The Self-Growth Institute has GROWN

Pacific Crest president Auston Van Slyke was able to be present all day Friday, June 28, at the Santa Cruz Self-Growth Institute, staying for the weekend as well. Five participants also stayed for the weekend and they spent some time chatting together about the Self-Growth Institute experience.

Auston shares what he learned:

“I believe this course has been a resounding success, and I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate this achievement together.

I was able to witness the incredible engagement and dedication from all participants, heck even some of them logged into the class again today. There was clearly a high-quality learning environment built over the week as it seemed I walked into a room full of friends. The feedback I received was overwhelmingly positive, with many participants expressing how valuable and transformative the experience was for them. The only negative was the quality of the rooms, as they were what you would expect for first year student dorms built in the 80s, but I think some people actually enjoyed the nostalgic nature of it all!

Here are a few highlights from what I saw of the course:

• High Participation: Everyone who signed up, showed up. We also had 3 repeat customers.

• Interactive Workshops: The interactive elements of the course were particularly well-received, they filled up a lot of white boards.

• Expert Insights: The participants were each experts in their own right, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience, adding immense value to the course content.

• Venue Location: As you can see from the photos, we had a beautiful location; the classroom itself had a view of the ocean. The dorms were nestled in the redwood forest. The dining hall was at the top of the hill, forcing us to get outside for some exercise and an occasional run in with a turkey or deer.

Thank you once again for your incredible support and contribution. Let’s celebrate this success and look forward to many more!”

TLDR: It was another successful SGI and we’re looking to begin holding them around the world, with the strong possibility of multiple Self-Growth Institutes on multiple continents this Autumn!

Featured Blog Entry

The Worst Day but a Good Week

"So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life."

--Peter Gibbons in the film Office Space

There’s a reason this quote is so amusing and sadly charming: it resonates with most of us. Not because every day is the worst day of our lives but because when we’re having an awful moment, it feels like the worst moment because we’re IN it. Yesterday’s yuck, no matter how horrid, is over. Today’s feels like it’s all over...us. And tomorrow? If we’re feeling negative, that’s just more ick to dread....

“False love, false humility, and feeble faith in others cannot create trust. Trust is contingent on the evidence which one party provides the others of his true, concrete intentions; it cannot exist if that party's words do not coincide with their actions. To say one thing and do another—to take one's own word lightly—cannot inspire trust.”

(from Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere*)

Why does this matter?

If our faith in our students' ability to succeed is feeble, we should not be surprised that they, in turn, lack belief in their own efficacy and ability to continually improve. The Faculty Guidebook contains several modules that speak directly to this kind of faith.

• It is difficult to establish respect for student performance at the start of a course because the facilitator has not yet observed the participants in action. At this stage, the teacher has to respect each student’s potential to perform, and to express this belief so strongly that students begin to trust that they will be supported through both success and failure. This belief that there is no limit to a person’s ability to learn is at the core of the Process Education philosophy. (Faculty Guidebook 3.1.4 Establishing Initial Respect Without Prejudging)
• It can be tempting for faculty to lower class expectations and outcomes so that almost all students can meet the minimum requirements. The solution to student disengagement is not to enable the avoidance of high-performance endeavors, but to promote a culture of accountability and empowerment. It is important for an instructor to truly believe that all students are capable of meeting high expectations and to communicate that belief to students. (Faculty Guidebook 3.1.7 Setting High Expectations)

Paulo Friere was a constructivist (i.e., he believed that learners construct knowledge rather than just passively take in information) who was widely read in the late seventies and early eighties and considered a key influence in adult education. He worked extensively with native populations in Brazil, challenging the commonly held assumption that adults who were not exposed to formal education as children were thus incapable of learning as adults.

Stillness

"Be Here Now; Be Now Here”

–Ram Dass

Often we are so invested in the future, looking forward to or dreading the things we know (or fear) are coming, that we are nearly unaware of what is going on in the moment. This can also be the case for people who are strong planners and efficient doers...

While much might get done, limiting focus to the next item and taking care of it effectively creates a kind of tunnel vision, eclipsing everything that isn’t a proverbial action item.

So much of life’s quality is inherent in the here and now.

Consider the poem “Song for a Fifth Child” by Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Oh, cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

But children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep.

I’m rocking my baby. Babies don’t keep.

Of similar impact are the lyrics to Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle”

My child arrived just the other day

He came to the world in the usual way

But there were planes to catch and bills to pay

He learned to walk while I was away…

Neither of these verses is focused on the child, but on what the parent is or could be missing.

Learning to be still, to be present in the here and the now, open to this moment in life can be transformational. It has the potential to remind us of what matters most to us and who we are. It’s really difficult to focus on details when we’re perpetually on our way to the next thing, the stuff we have to do, implementing plans, and taking care of business.

In order to see a true reflection in a pool of water, the water must be still.

So it is with us, our attention, and what we are able to see.