I ran out of light reading just before Christmas, due to forgetting what time the local library would close on Christmas Eve. Oops!

Vron kindly let me peruse her bookshelves, and one of the things I spotted was Barbara Sher’s Refuse to Choose: What do I do when I want to do everything? I had read that before, but it was a long time ago and I’d been meaning to re-read it. And oh yes, it is a lovely book.

Beads, cycles and other metaphors

My closest fit to the profiles in this book, I think, is as a “cyclical scanner”. Most “scanners”, as Barbara describes them, are continually getting interested in completely new things. But cyclical ones come back to the same things again as inspiration shifts.

OK, I do have what you might call “underlying themes” to what I do. But I don’t have one big project or genre occupying my whole creative life. I don’t write about the same things all the time, and I’ve got more than one music project and more than one source of income, and I like coding and d.i.y. as well as writing and music.

I was thinking about that a while ago and I came up with the metaphor of a series of beads of different colours. The necklace as a whole is my creative life; the beads don’t have to match.

“Cycles” too is “one of my metaphors”. For a long time now, I’ve used the expression “work cycles” to describe the way I’ll be immersed in something for a few days, then come to a natural end of that burst of inspiration and move to something else.

Or at least, that’s how it works when I’m on a roll – though a lot of the time I accidentally fall out of that mode, e.g. discombobulated by the looming presence of some conscience-driven task for which I feel no inspiration :-/

As it happens I don’t really identify with the term “scanner”, as a word. Metaphorically, I think that fits better to the people who are less cyclical and more on a continual quest for completely new stuff. But the label hasn’t got in the way of me finding lots in the book that’s useful and validating to me.

Here are a couple of book extracts which I most want to remember for the new year:

Random Acts of Passion Life Design Model

Every Scanner knows what it’s like to be suddenly taken with a desire to stop what he’s doing and pick up something else that calls to him. … If that’s something you do, I advise you to just give in. Pick up any project that calls you and give it an hour, a day, or a week, however long it keeps you fascinated, and then put it away and get back to what you were doing.

This arrangement is called the Random Acts of Passion Life Design Model – and it might be just right for how your creativity operates.

So true!

(One of these days I should really write up my “Timed seed and herb dispenser” model of inspiration. And my concept of “Pingalation”.)

Avocation Stations

I used to wish that I had a huge, empty room with rows of long tables against the walls and, on each table, everything I needed for one of my projects. Then I could leave everything out in the open on its own table and walk over to it and start working whenever the mood took me.

I don’t have a room that large and I bet you don’t, either, but the fantasy gave me the idea of Avocation Stations, and I started wondering what kind of arrangement could replace all those tables and take up less space. …

Then, last month in a home furnishings catalog, I saw a little rolling stand with drawers and a couple of fun gadgets like a desk space that opened, a slot for large pages, a shelf for books. It was called a bill paying center, as I recall, but to me it was a dead ringer for an Avocation Station. …

If you’re a Scanner with lots of projects going on at the same time, you should have some variation of those little pices of furniture. You can make your own to suit yourself … and keep a whole bunch of them ready to go.

In an ideal world I’d have an ENORMOUS wooden multi-cupboard thing, taking up say one whole wall of my workroom, which incorporated lots of different sizes of drawer and cupboard, so that everything half done had a perfectly suited storage space and was easy to get out and put back.

I don’t think I’d actually want everything out at once. In fact, I imagine I’d probably dislike that. When something’s not hot, I’d probably rather it was out of my space, to leave the space clearer for the few things that are. For me, what appeals about the “Avocation Station” idea is the easy getting out and putting back, plus the “all relevant bits together ready to go” – not the idea of everything at once being literally visible.

And it’s not that I don’t do something like that already – I do. I have shelves and boxes and drawers, and some of them are designated for particular projects.

But I think the principle of “ready to go” could be optimised further, and I think that would be a good thing. So that’s why I wanted to remember that bit of the book.

Barbara’s blogs

And then, poking around on the net, I discovered that Barbara has several blogs, a Twitter account and a web site! I don’t know why it never occurred to me before to look for these.

Here are two of the blogs, which seem to be the most current:

And here is a funny and insightful video about different people loving different things:

Barbara Sher: “Design, Execute, Maintain”, on YouTube

Happy creative New Year, everyone.

Here, have an index…
Top of article
Beads, cycles and other metaphors
Random Acts of Passion Life Design Model
Avocation Stations
Barbara’s blogs

Copyright © Jennifer Moore 2010. All rights reserved.

This post belongs to Jennifer's Uncharted Worlds blog. This message should only be visible in news aggregators. If you’re reading it on any other web site, it’s probably from a stolen RSS feed; in that case, please help by reporting it, giving the web address where you found it.

Other feedback welcome via that form too.

A month or so ago, I posted about Big Bi Fun Day. Then I realised that in my enthusiasm, I’d clicked “publish” before discovering some access info, and hastily “edited to add”.

Two days later, Ian suggested in email I might remove that line, giving various reasons for why it was the wrong thing to say.

Well, I’m not a big fan of removing controversial words off blogs after some people have already seen them; i.m.e. it tends to leave later readers trying to piece together what happened. I suggested he make his criticism public & I’d respond to that instead. He wrote a comment similar to his email; see post linked above.

Since then, the access situation has actually changed anyway (in a good direction), so I wanted to make an update as well as some apologies.

This has taken a lot of thought to write, hence the delay in posting. I’m happy for people to argue back if they think I’ve got something wrong or missed something; and even if no-one does, I might have some other ideas later. But, at any rate, here’s a snapshot of some of my thoughts at the moment.

Update on access

BBFD is divided into four “zones”. When the event was first publicised, two of the zones were allocated to the upstairs space and two to the downstairs space.

It’s now changed. The “craft” zone has now moved downstairs, meaning that three zones are now downstairs and only one, the chatting zone, is upstairs.

I think, although I’ve not seen this spelt out, that the upgrade was the result of Sanji successfully negotiating some extra downstairs space with the venue; but in any case, yay for the improvement, and thanks to Sanji.

Of course ideally all the space would be wheelchair-accessible, but if one does have some inaccessible space along for the ride, then i.m.o. the least compromising use for it is as “overflow” of some kind.

In this case, anyone who can’t get upstairs would still be missing (as the description currently puts it) “interesting materials around the room”, as well as whatever unique vibe is created in the space. But at least chatting-in-general and cake are both pretty easily movable to where people are. So to me that’s noticeably better than having an inaccessible craft zone, with (if things go to plan) resources in it that people have brought.

It follows, I think, that my approximation “half” was arguably wrong. I meant two of four zones, which was numerically accurate – but looking at it again now, the chatting zone was somewhat less of a concern to me than the other. It may not have been “half” in terms of square footage, either. (I’ve not seen the building myself.) Sorry if I misled anyone.

The web page also spells out now that one of the toilets is a “proper” wheelchair-accessible one, which I hadn’t been sure of from the initial description.

Choice factors

The next morning after I posted, I’d also sent private email to the organisers’ address, asking was there still any chance of finding a more physically-accessible venue – in particular, wondering why they weren’t using the Leicester LGBT centre (which is). Sanji replied with a thoughtful and gracious email, explaining the factors which had gone into choosing this one.

Having seen the reasoning, I could get how it makes sense, given what kind of event it is. For myself, I’d have happily sacrificed the garden, but another reason not to use the LGBT centre was the fact that not everyone’s ready to be that “out”, and I recognise that as very important.

I offered to copy the full explanation here, but Sanji said it was headed for the public domain elsewhere and she’d rather I didn’t. (I’m happy to link to it if & when it becomes linkable.)

Lack of good venues

As it happens, I entirely agree that finding and booking an accessible venue in the UK in 2010 is a lot more difficult than it might appear to someone who hasn’t tried to do it.

Yes, there’s been some helpful legislation in recent years, ensuring that new building work meets certain standards; but that’s not at all the same thing as demanding that everywhere be immediately retrofitted. So it’s still the case that only a tiny percentage of non-enormous venues have proper wheelchair-accessible toilets. And those few generally have other limitations (e.g. lack of convenient public transport, or simply not having the size or number of rooms you need).

So it’s not necessarily the case that any particular town contains any venue whatsoever which meets all the criteria for a particular kind of event. Plus the acceptable places are often booked up months ahead for the “good” days.

The reality is that people usually have to compromise on one criterion or another, and the available wiggle room is in how the compromise is chosen and communicated.

So I understand why people may be sensitive to what could be interpreted as criticism of their inescapable compromise.

Clarification of my words

Regarding “The edge has gone off my joy”:

Despite how it evidently landed for some people, I wasn’t aiming that comment at the organiser(s), and it wasn’t intended to hold some kind of subtextual judgement of them. (As I’ve said above, I did ask in email whether it might be possible to use another venue; but that conversation was not this public statement. At the point of writing that line, it hadn’t even occurred to me that there might conceivably be a possibility of the venue changing.)

I meant it at face value: (a) there were some access limitations, and (b) I personally was therefore less unequivocally joyful about the event.

I have a vivid memory of a conversation a few years ago with someone who needs to use a wheelchair, and them explaining how they feel about only-partially-accessible events. Regardless of the reasons for compromising, it simply wasn’t and couldn’t be an emotionally neutral thing for them. It was a downer every time.

So when I read the details* and realised my error of omission, I was like: “Aaaah bugger. I’ve just done a public and unqualifiedly enthusiastic promotion of one of those same events that to at least one person I know would be a kick in the guts. That can’t be allowed to stand.”

* When I posted first, I’d only read the announcement email, not the event’s home page. I.e. one of my mistakes was the always-risky move of publicising, and linking to, a page I hadn’t yet read. That’s something I’d never normally do, and shall be doubly cautious of in future.

And even though I don’t know for sure that anyone in that situation is currently reading my blog, I certainly can’t assume that they’re not and never will.

Discovering the access limitations also called into question whether I‘d be OK with going to the event – this event which I’d just been getting so happy about. Over the last few years (since the conversation I mention above, and connected with some other thoughts about intersectionality and solidarity), I’ve become fairly reluctant to put energy into things that don’t have wheelchair access; and nor would I usually go to an event like this without making some kind of fairly substantial contribution to it. That’s half the fun!

So when I got the info, it was a bit like how I imagine it must be for someone vegan-on-principle to be told that their favourite chocolate bar now contains milk!

I didn’t want my post to cause that up-&-down for anyone else; I wanted the limitations to be up front with the good news.

If there was a subtext, it was something like “An event without full wheelchair access is not at all the same thing as one with“.

I’m not sure now where I’d have ended up with the “milk in my chocolate” dilemma had the situation not changed. I’m not saying now either that I’ll definitely come to the event.

But in any case, if I choose not to attend an event, it doesn’t necessarily mean I think it shouldn’t be happening. There are almost infinitely many places I could put my activism energy; prioritising some of them by my own criteria isn’t an insult to the others.

What I would like to do differently in future

In retrospect I see some ways I could have handled this episode better, and I’m sorry for any bad consequences which arose from my mistakes.

The root of it is this: I should never have assumed, without explicitly checking, that the event was fully wheelchair-accessible.

If I’d just managed to notice that gap in my knowledge before I posted, then I could have held off posting till I knew all the background facts. And then I could have written a more measured and balanced summary, less prone to interpretation as “advice” and less likely to result in anyone going “Aagh!”. Or I could simply have not bothered posting at all (as is the case for most events I hear of, however great they look like being).

I’m sorry too that I didn’t consider the organisers’ feelings (and possible interpretations) when I hastily wrote my “edited to add”.

I’m not saying that should have taken precedence over my responsibility to the people using wheelchairs. And I want it noted that what I actually wrote was neither “advice” to the organisers nor a “Yr doin it wrong”, but (a) a fact* about the event, and (b) a description of my own feelings, neither exaggerated nor disrespectfully put.

* Give or take the approximation “half”, as noted above.

But in an ideal world I’d have managed to write something that took everyone into account.

The hinterland

Without abdicating responsibility for what I said, I want to mention as well some of the territory into which my words arrived, which I suspect may have influenced some non-literal readings of them.

Part of this territory is of course the physical world and its lack of good venues. (That section above could have fitted equally well into this part of my article.) I’m also thinking here of the social territory and its rules and norms.

One of the dynamics I perceive in Ian’s warning to me is a protectiveness of anyone doing anything practical, connected with a fear that not enough people are interested in activism to sustain the community. (Quote, “it risks putting off there being such events at all”.)

I can see how, in that particular context, one might be tempted to assess every public statement about an event primarily or entirely on the basis of how it may affect the morale of current event organisers. (Ian’s comment does seem to me an example of this framing.) And in that context, it makes sense to construe publicly-expressed disappointment – or publicly-expressed anything-other-than-100%-gratitude – as mistaken or unacceptable.

I understand the underlying concern about activism energy supplies, though I wouldn’t have enacted it in the same way.

This all links up with some other UK-bi-activist-community norms around criticism and gratitude. I already knew I was at odds with some of those in some ways, though I hadn’t foreseen encountering them quite like this. I may return to that subject some time.

Thanks

Finally, thanks again to Ian for the heads-up about how my words landed in some quarters. As I hope is evident here, I’m not endorsing all your analysis of what’s most important and what I’m supposed to have meant; but I’m very glad you put it to me directly rather than grumbling behind my back. Feel free to dispute further :-)

Here, have an index…
Access at BBFD: update, clarification, apologies & thoughts
Update on access
Choice factors
Lack of good venues
Clarification of my words
What I would like to do differently in future
The hinterland
Thanks

Copyright © Jennifer Moore 2010. All rights reserved.

This post belongs to Jennifer's Uncharted Worlds blog. This message should only be visible in news aggregators. If you’re reading it on any other web site, it’s probably from a stolen RSS feed; in that case, please help by reporting it, giving the web address where you found it.

Other feedback welcome via that form too.

After coming up with the gears metaphor, I thought I’d sketch out what the gears might be for me. I imagined them something like this:

0 Not moving. I could have called this “neutral”, but somehow that seems like the wrong word. Stuck isn’t neutral. Exhaustion isn’t neutral. Moping around being mopey and miserable isn’t neutral.

On the other hand it could be a kind of relaxed resting peacefulness – but in that case, I’m probably not stuck, and some other metaphor would apply.

1 Minimal engagement. Playing computer games or just slightly pottering about e.g. tidying up. If this is the aftermath of some intensity, then I might be “processing” in the background. (Simple computer games can be a form of meditation, I think – they occupy the surface of your mind while things happen under the surface.) If pottering about, still feeling like each new thing is a re-start – not really any momentum from one task to the next.

2 Beginning to build momentum. Tidying could still be in here as long as it’s just putting things away that have an obvious home, or straightening up. Sewing or making badges as long as the process doesn’t really take any thought. Tinkering with writing (though not the process of deciding that something’s finished – I need to be more awake for that and it would be more like 4th gear).

3 Ordinary sized tasks. Returning emails, going to the library, sorting possessions, putting a wash in. Maybe some DIY that only requires repeating what I’ve already done, with no original thought.

4 Thought and organisation. Things that require more thought and a certain amount of awakeness. E.g. interesting DIY, planning. If I’ve had a day in 4th gear, I’ll almost certainly finish the day with a nice sense of satisfaction about what I’ve accomplished – which often involves some kind of tangible result in the 3d world.

5 Tricky interface stuff. Anything involving making arrangements with people I don’t know, especially if it involves some kind of time pressure and especially if I have to actually talk to them. I often have a sense of needing to “gear up” & “get my head in order” to do that kind of thing, but sometimes if I “get on a roll” it seems easy.

6 Immersion time. Song recording, coding, or any other complex task like accounts. This is often stuff that takes a while to reload into the brain, so that fitting it into “too small” chunks of time is very inefficient, and to me tends to feel intuitively like “there’s not even any point starting”. (And “too small” varies with the task – anything from half an hour to a day might feel that way.) Often, though not always, it’s the kind of thing I can “get lost in” so that time disappears.

This 6th level isn’t necessarily any harder than 5th gear; it’s the “chunk size” which distinguishes it. It needs to be preceded by ensuring that if I do give it that much time, nothing’s going to go wrong while I wasn’t paying attention to all the other stuff. Perhaps it’s more of a turbo button than another gear.

Writing

One thing which surprised me in a good way when I thought this through is the fact that tinkering with writing comes out so low-gear for me. I lucked into a good “effort-to-satisfaction ratio” there. The point is that despite being quite easy to do, it’s also quite satisfying to me, which helps me to move up through gears. I thought “Must remember that”.

This insight was definitely part of the source of the new era of “more than one blog post a month” :-) I realised that as a rule of thumb, “if in doubt, do some writing” had a lot going for it. And around Christmas and New Year I did have a successful gearing-up on the writing front.

Different cars

What was interesting, though, was that after a week or two of that, I realised that (slightly contrary to my expectations) my writing momentum hadn’t transferred onto the DIY. I was just doing more and more writing!

I found that to get going on the DIY, I had to give that a separate gearing-up all its own: starting with a bit of tidying, then assembling the tools and resources I’d want, and only then actually embarking on the work itself.

Not definitive

Of course everyone’s list of gears would be different – and the above isn’t the definitive list of gears even for me, just an approximate sketch. And there are different ways to apply the metaphor – including, as I’ve said there, considering each field of endeavour as its own separate gear system.

But the basic metaphor seems to be working well for me so far. Regardless of specifics, I can still tell myself: “Don’t bother trying to talk yourself into tackling big things. And don’t sit around waiting for the desire to tackle them to return. Instead, get stuck into the little things within easy reach. And trust that in a while, when you’re more rested and have some little accomplishments to be satisfied with, the desire to tackle big things will return of its own accord.”

Copyright © Jennifer Moore 2010. All rights reserved.

This post belongs to Jennifer's Uncharted Worlds blog. This message should only be visible in news aggregators. If you’re reading it on any other web site, it’s probably from a stolen RSS feed; in that case, please help by reporting it, giving the web address where you found it.

Other feedback welcome via that form too.

There’s a series of books and related material by a bloke called Roger Hamilton, which uses an 8-category classification of people’s natural strengths, and if you take their test you get a sort of star chart thing of which aspects you’re most naturally good at. It costs $100 to do the test, which is not an amount of money I’d probably ever have spent on it – but a couple of years ago, I got a freebie code (thanks!) off my brother, who’d been to one of RH’s courses, and gave it a go.

I’m always a bit sceptical about things like this, but actually it turned out to be enjoyably interesting, and some of the description was quite recognisably me.

Here’s the pretty picture I got:

Slightly bigger version here.

So my two strongest ones were “Creator” and “Mechanic” – mechanic actually somewhat higher than creator. By “Mechanic” they basically mean something like “systems geek”. I had low scores on the roles involving lots of gregariousness and socialising and making deals.

Creator

Here are some words and phrases from the “creator” profile:

• inventor, visionary, pioneer, innovative, intuitive

• big picture thinker

• excellent at getting things started

• creating not just products, but the businesses and marketing plans that will drive those products to market

• likely to start their own business to support their product innovations

• can be extremely productive when you are using your creativity

Pitfalls for a creator include

• tendency to have many projects going at the same time, which can sometimes lead to distraction and lack of focus

• living the consequence of some creative idea they had in the past.

It being a while now since I did the test, I’ve forgotten most of the questions, but one I do remember the gist of because I found it funny.

It was something like “So your project just finished very successfully. What are you doing now?

I burst out laughing, because answer (c) so blatantly and perfectly described EXACTLY where I would be at! Had they been a fly on the wall?

Mechanic

Here are some phrases from the “mechanic” profile:

• mix of intuitive thinking and systems focus

• what they build tends to be built to last.

• distribution, construction and logistics

• creative focus is on the systems

• dynamic, yet with an introverted tendency … likely to pick your friends carefully.

• innovating and creating the systems processes … a system of your own creation.

• The value creation activities that are important to you include the documentation of all systems and processes … This becomes imbedded value that endures not just with the venture you are involved in in now, but the next one as well, and the one after that.

(hmm yeah… See me document my inventions)

One pitfall for a mechanic:

sensitivity to systems more of a curse than a talent, as they would always be the first to feel affected when things weren’t going to plan

Complementary people

The whole premise of RH’s stuff is that you use your profile to discover what kinds of other people you should hook up with, to generate most value in the world and most wealth for yourself.

Actually, mechanics are strongly recommended to connect up with creators, so it’s a pretty workable combination in itself.

The other one they’re both most recommended to hook up with is called “Deal maker”. Creators and mechanics aren’t that great at turning their ideas into money, and they’re generally not all that extrovert. Without someone else as a “deal maker”, I’ll probably never get super rich off my ideas.

But what also struck me was that now we’ve got the internet, to some degree my systems skills can enable me to set up systems which would do some of the world-facing for me.

Validation

Something I found very useful about this feedback is about valuing my systems-geekiness.

What I realised is that validation for creativity is really easy to come by. It’s a quality that’s almost universally lauded and valued, and envied by people who don’t think they have enough of it.

But most people are considerably more ambivalent about systems skills and process-geekery. About the best you’ll ever hear on that front is “Gosh, aren’t you organised”. And even then, that often has a sort of back-spin on it like ::cough::obsessive-pernickety-anal::cough::

It made a change to be told “This is one of your top assets”. It was almost like a coming-out moment – yes! I am a systems geek! So there! and hurrah!

Lord

My next highest two were “Star” and “Lord”.

The gist of the “Lord” idea (yeah I know, sexist name for it) is someone who controls a lot of resources – or at least the income stream from them – in a quiet way.

Compared to the Mechanic or Creator profiles, there wasn’t much in the description of this that I recognised as particularly characteristic of me. About the closest was “first to analyze a situation”. But it’s true that I do really like to own useful resources. I still remember the day when I first read that “the artist should own the means of production” and immediately thought “Yes!”

So in reality I’ve got, for example, a badge machine, some music gear, a lot of useful woodworking/DIY tools… and – not exactly on the Rockefeller scale here – a cellar which is quite unfeasibly full of reclaimed wood, cardboard and bubble wrap ::laughing to myself as I write::

Star

The “Star” profile describes someone who personifies their own brand – like Oprah Winfrey, or any number of celebrities or pop stars.

The intriguing thing about this to me is: Yes, I can see that (especially in my music projects) I do some of the things typical of the “Star” profile. (One of them is “defining and refining your identity” – and I recognise in that something of my uncompromising line about what Single Bass is and isn’t.)

But some of it does feel more like “doing” than “being”. I’m not actually as extrovert as the essentially “star” profile person would be. I have reservations about being famous – it strikes me as rather inconvenient and stressful. It’s more like, I figured out (with my systems skills) how “being a pop star” works, and then planned accordingly :-)

OK, I’m not in danger of getting famous from Single Bass any time soon anyway – it’s been on the back burner for ages. But the point is, it’s the creative aspects of it that I like most: both the obvious one of songwriting, and the systems-invention aspect of spreading it around.

And the rest…

There’s another profile-dimension called Accumulator that I have a bit of, and then the other three I have practically none of, according to the test & the pic. My main quadrant is introvert/intuitive, and in the opposite quadrant I’ve got basically nul points.

(In the interests of fairness to myself, I feel I must mention that by “Supporter” they mean “someone who knows lots of people and connects them” – in fact, “Connector” or “Team-builder” might have been a better name for it – so not having much of that in my profile doesn’t mean I’m not supportive of my friends.)

So yeah, on this system basically I’m a creator/mechanic.

Or I could say mechanic/creator, since actually my Mechanic score was higher – but it feels like Creator ought to come first in terms of real-time process. (And it does come first on RH’s list, with Mechanic at the end.)

Business vs other wealth

I’m ambivalent about RH’s material. On the one hand, he says that the wealth doesn’t have to be financial – it’s about your contribution to the world. On the other hand, pretty much all his examples are about business and money, and pretty much all the people he names are from that world.

I’d like to see him writing some stuff about how his eight roles work in families and communities and activism! For instance, who would be the “deal maker” I supposedly ought to work with in activism? What would they typically be doing, and how would I recognise them?

But the basic idea of “know your strengths and joys, and play to them, and find other people who like doing the other bits”, I think is fundamentally sound.

From me to me

The thing I most want to remember for myself about this just now is how much of a contribution it is to the world when you play to your strengths. It’s true, loads of the most worthwhile stuff I’ve done has been inventing – be it things that didn’t exist before, or the systems to make them work. “Can be extremely productive when you are using your creativity”. I’d like to give myself permission to groove with that a lot more: more of the sheer creativity, plus finding creative, cooperative ways to need to do as little as possible of the things I’m no good at :-)

Linky index…
Top of article
Creator
Mechanic
Complementary people
Validation
Lord
Star
And the rest…
Business vs other wealth
From me to me

Copyright © Jennifer Moore 2010. All rights reserved.

This post belongs to Jennifer's Uncharted Worlds blog. This message should only be visible in news aggregators. If you’re reading it on any other web site, it’s probably from a stolen RSS feed; in that case, please help by reporting it, giving the web address where you found it.

Other feedback welcome via that form too.

Sometimes I get into a sort of negative feedback loop like: “not accomplishing much, hence feel frustrated and incapable, hence no momentum / energy, hence not accomplishing much”. And I mope about.

Typical thoughts I might have in this state include “I ought to be more productive”, and “Look at these important things that aren’t even moving at all – aargh!”

Then by way of reaction, I might get a slightly exasperated urge to “go for the main things right now and stop faffing about”. Which, if I were to heed it, would launch me straight into the hardest tasks.

But in fact, it seems from experience that this is usually unrealistic for me, and trying to do it only leads to more stuckness. If I’m feeling stuck and low-energy and maybe a bit hopeless, what I’ve found usually works in fact is to start with minor pottering about and build momentum.

So e.g. rather than telling myself “Must… do… accounts…”, it might work best to tidy a small area of a room, and then think “Yay! what next?”

Gears in a car

A while back, I was talking about this on a thinking session, and I came up with a new metaphor: it’s like gears in a car.

Suppose you’re driving a car, and you try to set off in 5th gear. What’s going to happen? Probably the car will jolt, and make a noise it’s not supposed to make, and stall. And probably what won’t happen is the car goes off zooming really fast.

It’s not designed to work like that; you’re supposed to start in first gear (or maybe second, depending on vehicle and circumstances), and work up.

Remembering

And I thought: I must remember this. It’s pointless trying to make myself get all majorly active straight from a mope, when it’s so much more workable and natural to build momentum gradually. I know this, but it seems to be one of those things which is easy to forget :-)

I have more to say about this topic! But that will do as a start.

Copyright © Jennifer Moore 2010. All rights reserved.

This post belongs to Jennifer's Uncharted Worlds blog. This message should only be visible in news aggregators. If you’re reading it on any other web site, it’s probably from a stolen RSS feed; in that case, please help by reporting it, giving the web address where you found it.

Other feedback welcome via that form too.

I’ve had the chance to see a few other people’s responses to the EHE consult. (Maire’s done a link roundup of them, though I haven’t read all of those. One I’d recommend is Dani’s – I burst out laughing at Q9 of that one, and I loved the bit “My children learn wherever they are. The location of their education is in their own minds.”)

It’s been interesting to compare my responses to other people’s. A lot of people have gone a lot more than I did into the question of liberties, privacy and the relationship between family and State. It really illuminated for me what a natural pragmatist I am. A lot of the time, the first place I go is “How would this work in practice? Would it work? Here’s a way it would be likely to go wrong”.

It’s not really two separate things of course. When the State starts encroaching on individual liberties, things do go wrong, and that’s part of why people care about the principles involved. But it’s a different level of immediacy.

It’s not that one kind of response is better than the other. I think we need both. There are people who would be unmoved by arguments of liberty, for whom pointing out “But it wouldn’t even work” may yet have them questioning “Hmmmm, maybe this isn’t such a good idea…”. But if we only made practical arguments, we’d be in danger of losing sight of the vital foundations. Writing mine, a couple of times I had to stop and think “Am I accidentally colluding here with the idea that this arrogation of power would be OK if only it were done competently?” So I’m glad that people have “got my back” on that one :-)

Clare’s response, which she copied on Sunday night to an email list we’re both on, was one I liked for its principled stand, and for the way it challenges the conflation of education and child protection. She also knows more about the legal history than I do.

Clare’s not got a blog, so I asked if I could put a copy up here so it’d be on the web. So here it is, a sort of “guest post”:

Clare M’s consultation response

1 Do you agree that these proposals strike the right balance between the rights of parents to home educate and the rights of children to receive a suitable education?

[x] Disagree.

The consultation document appears to infer that registration and monitoring is a foregone conclusion and that this consultation is no more than a public relations exercise. I hope this is not the case.

These proposals would completely upset and contradict the balance created by the Education Act 1996 Section 7, which perfectly matches the duty of the parent to cause their child to receive a suitable education, with the right of the parent to choose to do that otherwise than at a school. This provides that a parent “may” choose the otherwise option but “must” ensure the child receives a suitable education, thereby protecting the child’s right to education.

This is supported by the right (ECHR Article 2 of Protocol 1) of the child “not to be denied” an education and by UNCRC Article 28 which says, “States Parties recognize the right of the child to education…”.

Current legislation also provides adequate measures for the state to intervene where this balance is not struck; where a parent chooses home education but does not ensure a suitable education, Education Act 1996 Section 437 is invoked.

What the proposals would do is shift the balance away from both the child and the parent and give undue and unnecessary weight to the state.

Further, it is disingenuous to infer that if a child is home educated that UNCRC Article 12 cannot be adhered to unless LAs can interview them; Article 12 requires that where a child is capable of forming their own views, state parties shall ensure a right to express those views and “in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body”. This article is not about conferring a power on the local authority to directly seek a child’s view; rather it is about conferring a right upon the child for all sorts of state bodies to listen to them if and when they wish to express a view. The state must not try and usurp this right, designed for children, to meet their own agenda.

It provides that where a child wishes to express a view, they may or may not choose to express that view directly themselves.

Also, if a child is capable of forming their own view, it follows that they are capable of deciding when and to whom they wish to express that view.

A local authority may therefore, in general, advertise the possibility for children to have their view heard by the authority, but may not approach individual children for that view.

To insist on seeking the child’s view in all instances would be to shift the balance and give undue and unnecessary weight to the state. It is also a direct insult to all home educating parents as it infers that they cannot be trusted to listen to the view of their child, whereas a large majority are possibly home educating precisely because they listened to and acted upon that view.

Furthermore, unless the child is not in receipt of a suitable education, even if their view is that they would prefer a school education, the LA has no power to insist on a school education, any more than they have the power to insist on a home education for those school children who, if their view was sought, would express a preference for a home education.

2 Do you agree that a register should be kept?

[x] Disagree.

No.

It is completely discriminatory to choose to keep a register of adults or children who are doing nothing other than making a perfectly legal choice not to avail themselves of a public service.

It infers that home educating parents are all so likely to be liars and criminals as to need automatic government oversight.

It stigmatises home educating children when the state looks upon them as being at risk by virtue of their own or their parent’s choice of lifestyle.

It undermines the status of the family and the relationship of the child to the parent to infer to the child that their parent is not trustworthy.

There is also no logical reason to keep a register. Arguments have been put forward about needing to know numbers of children in order to provide services, to prevent children from missing education and to prevent abuse in families not known to the state.

First, services demand cannot possibly be calculated by starting with the number of the whole possible customer base, even if it were possible to attain that figure, which it is not, due to the flux in the population.

Second, such a register would not detect children missing education for several reasons; it is in my view very likely that those not providing an education would not feel compelled to register; to know who is missing education requires knowing who is in the area which is not a figure consistently available to the LA; and by definition, those children receiving a home education are not missing education any more than are those registered at a school, so the register would be meaningless.

3 Do you agree with the information to be provided for registration?

[x] Disagree.

No. I don’t agree at all with the basic premise of a register so it follows that of course I don’t agree with insisting on any information for such a register.

The proposal to insist on a statement of educational approach, intent and desired/planned outcomes is arrogance and interference by an authority that has lost sight of its boundaries; when a family choose the option of completely private self-provision, it is absolutely nothing to do with the state what approach or plans etc that family have.

The state have no further role whatsoever with regard to the child’s education unless and until it is brought to their notice that there is reasonable cause to believe the child is not in receipt of a suitable education.

This proposal is the work of a mindset that does not understand the threshold between public and private and that is a very dangerous foundation for driving policies and legislation that affects children’s lives.

4 Do you agree that home educating parents should be required to keep the register up to date?

[x] Disagree.

No, of course not. There should be no register and in any case private individuals cannot be saddled with the responsibility of keeping government databases accurate, especially in light of government’s own inability to be trusted with holding, maintaining and securing such information.

5 Do you agree that it should be a criminal offence to fail to register or to provide inadequate or false information?

[x] Disagree.

No. Again, I do not agree with a register in any form. Nonetheless, I cannot see how it could possibly be of any benefit to a child’s education or welfare to criminalise their parent for failure to register, register adequate information or supply false information.

Also, making these failures a crime would not be likely, in my view, to deter those who might have evil or neglectful intentions toward their children, from not registering “properly” or at all; conversely, those with evil or neglectful intentions would not automatically be “flushed out” by registration.

6 a) Do you agree that home educated children should stay on the roll of their former school for 20 days after parents notify that they intend to home educate?

[x] Disagree.

No. When a parent notifies a school, as they are required to do, that they are providing an education otherwise than at school, this is not notice of an intent to home educate, it is notice of home education and, as an immediate consequence according to the Education (Pupil Registration) Regulations 2006, it is an instruction to remove their name from the register – commonly known as deregistration on demand.

This proposal would create conflict with primary legislation and for that reason has already been corrected in 1995 and rejected in 2006 when the Education (Pupil Registration) Regulations were formulated.

The Education Act 1996 Section 7 provides that a parent may choose to cause their child to receive an education at school or otherwise; it does not imply any time restraints or other provisos except that the education must be suitable.

The Education Act 1996 Section 444 makes it an offence for a parent not to secure regular attendance of their school registered child. Therefore, this proposal creates a situation where a parent, by the action of another – ie the school or LA – commits an offence.

It would also bring undue pressure to bear on children who are being deregistered for their own security or well-being.

It would move the balance of rights and powers too far in the LA’s favour, which would greatly increase the risk of LA and school personnel bringing their preferences and prejudices to bear.

6 b) Do you agree that the school should provide the local authority with achievement and future attainment data?

[x] Disagree.

No. Such information is no business of the LA once the child is home educated, unless the family wish the LA to have it. Therefore, this information should be archived and copied directly to the family for them to use as they choose.

A family may not wish to use such information to guide their home education and an LA cannot use it as a yardstick for what is a completely different education.

7 Do you agree that DCSF should take powers to issue statutory guidance in relation to the registration and monitoring of home education?

[x] Disagree.

No. There is currently no provision in primary legislation to issue guidance for registering children other than pupils. To alter primary legislation to confer that power would involve making registration and monitoring compulsory, which I have already opposed above. It would also contradict current primary legislation and therefore be susceptible to judicial review.

It is also of enormous concern that statutory guidance is not subject to the same rigorous parliamentary scrutiny as primary legislation and often is subject to regular change. This leaves it wide open to being altered to suit the preferences and prejudices of Ministers and could be the thin end of the wedge that severely over-regulates home education by introducing clauses and provisos without proper consultation and scrutiny.

8 Do you agree that children about whom there are substantial safeguarding concerns should not be home educated?

[x] Disagree.

No. It is frankly insulting to any child whose safety is at that level of risk, to suggest that going to school for certain hours and days will protect them. This is the sort of woolly thinking that emerges when one conflates education issues with safeguarding issues and actually puts children at risk rather than rescues them from it; another reflection of the inability to recognise appropriate boundaries.

If a child is not safe at home during school hours, they are not safe there at other times either; conversely, if a child is safe at home out of school hours, they are safe there during school hours.

However, school hours and safety have nothing directly to do with education. If a child is safe enough to be living at home they are safe enough to be educated there; the only contraindication is where the LA has found that the child is not in receipt of a suitable education.

Of course it is useful for education and welfare departments to be able to liaise where there are real concerns, but to automatically merge these separate matters as if they are one issue does neither service any justice. The relationship between parent and child can only deteriorate if the state automatically declares the parent not fit to educate, whereas the relationship may be improved by the experience of sharing this part of their lives more closely, especially if school had played any part in their difficulties.

9 Do you agree that the local authority should visit the premises where home education is taking place provided 2 weeks notice is given?

[x] Disagree.

No. I do not agree with any requirement to accept a visit to the home or any other place utilised for home educating.

Homes are private refuges from the interference of all except those who are invited in, unless there is reasonable cause to believe that someone in that home is at significant risk. In those instances the state already has powers to intervene and by no stretch of the imagination could it be said that every home educated child is at significant risk.

Other premises used apart from the home are far too many and varied to possibly justify LA visits.

10 Do you agree that the local authority should have the power to interview the child, alone if this is judged appropriate, or if not in the presence of a trusted person who is not the parent/carer?

[x] Disagree.

No. I think it is once again the result of a lack of recognition of proper boundaries that results in this sort of proposal. This is the sort of process that should only ever occur if there is strong evidence to suggest that the child’s boundaries have already been breached and that she or he is in need of protection.

To take this sort of action in the absence of such conditions would be to create exactly the situation it purports to prevent. It completely disregards a child’s privacy, personal space and right to have their views heard as they would wish them to be heard. It would send the message to the child that their parent is not trustworthy, that their own privacy is not important and that the state is allowed to do with them what they will and it is not within their own gift to prevent it. In my view this lays the foundation for that child to become the victim of all sorts of abuse as a child and later as an adult.

I sincerely hope that this proposal never sees the light of day.

11 Do you agree that the local authority should visit the premises and interview the child within four weeks of home education starting, after 6 months has elapsed, at the anniversary of home education starting, and thereafter at least on an annual basis?  This would not preclude more frequent monitoring if the local authority thought that was necessary.

[x] Disagree.

No. My view on this issue is the same as that expressed in response to question 9.

Apart from not agreeing with compulsory visits per se, this proposal leaves the frequency of these proposed visits, wide open to abuse by LA officers with personal prejudices or ignorance.

Copyright © Jennifer Moore 2009. All rights reserved.

This post belongs to Jennifer's Uncharted Worlds blog. This message should only be visible in news aggregators. If you’re reading it on any other web site, it’s probably from a stolen RSS feed; in that case, please help by reporting it, giving the web address where you found it.

Other feedback welcome via that form too.

This is a kind of “where I’m coming from now myself” with regard to BiCon, to fill in some missing context around my recent (and possible future) writings about it and related subjects.

I’m feeling the need to give a kind of public update on my activist state of play.

I’m aware that by writing my previous post, I may have given the impression of an ongoing commitment to BiCon. (Or – from another angle – the impression that I was going to stick around banging on and on about children at BiCon until I got my way :-) )

This is in fact not the case.

[Update: On re-reading the previous post again, I see that I probably didn't give quite that message - there was a certain amount of "if" and "maybe" even then. Ambiguity here is due to (a) me having struggled with how to describe something which felt very unlikely but not entirely impossible, and (b) the ground still shifting under my feet somewhat over the last few months, about the various ways I might somehow still contribute to BiCon albeit less than my previous involvement.]

Sorry if anyone feels led up the garden path by my choice to save the personal stuff for later. Keeping these two conversations separate was deliberate. [update: insofar as I did.] I think the ideas in the other post stand on their merits as written, and I wanted to allow that discussion to unfold without getting mixed up in this one.

(I did originally want to post about this rather sooner after the last instalment, though – I had in mind a couple of weeks’ gap. It feels somewhat belated now, and this post describes a transition which mostly happened even longer ago than that. But it wasn’t an easy one to write, and it just wasn’t ready back in April or May – by which I mean in a sense that I wasn’t ready.) [update: and evidently I still wasn't quite ready when I clicked the "publish" button first, a bit ago!]

Anyway…

Not my home

Over the last year or so, the way I relate to BiCon has changed.

If you’d asked me a couple of years ago how I felt about it, I’d probably have said something along the lines of “It’s like a kind of home town for me”.

Metaphorically, I could sum up the change by saying: It’s not my home any more.

Various factors wove into the revolution: a wish to play more to my own strengths, and a greater awareness of what those are; a reassessment of BiCon’s politics, and mine; and not least, a compelling visceral/intuitive feeling of not belonging any more. (I may write more another time about aspects of all that.)

The realisation was a big event for me emotionally, and I realised I was grieving for the loss – the loss of my metaphorical home. BiCon was a landmark in my calendar for twelve years, and the playground for lots of my experiments in activism. “It’s February – hmm, time to start thinking about what I’m going to run at BiCon this summer.” 2005 was a particularly fertile and satisfying year, because, being on the team, I had even more scope for devising new things.

Thanks to the people who made those experiences possible for me – going right the way back to 1984 when the first ever bi conference was invented (not that I knew it then).

We broke up

In the middle of the emotional rollercoaster, it amused me to realise how similar it was to splitting up with a partner.

“Me and BiCon broke up. We’ve been together a while, and had some good times… but we talked about it and we realised we don’t want the same things any more, so it was time to call it a day”.

And when I didn’t go to PolyDay, I told my friends it was “Too soon…” :-)

I’m not saying I will never ever come to BiCon ever again. That would be foolish – who knows? I might still visit. But if so, on a different basis – not unlike the difference between a committed relationship and seeing someone around as a friend.

Unloading

Rather than an expression of ongoing commitment, there’s a sense in which the Children at BiCon post was part of my process of leaving. It was a kind of completion of unfinished business. (at least insofar as the ideas in that were specific to BiCon. Of course, some of the things I said would be relevant in other places too.)

What I mean is: I’ve been around BiCon a while, I know pretty well how it works, and I’ve got a lot of ideas about it. And I don’t just want to walk away taking those ideas with me. I want to unload what I’ve got here, in case some of it is useful to the people I’m leaving behind. I don’t want my ideas to be wasted if someone else could use them.

One metaphor is it’s like when you’ve been making a patchwork quilt for a while and put a lot of time into it, but then you realise you’re not going to finish it off because you’ve moved on to doing other things. Well, you’re not just going to put it in the bin, are you. More likely, you’ll offer it to a friend, or put it on FreeCycle for some other quilter to take over.

Or it’s like if you’ve been living in a particular house for a while and then you’re moving on, then (if you’re reasonably public-spirited) you make sure that before you leave, you’ve set aside the matching tiles and the matching wallpaper to stay there, rather than accidentally taking them with you. And you write down the insider knowledge of how to make the dodgy tap work when it seizes up.

Metaphorically, I wrote that post standing in the doorway, on my way out the door, stopping for a moment to pass back some possibly-useful things to the people who remain. No-one’s obliged to do anything with the spare wallpaper – the inhabitants can just put it in the loft if they like – but it’ll be there if someone comes along later and thinks “Actually we could use that now”.

Or put another way… I just seem to have this kind of irrepressible resilient optimism which says it’s better to communicate than not, and maybe it’ll make a useful difference somehow, one way or another. I think maybe even if some people think I’m out of order for making suggestions and not volunteering to carry them out, other people will think “this is feedback we need” or “these ideas could be useful”.

(As an aside for now, bookmark of a topic: “Thou shalt not describe a problem, idea or possibility unless simultaneously walking forward to implement the work yourself”. I have some things to say about that… but later.)

2008 in Leicester

All that being the case, I’m not sure yet whether I’ll put in an appearance at BiCon 2008 in Leicester. I definitely shan’t be there for the whole weekend, but I might do a day trip and say hello. Depends what happens between now and then, and how I feel as the time approaches.

Among other things, I’ll be checking the website for any info on other children going or “We will if you will”. (I imagine there may be other parents thinking along similar lines about the Family Fun Day, if they haven’t already decided against on the grounds of day-trip distance or child-free-ness preference.) But if I didn’t bring the offspring, it wouldn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t show up by myself.

Not disappearing

But either way, it’s not like I’m disappearing. If anyone’s now thinking “Oh but I wanted to see you” or “Oh but I wanted to tell you this idea I’ve got” – well, here I am :-)

Subsections index:
Top of article
Not my home
We broke up
Unloading
2008 in Leicester
Not disappearing

Copyright © Jennifer Moore 2008. All rights reserved.

This post belongs to Jennifer's Uncharted Worlds blog. This message should only be visible in news aggregators. If you’re reading it on any other web site, it’s probably from a stolen RSS feed; in that case, please help by reporting it, giving the web address where you found it.

Other feedback welcome via that form too.