URL: http://reflectionsofthegruber.blogspot.com/
Chapter 10. Being the Board
If
you are at wit’s end – This is the graduate study of the Art of Possibility. I
am the framework of what happens in my life – Do not give away your
power. This also reminded me of my Conscious Discipline training. When
working with students, it was advised that you accept your feelings and deal
within yourself. For example, if you tell a student, “You are making me
angry.” You are giving that student all of the power over yourself.
You are powerless to control the outcome. Once viewed this way, you world does
change. However, you might not want to openly share this theory with your
4-year-old. It again changes your world, when your 4-year-old reiterates
that she “can’t make me angry, unless I give her all my powers.”
Analogy
of the chess set – A chess piece must only move by the rules. The board
creates the rules. I thought about negative things that have appeared on
my chessboard. I thought about my past and feeling like I too could only
rely on myself. I needed control over every aspect of my life.
However, as the Zanders claim, this leads to a blame game. If you are
able to blame you feel in control. I watch the news of the night and it
never fails that something somewhere horrible happens. After reporting on
the incident, the next question is always, who is blame?
After
reading, Being the Board, I turned it into an icebreaker. I asked several
random people, the waitress, the store clerk, and another man pumping gas at a
service station, “If you could be any piece on a chess board, which would you
be?” I am a very shy person, and the experience was very random. I
started with the waitress and randomly asked. She asked me to
repeat. When I did, she selected the “horse”. I asked why assuming
she didn’t know the game and would respond with a “horse” reason. However,
she responded that the “horse was very tricky and could do quite a few special
moves. The responses varied. The lesson I learned was normally
these random people are silent or simply chat about the weather. They all
light up after thinking a few moments and responding. Now I know this is
off the point of the chess set. It was simply a random exercise.
However, I think I will do it more often with different questions. I had
conversations with them all and I would never have.
I imagine that I could
have asked any of them for two quarters, and they would have been happy to
oblige.
I loved reading about using the
idea of, Being the Board, as an icebreaker. First my hats off to you for
putting yourself in an uncomfortable position. Good for you. What a great way
to spark a conversation. I see this easily transferring into the classroom
environment.
