Learning from ‘What makes us human?’

From the Introduction to ‘What makes us human?’

“(Appreciation means) that we finally stop putting people into categories and enjoy the discovery of each other’s strengths: city and slum dwellers, saints and sinners, straights and all the others, the protected and the vulnerable, natives and…

As a way of introducing people to Jean-Louis’ book ‘What makes us human?’ people are being recorded talking about their experience of SALT in their lives. For good or ill, Anu Sieberk recorded my contribution this morning. In it, I talk about how the idea of ‘Appreciation’ has altered my life. You can see it at…

Jean-Louis’ book is now out in English. The title of the book is ‘What makes us human?’ We have used this challenging question for a long time in the Constellation and it is, indeed, a fine title for the book. I don’t know if I should say this, but what I like even more is the sub-title for the book, ‘The story of a shared dream’.

The Constellation is truly the story of a shared dream. I suspect that for each of us there was a time when we saw that what the Constellation was…

As facilitators, we often talk about the consequences of applying SALT with a group. But what happens when SALT is the way of working within a group and you are part of that group? How does it feel to be part of such a group? I would like to give some personal reflections on this experience.

What happens when you deliberately support, appreciate, learn and transfer AND when you feel supported, you feel appreciated, you feel that others recognise that you have something that they can…

I would like to recommend a Ted Talk by Hilary Cottam called ‘Social Services are broken. How we can fix them.’

https://www.ted.com/talks/hilary_cottam_social_services_are_broken_how_we_can_fix_them?language=en

If you don’t have 17 minutes to listen to the whole video, try the first 5 minutes.

If you don’t have 5 minutes, you can read the transcript of the…

In the Constellation, we make a distinction between the expert and the facilitator. When we are an expert, we recognise our own authority to diagnose the problem and to give a solution. When we listen and reflect, we become part of a conversation where we can support and appreciate without judgement.

In the Constellation, we do not diagnose and we do not provide a solution. We believe in the capacity of others to find their own solution to their own problem. (And therefore we must…

During 2013, a small group of people worked on a project to organise the stories that appear on this site so that we can learn more effectively from the experiences of Local Response described here. These experiences sit at the heart of Knowledge Fairs. We organise the content into what we call Knowledge Assets. This note explains a little more about Knowledge Fairs and Knowledge Assets. At the end, there is a link to more material and examples. 

The idea of…

Immanuel Kant is a German philosopher who died more than 200 years ago. He taught us how we should seek to live our lives and I find that what he said then is relevant for how I live my life today.

Here is the dream of Immanuel Kant. It seems to me that he is talking about Local Response. And his dream is a dream for the Constellation. I shall carry it with me into 2014.

"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use…

This story comes the Global Learning Festival held in Chennai in 2012. It is told by Aniruddhan Vasudevan. You can find it and many other stories told at the Learning Festival at https://sites.google.com/a/communitylifecompetence.org/the-global-learning-festival/home…

This was told to me by Ms. Charkaporn Pandontong of Ta Wang Tan in Ta Tum Sub-district, Pa Sang District, Lamphun, Thailand:

"When we did the Self Assessment 2 years ago, we found that for practices 1 and 3 (the first one about raising awareness and the third one is about linking care and prevention) our score was rather low. In the analysis we thought that this…

This is a transcript of a video clip by Gaston  

In the video, he describes the community of Ta Wang Tan in northern Thailand:

"This is in northern Thailand in the province of Chiang Mai, a little community called Ta wang taan. This community has been using…

In this YouTube video, Gaston discusses how the young people in Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea, keep their finger on the pulse of what is happening in their community. If you want numbers, they won't have them. But they do have a sense of the progress that the community is making and they are able to take action when they see a problem. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n-OmxxWdnk…

I recently wrote a blog about measuring the response of a community to inclusion at Hua Rin Temple in Thailand. I have been asked if I had more detail about the measures that the community took in order to encourage inclusion. Here they are. The conversation took place in 2006.

The Health Centre in Thung Satok sub-district, San Pa Tong district, Chiang Mai province…

This story was told to me by the Abbot of Hua Rin Temple, Phra Athikarn Tahanawat, in 2006. I used this experience recently so that we could understand more clearly the power of measuring progress in a consistent and persistent way. I thought that perhaps it might be useful for others.

The people of Sanpatong District in northern Thailand worked long and hard to ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS were accepted by the community. In such a situation, it is easy to become…

This note is based on an article and a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell. I will give the links at the end of the posting. 

In the article and podcast, Gladwell asserts that when we listen we filter what we hear through our own biases. He tells the story of Konrad Kellen who is seen by Gladwell as having the gift of listening without filters. It is a fascinating story and I recommend it. The story tells of the disasters that can follow when we listen with filters and I think that he is…

This is the story of John. He died recently in a village in what I think is the most beautiful part of my country, England. During his long life, John lived and worked in many places, but he died 5 miles away from where he was born. He was 85 years old when he died.

John was a quiet, even shy man. But he had a wide range of interests. He had a deep love of music. He…

I have started to put content on a site called 'Constellation Learning'. The hope is that it will contain material for people who facilitate the Community Life Competence process.

I have added a section called 'Learning tools' to this site. It contains a description and discussion on the Constellation Learning tools. It is taken from the updated version of Blended Learning. The tools discussed are AAR, learn-and-share, story telling, peer assist, knowledge asset and knowledge…

Carol Dweck is a professor of psychology at Stanford University. She has carried out a set of experiments with children that make a distinction between appreciating talent (‘You are very good at that.’) and appreciating effort (‘You really worked hard at that.’)

Here are some quotations from her work.

‘In the last 1990s when our country was at the height of the self esteem movement, the self esteem gurus told everybody to praise their children’s intelligence, to…

Recently I had the opportunity to spend a week working with a group of young people. We spent the time in a world very different from their normal environment of a large city. And you could say that the week was about

appreciating the strengths of these young people.

At the end of one the sessions that I ran, one of my colleagues a retired priest started to talk to me. ‘You know’, he said, ‘what you do is very similar to Confession, but…