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Freethought Association of West Michigan

Meeting minutes for March 17, 1999; #42.

The Great Lakes Humanist Society and FAOWM have joined in a combined

discussion listing. If you have internet access, join in on topics of

interest to freethinkers.

Jeff passed around a printout from the website of The Wedge, which is an

ambitious and dedicated group, espousing "intelligent design" ideas.

They are savvy enough to avoid the old Creationist or oxymoronic

"Scientific Creationist" label as those have been seen through, failing

to pass church/state separation muster. They have a very strong agenda

with well-defined goals and timeframes to "wedge" their narrow,

sectarian mythology into secular society. We should be aware of this

group.

Walter Van Dam moderated this meeting's topic: "Reality Therapy," the

title of which came from the author whose ideas he discussed with us;

psychologist William Glasser. Glasser eschews jargon-loaded

psychological phrases and disbelieves in psychoanalysis as efficacious.

His own approach is based on the premise that every human has basic

needs to attain and maintain happiness. Thay are: love and belonging,

fun and joy, freedom and power. The idea is for the individual to

discover her current behavior patterns, see if they deviate or coalesce

with these needs, and plan strategies to get to their own "quality

world." There is a great inclusion and participation inherent in Dr.

Glasser's therapy, with the individual monitoring his own achievement.

He says that "happy people are constantly evaluating themselves, while

unhappy people are constantly evaluating others."

He has taken these ideas into the classroom and in the Huntington

schools is to work with the childrens' individual strengths and

weaknesses. The question posed of the class is "How do we get to wow?"

The children formulate their own answers on what it will take to create

their own quality environment and to achieve a quality product:

education. By totally involving the individual in the education process,

each person owns the direction of it and is committed to a favorable

outcome. Also, @ Huntington, they make great use of teacher assistants,

thereby freeing up more individualized attention to the students and

also giving hands on experience to the t. ass'ts. in working with people

and teaching with these methods.

His concepts have been adapted to business, where the worker is

encouraged to do what best suits his skills and fulfills his needs. He

is completely involved in input and takes pride in his output. Higher

self-esteem and morale translate into less sabotage, more connectedness

to the process and enhancement of quality outcomes.

W.Edwards Deming was mentioned for his utilization of similar techniques

in the business world. He worked with the Japanese, teaching them ways

to be succesful without negating the worker's long term happiness for

short term profit.. He took this back to the US, and while influencial,

it has not always made a smooth transition to our system.

Of Glasser's basic need areas, identified above, "power" is the most

misunderstood. He makes the distinction thusly: "Power equals respect

and recognittion, not coercion." In the discussion portion, we related

this misuse of the power concept to the my-way-or-the-highway boss, the

parent who beats his children, or the coercive teacher. In all cases,

the individual is disconnected from the procss at hand and input into

strategies and goals. He is only the recipient of quick and easy acts

that tear down communication and destroy self esteem. In Glasser's view,

this sets up the disenfranchised, resentful person for failure, not only

hampering his own chance for achieving a quality world, but is not in

the long term best interests of the parent/teacher/business as well.

This was our last meeting @ the Urban Institute For Contemporary Art.

Future meetings will be held @ the Wyoming Public Library on the same

every-other-Wednesday schedule @ 3350 Michael S.W., Wyoming, MI. As

always, we welcome sugestions, questions, and topic ideas. Drop ideas in

our suggestion box or via e-mail; http://members.aol.com/faowm or by

post to PO Box 649, Jenison, MI 49429-0649. Sign up for e-mail lists or

membership directory receipt or inclusion therein.

Calendar of events: "March 31, 1999: "Fundamentalism & Abuse" moderated

by Charles LaRue; "Civil Discourse in the Age of Road Rage" moderated by

Ben Ingebretson on April 14, and on April 28, Howard Foster will

moderate "What is a Bigot?"

The FAOWM bulletin had an informative write up Jeff pulled off the web

from Review and Herald on The Origin of Easter.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"In a well organized system all components work together to support each

other. Ina system that is well led and managed, everybody wins. [...if]

by bad management the components become competitive, the system is

destroyed. Everybody loses. Costs go up, quality declines, the market

declines. [...] A common example lies in ranking people, divisions,

teams, comparing them, with reward at the top and punishment at the

bottom. Jobs and salaries are based on comparisons. Teams naturally

become competitive; divisions become competitive. Each tries to outdo

the other in some competitive measure. Sales, for example, might be the

competitive measure. The result is higher costs, battle over the share

of market. Everybody loses." W. Edwards Demin in his foreword to the

book about him; The American Who Taught The Japanese About Quality.