More tile & progress pictures

My focus lately has been to make the environment in the house more relaxing & create an atmosphere that is inspired/ing & peaceful.

Soon the outside will be the focus again. For now it is the kitchen.

Progress pictures:

Next step: more biochar lime plaster

Collaborative structure & Agile format

I had a quandary at moonCat for a while about projects. Working with people, but allowing for structure & creativity equally, was difficult without having someone in charge & telling others what to do.  How to provide structure & learning without being so structured there is no room for creativity? Also, there's that whole moving away from hierarchy thing . . . empowering others

When Phoenix & I were working & playing at The Farm School Solar Campus in Tennessee we co-taught a class on technology, and I taught a few other classes.  I loved how the staff worked flexibly with each other to provide an empowered educational experience. It is clearly something Peter Kindfield (the principal) has  lot of experience with. 

It was at The Farm School that I was introduced to agile learning.  On Fridays we experimented with agile fridays, using a white board and columns of possible, ready, doing, & done. I loved how this kept everyone engaged and seemed to level the playing field of students & teacher into one collaborative group. 

Our work days at moonCat have been so much more relaxed & successful since I learned this approach to organizing a group. I also feel that using the agile framework, I have more of a chance to pull in the skills of others, rather than just standing at the front, teaching, and supervising. 

I watched a TED talk by Bruce Feiler a while back on pulling the agile framework in to the family. I decided to try it. 

This is Phoenix', my 8-year-old's agile board from today. It is fun to see how she uses it and changes the format creating her own codes.  I asked her to start keeping track of time so we can look back at the end of the day and talk about what she has done. 

I would really rather she not sit around playing games all day, but I have made a compromise to allow a lot of game time in exchange for her being motivated to keep her eye patch on for her lazy eye exercises.  Now I can dig in to finish my tiling project on the bathroom/kitchen floor (losing myself, as I always do in my building projects) and still know what is going on. She feels empowered & we have a way of evaluating if her needs are getting met while I'm instilling values other than "do your thing & I will do mine".

Happier Phoenix, happier mom, happier dad. Working together. whew

book find! Group Dynamics

While in Cleveland recently I visited a small bookstore that my friend works at. It was $1 book day so I browsed & picked up a few fun finds to read and share.

One such find is: The Family as Patient, the origin, structure, and therapy of marital & family conflicts. Always curious on the best way to resolve interpersonal conflict, I asked if my husband might listen while I read a bit during coffee together.

So far it is pretty interesting. While the book seems to be for a professional, discussing the psychoanalytic approach (Freud based) I really enjoy the group dynamic approach.

So far, what I understand is:
Individual therapy to reframe one's view can be very helpful, and help a person to move past obstacles that can limit interaction with others & reaching goals.
However, individual therapy can sometimes turn into adjustment therapy for individuals to learn how to accept an unhealthy dynamic.
Sometimes an individual may clear personal obstacles, but because of the larger dynamic, that just clears space for another to step into that same role.

In a group, when one person is acting unhealthy everyone in the group needs to be considered, the structure, dynamic, and paradigm.
How can the social and physical structure change to support fully alive, happy people?

I am thinking about conflicts I have seen in groups I have worked with in the last year. As I think back it is interesting to consider that sometimes I felt conflict mediation & nonviolent communication were limited. Perhaps a change in social structure was needed beyond the immediate interpersonal responsibility to work through one's stuff.

After having read this excerpt this morning I had a conversation with someone at a previous work place. And now my new thought is, when is someone becoming a scape-goat & how can the group support him/her instead of assuming problems will be solved when the person is gone? What dynamic allowed, even created the unhealthy behaviors? How do we keep from labeling the person? When is it time to just say, maybe this is just a personal thing someone needs to work through?

Is it about syncing paradigms?

So much to learn.
I am thinking  a lot lately about creating therapeutic spaces that nurture people & create positive social dynamics. Anyone want to come experiment with me?