a place for intimate connection to the earth. They offer places for reflection. Yet it is that small backyard garden with it abundant produce grown with love that will change this country for the better if we allow it.

I love my way of living in the forest with game close by but I also realize that this way of life is no longer possible for most Americans. But a garden, be it a pot with herbs in a window, a school or community garden or the skyscraper gardens of a fantasy future, is accessible to all Americans. I think I'll go with Michelle's dream.

Change and the Seven Levels of Awareness

I have been a conscious change agent for over 20 years now and I have learned along the way that few groups of people ever change at the pace I wish they would. Whether it's trying to get a kid to go to treatment or getting the administration to understand the connections between behavior and food, no group of people has ever changed at my pace. As I pondered this over the years I developed a way of of understanding how groups and people change. I call it the Seven Levels of Awareness:

1. Exposure: A person gets exposed to a different way of thinking.
2. Acknowledgment: The group or person acknowledges that perhaps their mental models no longer function effectively.
3. Commitment to Inquiry: There is a conscious effort to examine the issue(s).
4. Storming or Fever: When the budding awareness conflicts with existing beliefs and practices.
5. Experimentation: The group or person tries on new behaviors on practices.
6. Practice: The group or person consciously tries to integrate the new beliefs and practices into their daily life.
7. Integration: The new behavior or belief becomes a natural part of group or person's daily life. 

As I embark on yet another journey of change in the public school system I have to check every now and then to see if there are actually any passengers on my ship. It takes time. It takes time. It takes time. I keep repeating that to myself. The dietary mess we find ourselves has been 80 years in the making.

The Green Revolution began after the Great Depression generation watched their friends and relatives go hungry and in some cases actually die of hunger. They did not want to see that happen again so they began experimenting with synthetic fertilizers derived mostly from petroleum. Living now in the age of peak oil this seems insane but at the time petroleum was plentiful and cheap. Science was seen as the messiah for modern times. All of these factors combined synergistically to create incredible surpluses in food and eventually incredible surpluses in our waistlines.

As Peter Senge often points out,  however, today's problems are yesterday's solutions.It seemed like a good idea at the time mom! The result of these shifts has been that the way of thinking of the Green Revolution became the new normal. The new normal since the 1950's is a massive disconnect between our food and us. Seeing a 32 ounce sugary soda as an adequate substitute for breakfast would have seemed ludicrous to my farming ancestors but that is exactly where we are at. Soda pop was an expensive luxury during the depression. Now it's just normal.

Three generations later, this grandchild of the depression generation has to bring to awareness the common knowledge of my great grandparents. I begin with just talking about things with the people I am around. I loan out books like "The Omnivore's Dilemma" to the person who purchases the food for the school. I leave informational fliers on the staff table. And of course I blog. This is the Exposure stage.

The principal of one school finally acknowledged that the school sign which has three foot high Pepsi letters above the 8 inch letters of the name of the school bugged him too. That school sold $5,000 worth of Pepsi products last year, they get free advertising on public property, and the Pepsi company made the school pay $300 for new Pepsi letters!

Getting people to commit to inquiry, whether it's an alcoholic contemplating sobriety or a school contemplating health requires the change agent to raise the discomfort level so high that they are forced to think about it. One young man developed an inflamed liver and kidney from his daily diet of soda and energy drinks. He went to the AMA doctor but finally started thinking about his habits. The doctor gave him pills but the real change occurred when he switched to drinking juice instead of pop, He inquired pretty much on his own.


The holiday season is when the Storming and Fever stage looms large. Deprivation issues arise when people think they will be missing out on their sugary goodies. Some of this results from values. I would much rather have a lean mobile body than a quick sugar rush but this perspective emerged over time. When people feel like they are going to be missing out on something, resentment can set in. Feelings of loss set in. It's the same when an alcoholic gives up alcohol for awhile and relapses later on. There is a grief during this time. Many alcoholics refer to quitting drinking as the loss of a friend. Seeing that our food practices today are essentially addictions, the same process takes place when I suggest to staff that perhaps that there might be an alternative to doughnuts at staff meetings.

I remember when I was in junior high back in the 1970's watching the teachers sitting in their staff room smoking and playing poker during lunch. Today schools are tobacco free zones although I have observed some old diehards still sneaking a smoke behind the buildings. Not everybody catches up to the new ways of thinking.

There is a relief that results when new ways of thinking are finally integrated into daily life. There is still a great deal of resistance to the notion of health at school. When I suggested at one staff meeting that we remove the pop machines, several teachers commented that the kids would just go buy the same products at the local junk mart. I responded quickly that following that logic, perhaps the school should sell cigarettes and alcohol because they could just go get them somewhere else anyway. The school may as well get the money!

Another School Garden!

There is something slightly anarchist about using boxes which used to contain Monster energy drink and junk food from the local junk mart to begin creating a lasagna garden bed. That's exactly what we did yesterday. I had liberated several bags of leaves from the Hood River Library so we used those and the cardboard to begin sheet composting the Klickitat School Garden.
blasagna garden
Some of the kids focused on tearing down on old fence. I grimaced as I watched the boys swinging a sledge hammer but nobody got hurt. The alpha female ran around giving directions to her classmates but generally didn't listen to me. Another girl raked leaves and cleaned up the area around our first garden plot. I tried to direct the kids to help me with the sheet composting or lasagna gardening but it became clear they had no idea what I was talking about so I just started laying down cardboard and dumping the bags of leaves on top. Some would call this modeling. It worked. Once they saw what I was talking about they started helping.

When I began explaining what I was doing, I realized that I was starting at ground zero with several of these kids. This became even more apparent when I started talking about adding manure to our lasagna gardening. One young man was incredulous. "You mean we're putting poop in our garden?" He had a series of questions after that. He was very concerned that I not touch the manure with my hands. As the process unfolded I began to see that we were creating much more than a garden here.

Knowledge which I just take for granted, knowledge which I consider second nature was absolutely startling to these kids. They did not know the connection between the deposits from the south end of a mule going north and spinach. Any why would they? Most of what they called food came from the double-deep-fried-brown-everything section of the adjacent store. Much of their "food" came in a box and got reheated in the oven.

But they learned quickly and grasped on to what I was doing. As I reflected on the process yesterday I realized I had made some assumptions. Although these kids lived in a beautiful rural area, they were actually urban. The term "rurban" came to mind. Rural kids with urban disconnectedness to the great wheel of life.

Some of these kids hunted so they did have the life experience of looking their food in the eye but vegetables and gardens were another matter. A lot happened yesterday. The kids were excited. They learned something and they began creating something which is theirs.