Parent Exploratory Group...

Parent Exploratory Group Meeting
October 1, 2002

Home of Ed and Barb Corriveau, Hummelstown

Introduction --
This fall meeting of the Parent Exploratory Group (PEG) brought us to the comfortable home of our newest members, Ed and Barb Corriveau. We were made to feel more than welcome and at home around the Corriveau kitchen and on the back porch with a meal of sausage sandwiches, meatballs, a variety of drinks and snacking treats all topped off with apple pie, and all provided graciously by our hosts. On behalf of all the members of PEG we wish to thank Barb and Ed for their generosity and hospitality.

School Partners: Sharing the Bread --
Our spreading School Partners initiative still is gathering considerable member attention in its forward movement towards affective skills educationDauphin County . Tonight’s area of interest involved efforts by Wayne Snyder to get the Technical School (DCTS) noticed for its contributions in bringing affective skills to students and parents.

For those who have not recently reviewed the Affective Skills Web Site, some background is in order. This, our newest area of endeavor, began with the article, “Core values could go mainstream,” appearing in the Sunday, September 1, Patriot News. The article profiled the success of the “Discovery Process” program being operated for the past six years at the Halifax Middle School. The program was portrayed as teaching “core values” to students on a whole-school basis and touting significant results in reducing fights and school suspensions (For more details see, “School Partners Respond.”

Character Education --
The article also related the interest of state Sen. Allyson Schwartz, D-Philadelphia and introduced to us another new phrase, provide such “character education.” Senator Schwartz is compiling information on schools across Pennsylvania that provide such character education as a part of their academic programming. Senator Schwartz has visited the Halifax program as a part of this effort.

The Senator is also sponsoring legislation (Senate Bill 1465), which proposes to amend the Public School Code of 1949 to include a Character Education Program.

According to the legislation, Character Education is defined as, “A course of instruction designed to educate and assist students in developing basic civic values and character traits, a service ethic and community outreach and thus to improve the school environment and student achievement and learning.”

A character education program when instituted in a school would instruct students in the major areas of trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. Such education, though it could be implemented via specialized classes, is intended primarily to be integrated into existing school coursework.

It should be stressed that character education would not be mandated for Pennsylvania schools, but rather would be encouraged by the legislation. Senate Bill 1465 empowers the Pennsylvania Board of Education to formalize an initiative to inform and support schools in developing of their own character education programs. It also establishes a Character Education Grant Program to aid schools that elect to establish character education programming. The bill further requires tracking by the Board and annual reporting of statewide character education results to the education committees of both the House and Senate.

With input from other School Partners volunteers, Wayne drafted correspondence to both the Patriot News and Senator Schwartz’s office. The letters indicated general support for the program at Halifax Middle School as well as the efforts by the Senator. Wayne further provided details regarding the “Personal and Social Responsibility” programs at DCTS and the beneficial impact of these programs on students and parents.

In response, Wayne received from Senator Schwartz’s chief of staff further details on the progress of the Senator’s legislation, an expanded description of character education and a proposal for the Senator to visit DCTS and review it’s affective skills programs later this fall (For more details see, “School Partners Get Results.”

Upon review of the legislation School Partners has concluded that, with some reservations for the unintended connotations that terms like character education, civic values and the like might engender with the public, we can support Senate Bill 1465. It was reported that the bill has passed the Senate and is now “in committee” in the House of Representatives with the House Education Committee. The focus for this portion of the PEG meeting was with how we might aid movement of the legislation to consideration by the full House.

Due to the short period of time remaining to the close of this congressional session it was felt that efforts to support the legislation must occur without delay. Plans were generated for School Partners as a constituency group to contact the chairman of the Education Committee, Rep. Jesse Stairs of Westmoreland County. Such efforts would begin with correspondence, but may also necessitate an in-person visit to Rep. Stairs by School Partners members.

It was proposed that, as before, Wayne would draft correspondence with support from the other School Partners.

The Future --
It, however, was also recognized that success in this session with legislation proposing a funding allocation might be slim. It was, therefore, recommended that work to reintroduce this legislation into the next congressional session and to pursue attention to character education with the new administration could be of value.

In this regard, plans were formulated to follow up with Senator Schwartz towards continuing her efforts to promote statewide character education beyond this legislative session and to create awareness with the major gubernatorial candidates for the value of such education in our schools.Wayne again volunteered to draft correspondence in these areas with the help of School Partners.

What is Conflict? --
But amid all this political activity there was also time for other topics. We began the evening with a quiet discussion regarding the nature of conflict. Various members pointed to the fact that conflict is a creation of man coming out of a concentrated focus on differences.

All of our relationships have within them a certain interaction with difference. We are all, after all, different from one another. We all come from different experience bases, different social, cultural and income backgrounds, and we have all had different upbringings with teachings in differing philosophies and ideologies.

Yes, we are all different, but the question is, how do we handle these differences?

Difference viewed openly and constructively is called diversity and has the ability to show us new horizons in perspective and solution. However, when we focus exclusively on differences and take those differences too deeply and negatively into ourselves, they tend to become conflict and work only to fuel separation and division.

One parent portrayed how in his business dealings he works to shift through conflicting situations between parties towards reaching constructive conclusions. A key technique is to open dialogue by getting the parties off of their areas of difference and focused on points of commonality.

As this parent relates, we have in our lives far more areas of common understanding than we do difference, but we need to associate with these larger points of common experience and purpose if we wish to rise above conflict.

The parent demonstrated how, in conflict situations, he often talks to each individual alone before entering into joint discussions. The idea in this is to build with each individual identity for the other side and to focus on their areas of common goal and similar need before coming together to address their differences of perspective.

He pointed out that a very successful method can be to talk to people off-topic about their families and personal lives. Many eventual agreements have in fact begun with discussions of a son’s football game or ideas on home repair.

The point here is to center on the understanding that, as much as we are all different, we are also all much the same. By focusing on areas of similarity we can successfully overcome differences by treating them appropriately as differences instead of allowing them to degenerate inappropriately into conflict.

Agreement vs. Consensus --
A related sidebar focused on what outcomes we aim for in our discussions and interactions within relationship. One mistake people often make is to accept nothing less than full agreement from a group with the resolution of a given issue. In fact, gaining full agreement within a group is usually difficult and can often create or contribute to feelings of conflict.

Facilitators generally aim at gaining consensus rather than agreement. The word consensus is often misunderstood. It does not mean to bring an interaction to the point of full agreement by all parties. Consensus building rather seeks to engage a process by which all parties equally have the chance to be heard, to have input towards a solution and to have their input be fairly and respectfully assessed by the group. The resulting solution is not necessarily one that all parties “agree with,” but it is one that all parties can “live with” because they have all had the equal opportunity to contribute to its creation.

From Conflict to Convergence to Unity --
Another parent put forward his theory that there is in reality no such thing as conflict. Conflict, he related, is one’s focus on a situation as two points of difference. However, seen from another frame of reference these points of difference are really the cross-section of two lines moving closer and closer towards convergence. The solution then is in viewing along the lines to the point of convergence rather than centering solely on the separate points of difference.

As we learn to follow the lines rather than settle on the points and as we move more and more towards finding the convergence, the lines become softer and more rounded. The lines begin to assume connection and so form a circle of convergence. Within that circle is the totality of unity. Along the line of the circle are all of us and particularly those of community who in their hearts seek humbly for peace through reconciliation.

Our Relationships: Contract or Union? --
We concluded our evening with a discussion on the quality of our relationships. The source of information for this journey comes to us from Father John Mack, a priest and marriage counselor who writes and lectures on the topic of Holy Matrimony.

In a lecture delivered in 1999 Father John touched on marriage viewed as contract versus marriage as union.

Father John profiles four conditions as being the central elements of a relationship established under contract.

First, a contract relationship is essentially impersonal This is so because a contract is instituted, not primarily for the sake of the persons involved, but to bring about a desired outcome.

A contract secondly, seeks to exploit the established relationship expressly to produce this identified outcome.

Thirdly, a contract is based in terms of duty and lays out the minimum duties each party must perform within the relationship to produce the intended outcome and so fulfill the contract.

And finally, a contract contains limits and conditions under which the relationship may be concluded or considered null and void.

Let’s compare then this environment of contract with a relationship established as union.

A union, by contrast, is very much a personal relationship for in a union it is specifically the other person, and not a purpose or outcome, that is deemed to be most important.

In a union it is the relationship itself with the other person that is of supreme value and not what the relationship does or can potentially produce.

Rather than being based in terms of duty, a relationship as union is based in terms of love. In a relationship with love at its heart the question cannot be asked, what must I do to fulfill the relationship? Rather, the question must and does become, what more can I do within this relationship to fulfill the other person?

And finally, a relationship in union is vitally centered in growth. There are no possible limits to a union and no conditions under which a relationship in love will ever end. The true relationship in union is therefore eternal.

Father John related this comparison of contract versus union in terms of the marriage relationship. However, it is clearly evident that these conditions are at the heart of every relationship. Our ability then to honestly assess our relationships in this light of contract or union provides us an essential and unerring barometer by which to measure how we truly relate to others.

During her visit to Harrisburg, Connie Dembrowsky pointed out that our society and our lives are in their current conditions because increasingly people tend not to engage in genuine relationships with one another, but choose rather to involve themselves in manipulative interactions. Father John, through his profile, points to such manipulations as our actions to relate to one another in the contract view.

We are all at heart communal beings and, whether we know it or not, we all hunger deeply to relate to one another in the context of union. A central reason for us coming to the DCTS Parent Seminar is out of this unrequited longing to relate to others, and especially our children and spouses, in eternal relationships of love; our souls cry out for it and our inner security depends on it.

The Essential Challenge --
Look closely then at those beloved with whom you interact and assess your relationships with them against these four conditions. Recognize for your sake those aspects between you that are of contract and strive with all your strength to remake them, in love, into the qualities of eternal union.

This undying unity is profoundly what we seek and forms the essence of mystery in true relationship.

Conclusion --
Our meeting of the Parent Exploratory Group ended congenially though reluctantly with various parting conversations among members trailing off into the night.

-- John Borland --

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Last Modified: June 20, 2003