Comments on: What Does It Mean to “Be the Change We Want to See?” http://hildygottlieb.com/2009/11/04/what-does-it-mean-to-be-the-change-we-want-to-see/ Mon, 21 May 2012 22:31:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Gayle Valeriote http://hildygottlieb.com/2009/11/04/what-does-it-mean-to-be-the-change-we-want-to-see/comment-page-1/#comment-31032 Gayle Valeriote Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:04:53 +0000 http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=1267#comment-31032 Hi Hildy: I want to reply to your post, with a bit of a philosophical issue. You know that I worked in neighbourhood community development for 10 years, in an area that was "high risk" everywhere you looked. But I was always stumped by the phrase used in the program model, "primary prevention". Because I'm not a trained social worker, but I am a skilled activist, I could never figure out what I was supposed to do to achieve primary prevention. I asked often in my first 2 years, and no one could ever tell me. It seemed like some sort of vague mystery, and that I might have the answer to some day. Well, I finally got fed up with waiting. I knew I needed a pathway for action, and decided to just create my own answer. What I did was reframe the vague and negative notion into a positive concept (drawing from the NLP teaching of my educational psychology prof in teacher's college). What's the positive opposite of prevention? I reasoned that it is "enrichment", whereupon I began a new teaching practice called "how to enrich the neighbourhood". Where people had previously been as flumoxed as I was about what to do in prevention, they knew exactly what they wanted to do in enrichment. The word itself has the most beautiful connotation - riches! We figured out lots of ways to honour the richness of the neighbourhood and to enrich its struggling residents. No small feat. I feel the same way about the phrase, "be the change". What does that mean when we speak in CDI terms? For me, it's too oblique, too vague. It speaks to the negative, or to the half-formed process. This thought has been hovering in the background of my consciousness for a while, and for some reason has crystalized in the last couple of days: it's not the change that we want to see, as much as the lived expression of the community we want to create. Change is only 50% of the way there. The activist in me says, "the point is the completion of the process". So, with all due respect to you and Mr.Ghandi, I'm changing the phrase to "be the community you want to see". It tells me what to do, rather than what not to do. Thanks for the column, and helping me complete the thought. Gayle Hi Hildy: I want to reply to your post, with a bit of a philosophical issue.

You know that I worked in neighbourhood community development for 10 years, in an area that was “high risk” everywhere you looked. But I was always stumped by the phrase used in the program model, “primary prevention”. Because I’m not a trained social worker, but I am a skilled activist, I could never figure out what I was supposed to do to achieve primary prevention. I asked often in my first 2 years, and no one could ever tell me. It seemed like some sort of vague mystery, and that I might have the answer to some day. Well, I finally got fed up with waiting. I knew I needed a pathway for action, and decided to just create my own answer.

What I did was reframe the vague and negative notion into a positive concept (drawing from the NLP teaching of my educational psychology prof in teacher’s college). What’s the positive opposite of prevention? I reasoned that it is “enrichment”, whereupon I began a new teaching practice called “how to enrich the neighbourhood”. Where people had previously been as flumoxed as I was about what to do in prevention, they knew exactly what they wanted to do in enrichment. The word itself has the most beautiful connotation – riches! We figured out lots of ways to honour the richness of the neighbourhood and to enrich its struggling residents. No small feat.

I feel the same way about the phrase, “be the change”. What does that mean when we speak in CDI terms? For me, it’s too oblique, too vague. It speaks to the negative, or to the half-formed process. This thought has been hovering in the background of my consciousness for a while, and for some reason has crystalized in the last couple of days: it’s not the change that we want to see, as much as the lived expression of the community we want to create. Change is only 50% of the way there.

The activist in me says, “the point is the completion of the process”. So, with all due respect to you and Mr.Ghandi, I’m changing the phrase to “be the community you want to see”. It tells me what to do, rather than what not to do.

Thanks for the column, and helping me complete the thought.

Gayle

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