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3.7
Practicing Generosity of Interpretation
Submitted by Shannon Wheatley Hartman
This activity helps participants develop a practice of patience and generous interpretation during discussions. By crafting and practicing specific “mind tricks,” participants can learn to listen and engage in discussions with a more generous mindset.
Learning Goals
Improve patience and decrease negative, reactionary impulses in a discussion.
Practice generous interpretation by ritualizing mental tricks.
Instructions
Set Up: Prepare for the Activity
Organize participants into small groups (4-6 ppl).
Begin by introducing the learning goals of this activity.
Step One: Create Patience Principles (10 min)
As a full group, invite participants to generate a list of statements that are designed to encourage patience and generous interpretation in a discussion.
Share some of the following examples to spark ideas.
Language is imperfect and we are all imperfect speakers.
What is said and what is heard are not always aligned.
None of us are perfect listeners.
Focus on the idea, not the person.
Being inarticulate means to struggle with big ideas.
Innovative ideas are often misunderstood at first.
Look for the “nuggets of truth” in all statements.
Never aim to embarrass or humiliate.
Step Two: Identify Common Annoyances in Discussions (5 min)
In small groups, ask participants to quickly identify 5 - 10 common discussion annoyances that tend to incite a harsh or impatient reaction from them. For example,
When someone shares inaccurate information with a lot of confidence
When someone says something that is culturally insensitive
When someone speaks from a place of anger
Instruct each group to select their top three annoyances.
Step Three: Craft Mental Tricks for Generous Interpretation (20 min)
Invite participants to craft three specific mental tricks they can use in a discussion to help them practice patience and even generous interpretation in response to each of the annoyances their group identified. Prompt:
For example, when someone makes a statement that you think is completely wrong or even bizarre, what sort of mental trick can you employ that would force you to pause and practice generosity?
Maybe you could try to reimagine the person who made this comment as your most respected professor or colleague.
If this person made the comment, how would you respond? Maybe you would still be confused and even disagree, but how would you express yourself to this person?
Would you ask clarifying questions? Would you speak respectfully? Would you put yourself through mental gymnastics to try to understand their perspective?
The “mental trick” is to now extend these generous responses to a person who you do not know.
Step Four: Debrief as a Full Group (10 min)
Let’s start with annoyances! What are our top and favorite discussion annoyances?
What are some of the strategies or mental tricks that you created to address these annoyances?
What are some common themes or strategies in our mental tricks?
When is this approach a bad idea? When should we not seek out the most generous interpretation of what someone is saying?
TIME
45
min
MODULE
Critical Collaboration
This activity can be completed by any discussion group.
This activity might be considered high energy or more playful than other activities.
This activity is focused on developing or supporting listening skills. See Sample Listening Certificate Program Design to illustrate sample sequencing.
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0 Comments
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:39:23 AM
Activity 5.4 uses the fun method of role playing and builds on other activities to help participants develop questions and practice gathering information to collaborate effectively with communities as partners. This activity involves working together in small groups and as a large group. It also includes multiple additional resources for participants to continue learning methods and skills to build community partnerships.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:39:00 AM
Activity 1.8 provides a very useful survey to gather information on and help support participants' different discussion styles and needs, exploring various areas like preferences for group size, ways of participating in discussions, any fears relating to discussions, etc.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:34:46 AM
Activity 5.8 further explores direct democracy by proposing the idea of "legislative juries" to improve the current initiative process through collaboration and deliberation. This activity uses role playing to have participants practice deliberation as part of a mock legislative jury to craft ballot initiatives on a given issue.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:27:35 AM
Activity 5.7 uses a fun and tactile activity like building LEGOs to explore the effects of coming together to colloborate and discuss, while also participating together in another physical activity.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:22:49 AM
Activity 5.6 uses memes and futuristic zombie scenarios to develop ways to change people's minds, while exploring various aspects of the methods used to change minds, like assumptions behind ideas, sticking to the facts versus stretching the truth, appealing to emotions etc.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:16:44 AM
Activity 5.5 uses a fun and visual/craft activity to help participants explore the many different types of knowledge, how they are valued, and the role/importance of each type of knowledge in their own lives.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:11:54 AM
Activity 5.3 gives participants to use writing, drawing, and/or speaking to share and discuss the various communities they belong to and/or feel excluded from, the various aspects that define community, as well as the practices of inclusion or exclusion and power distribution in these communities.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:07:26 AM
Activity 5.2 introduces four categories of stakeholders and multiple prompts to help participants work together in small and large groups to create comprehensive list of stakeholders, including those who are marginalized or not as obvious, for a given issue.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:04:00 AM
Activity 5.1 uses gamification by having participants play the Civics Topics Sweet Sixteen Competition to identify their issues they are passionate about both as individuals and as a group.
YD
December 3, 2022 at 2:01:34 AM
Activity 4.9 uses both lighthearted and serious characters, topics, and dialogue to help participants practice viewing an issue from the perspective of multiple people/characters and explain their thought processes and rationale for the choices they think these people will make in a given situation.