Learning

Yesterday we set up to do an abuse prevention class for people with disabilities. As we did so people trickled into the room and took their seats. Joe wrote up the 'ground rules' on the flip chart. One of them was: It's OK to disagree on some things.

A woman, Lynette, sitting at the front, read the rules as Joe wrote them. When she got to that rule, she said, "Some things? I can disagree with anything I want."

I spun round to look at what we'd been teaching for over twenty years.

She was right.

What we wrote implied that there were some thing beyond your right to disagree.

I may have to do things that I disagree with ... anyone who works for anyone doing anything knows that.

Here I was teaching about the right to disagreement to someone who disagreed with my statement about disagreement.

And she was right.

Both Joe and I looked at each other and decided to change it on the spot to 'It's OK to disagree.' Joe put a single, careful, line through the crossed out words so they could still be read. When we got to that part we talked about how Lynette's idea had change what we were teaching. Voice matters. So does a open space where disagreement and discussion are welcome.

Over twenty years doing things and still getting it wrong sometimes. That doesn't bother me. Because, I won't make that mistake again. There's aways room to be wrong, and there's always opportunity for learning.

I learned yesterday.