Tilling the Soil for Planting: The First Few Weeks of Supervising

Tilling the Soil for Planting: The First Few Weeks of Supervising

by Viki Matson

The first few weeks of a supervisory relationship are crucial to setting the tone for the remainder of the experience.  If you are like me, we tend to get impatient for the good stuff – those times when we can really dig deeply into questions of theology and practice –  when we feel like we are making a difference in the life of someone who is venturing onto a path that for us is well worn with time and love.

Even though it might feel like not much is happening in the early weeks, let me remind you of how central these weeks are, and perhaps remind you of some best practicesthat will get your supervisory relationship off to a good start.

 

First and most obviously, it is important to show up.  Signal to the student early on how important this time is, and keep your supervisory appointment.  Use these early weeks as an occasion to get acquainted with the student.  Using your best pastoral sensibilities, invite them to make themselves known to you.  Listen, listen, listen.  Ask artful questions.  Gently probe and prompt.  Begin to get a sense of your student’s personality, humor, stories, and keep track of the questions they are living with.  Find out the ways Divinity School is both deeply satisfying and deeply challenging.  Invite their trust, and demonstrate by your faithful presence and listening, that their trust in you is well placed.

I also find it helpful in these early weeks to do what we can to reduce anxiety.  Our pedagogical philosophy is that the best learning happens when students feel safe. Model for them a kind of supervision (there is an art to this) that communicates love more than judgment, conversation more than critique, and mutual growth more than an expert/novice relationship.  Let your time together be marked by a kind of sighing your way into a comfortable way of being together in which the threads of trust are gradually strengthened.

It can be appropriate, in these early weeks, especially, to let yourself be known.  Each supervisory relationship has its own character, and there are countless right ways to do it.  I would invite you to consider to what extent it would be appropriate, even helpful, to share something of yourself in this relationship.  Often these relationships have a quality of collegiality, an unexpected gift to be celebrated.  Being mindful of the power differential that is undoubtedly present, be wise and intentional about letting yourself be known.  Model self-awareness.

And finally, consider getting out of the office.  Take a walk.  Get a latte.  Meet for lunch.  These small efforts signal to the student that you place a high premium on this time.  They experience you acting in ways that tells them (as well as other folk) that this regular weekly time is important.

I think of these early weeks of supervision as rather like the early stages of planting a garden.  We might walk around the yard a time or two, sleuthing out the place that is just right.  We might pore over seed catalogs and even sketch out some rough draft plans.  We might begin to make sure we have all the tools we need for this work.  And of course we plant some seeds.  The fruits (and vegetables!0 we are sure to experience in the coming months would not be possible without this early work.

Enjoy!

The Inner Life: Self-Examination

Recently a student wrote these compelling words in a Case Study:

 The fact is that I could not control this thought that came into my mind, and that made me realize that this subconscious negative stigma of addiction is deeply ingrained in me, even when I can vocalize a standpoint that is contrary….I cannot change how I initially felt in the situation, but I can use those feelings to change how I act in the future.  (Lang, 2013, p. 4)

This student made a startling discovery.  Our biases, our prejudices, can go deep, so deep that they inhabit us beyond our conscious will, even when we “can vocalize a standpoint to the contrary.” (Lang, 2013, p. 4)  While this particular Case Study addresses bias against those with addictions, we can easily substitute negative stigmas of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability, and the list goes on.   

Such encounters with the self can lead to the despair of “I’ll never be good enough”, or they can be opportunities to be real, to be transparent with one’s self and with the Holy.  Howard Thurman, in Meditations of the Heart, writes of the second possibility:

                      There is a great virtue in the cultivation of silence, and strength to be found in using it as a door to God.  Such a door opens within.  When I have quieted down, I must spend some time in self-examination in the Presence of God.  This is not facile admission of guilt for wrongs done or a too quick labeling of attitudes in negative terms.  But it does mean lifting up a part of one’s self and turning it over and over, viewing it from many angles and then holding it still as one waits for the movement of God’s spirit in judgment, in honesty and in understanding.   (Thurmond, 1981, p. 19)

              Silence – where do you find silence in your life?  In a Facebooked, Twittered, texted,

              e-mailed, Internetted, Instagrammed, flickred, cell phoned 24/7 culture, where do our

              students find silence?  Where do we find the silence to sit in self-examination with the

              Holy, so that we may feel “the movement of God’s spirit in judgment, in honesty and

              in understanding”?  (Thurmond, 1981, p. 19)    

             This student found that silence in engaging the case study methodology, in taking the

             experience out and looking at it “from many angles and holding it still as one waits…”

                    (Thurmond, 1981, p.19)

            

             I would love to hear from you.  How do you cultivate silence?  How do you encourage

             your students in the ways of silence? 

                    Trudy Hawkins Stringer

             Lang, L. (2013)  Subconscious Stigma.  Unpublished Case Study.

         Thurman, H.  (1981)  Meditations of the Heart.  Boston, MA:  Beacon Press

The Importance of "I don't know" in Theological Supervision

 

Four small groups of new supervisors for Theological Field Education filled the room.  Training day had arrived.  They wrestled with a sample Case Study and discussed how to best engage a student in theological conversation.  From the group in the right hand front corner, a voice spoke out,  “How do we know when to share our own experience with the student?”

Perhaps my response was more truthful than immediately helpful in answering a really good question.  We can’t know for sure.  Navigating a Case Study conversation requires, as Rilke wrote, “living the question.”1  This advise applies equally to students and supervisors.  Embrace your questions.  Enter each conversation in the spirit of mutual exploration.  Decide to risk saying,  “I don’t know.”  In doing so you give your student powerful permission to “not know”, too.  Creativity often has more space to move when we open spaces of “I don’t know.”

Listen deeply.  Lead with the interrogative rather than the declarative

Risk vulnerability.  Students learn more from experiences where we messed up than ones where we got everything right.  We give them permission to mess up and learn from “mis – takes.”  Isn’t it brilliant that movie production has a process for this with language of “Take 1” Take 2” Take 3”….and that big hinged sign that snaps shut to indicate “try again.”

Interrogate the urge to correct or chastise the student.  There is a good chance that some button of ours is being pushed.  This is usually a “stop sign” indicating that we are needful of engaging in another round of our own inner assessment. 

Explore your theological framing for supervision – why are we doing what we are doing?  For me, teaching, supervising, preaching, mentoring – all are about relationship, a theological claim about who we are. It is a theological anthropology of the interconnectedness of being itself.  In Christianity, Trinitarian theology suggests this elemental connectedness. In southern Africa the Xhosa and Zulu languages have a word, “ubuntu”, variously translated as, “I am because you are” and “I am human because I belong.”  Below is a link to a video that speaks more eloquently than I ever can:

http://www.walkoutwalkon.net/south-africa/ubuntu-i-am-because-you-are/

With gratitude to all who choose to offer themselves in supervisory relationship,

Trudy Hawkins Stringer

  

Conversations Around Case Studies: Making Space for Theological Reflection

At a recent training session for new supervisors, someone asked a very provocative question about reflecting on case studies with our students.  She asked, “I’ve read the case study, the student is meeting me in a few minutes to talk about the case study, how do I open up conversation?”

Writing a thoughtful case requires a certain amount of transparency and vulnerability on the part of the writer.  Honesty about one’s emotional landscape, one’s (dis)comfort with various aspects of the pastoral role, as well as one’s most cherished beliefs and values is key to gaining insight. 

Therefore, an important dimension in reflecting on a case together is to comment (at some point in the conversation) about the degree to which the student was successful in doing this.  If the case study reflected a high degree of self-awareness and transparency, affirm this.  If the case study felt thin, or guarded, or trivial, it is important to find ways to say that, as well.  It is sometimes necessary to remind the student that this kind of learning does not always feel safe, and maybe even ask them if there are things we need to put in place during this Field Ed experience that can increase their sense of safety.  (The importance of this spans far beyond the Field Ed experience.  Religious leadership of any sort requires the capacity to be honest about one’s inner life.)

One of the primary agendas of these supervisory sessions around case studies is to begin to tease out the theological questions that the student is encountering and to help them begin to clarify their own values and beliefs around the question.  Some supervisors open up these kinds of conversations by having the pair (student and supervisor) brainstorm together about all of the theological issues that are present in this case.  This list-making, in itself, can be a teaching moment as students come to see how the ordinary dilemmas that are the stuff of ministry can be richly layered and nuanced with theological questions and intersections.  Once a good list is established, the supervisor might ask the student to name one or two of the items on the list that are most pressing for them.  Then jump in.  “How has your mind changed?”  “Where are you stuck?”  “What claims can you make?”  “What do you have difficulty claiming?”

Another supervisor suggested that in order to make these conversations more mutual, they have started a practice of each person (student and supervisor) choosing one theological issue raised by the case to explore in deeper discussion.  This way the student can see that the work of reflecting theologically is a lifelong process, one that continues long after Divinity School.  In this model we become theologians together, trying to make faith sense of the dilemma the student has presented.

I also think it’s helpful to let the conversation extend beyond the supervisory hour.  As we come across things (articles, blogs, poetry, books) that address the questions we talked about when we were together, we would do well to share them generously.  Invite students to do the same.  Put lots of stuff in the pot and let it simmer.  Return to it every now and then to see how it’s shaping up.

The more we can enter into the theological streams in which our students live and move, the more this process itself will remind us that theology is never really a finished product, but more an organic and vibrant process, requiring the best of our intellect and imagination.

What wisdom would you add?

--Viki Matson

Creativity and Theological Field Education Supervision

Creativity and Theological Field Education Supervision

We gathered two, three, five then seven women on a perfectly beautiful Saturday morning, seven sane women giving over a perfectly beautiful Saturday morning to Name Game, Dr, Know-It-All, Peeves and Rants - all manner of jumping, shouting, laughing, ridiculous [from and "adult" perspective] games.  On a perfectly beautiful Saturday morning seven sane women played games for three hours.  Why did we play games for three hours on a perfectly beautiful Saturday morning, you might ask - [beware - here comes the paradox] - because we had work to do.   We had important work to do, official work to do, pressing work to do.  We had to design a program and devise an implementation strategy, including time line - now.  So for three hours we played together.  Then we broke bread together.  Then, and only then, did we begin to work on our project.

Creativity shakes up our linear thinking, creativity encourages us to connect, creativity call us to knowing in ways that engage multiple senses and intelligences.  Creativity is integrative.

"But I am not creative!"  Yes, I hear the wail from here.  Have you wondered why children don't regularly proclaim, "I am not creative!"?  Because children have not been thoroughly starched, pressed and folded into the uniform box shape of adulthood.  The good new is that starch and folds can be washed right out - go play in the rain for five minutes, seriously.  You will be amazed.  I do not paint, sculpt, dance, act, or sing (I was the only student invited not to join the high school chorus), and yet I am discovering creativity.

What in the world does this have to do with theological field education - the serious business of preparing the next generation of religious leaders?  First of all, at its best, this work in not business but art and craft, knowledge and openness, planning and improvisation. The Free Online Dictionary declares that "inspire" and "breathe" have common Indo-European roots.  Found in the Hebrew Bible "ruach" means variously breath, wind, spirit.  Is it possible that creativity and Spirit are kindred? Is it possible that clearing space and time for Spirit is necessary to to enter the holy stream of the ongoing work of creating?

But what about those seven sane women and our irresponsible playing when we had Important Work To Be Done?  By 3:00pm on that perfectly beautiful Saturday, we had collaboratively created an innovative program, implementation plan, and time line - with an hour to spare.  In the midst we discovered joy in community.   Joy in community, innovative common work, inspiration, permission to breathe, Spirit space - and a most important piece - permission to mess up, look silly and learn from what "adults" usually hide in shame.  Might this be what life-giving religious leadership is all about?

"Creativity is contagious, pass it on" – Albert Einstein

Trudy Hawkins Stringer

Tilling the Soil for Planting: The First Few Weeks of Supervising

by Viki Matson

The first few weeks of a supervisory relationship are crucial to setting the tone for the remainder of the experience.  If you are like me, we tend to get impatient for the good stuff – those times when we can really dig deeply into questions of theology and practice –  when we feel like we are making a difference in the life of someone who is venturing onto a path that for us is well worn with time and love.

Even though it might feel like not much is happening in the early weeks, let me remind you of how central these weeks are, and perhaps remind you of some best practices that will get your supervisory relationship off to a good start.

 

First and most obviously, it is important to show up.  Signal to the student early on how important this time is, and keep your supervisory appointment.  Use these early weeks as an occasion to get acquainted with the student.  Using your best pastoral sensibilities, invite them to make themselves known to you.  Listen, listen, listen.  Ask artful questions.  Gently probe and prompt.  Begin to get a sense of your student’s personality, humor, stories, and keep track of the questions they are living with.  Find out the ways Divinity School is both deeply satisfying and deeply challenging.  Invite their trust, and demonstrate by your faithful presence and listening, that their trust in you is well placed.

I also find it helpful in these early weeks to do what we can to reduce anxiety.  Our pedagogical philosophy is that the best learning happens when students feel safe.  Model for them a kind of supervision (there is an art to this) that communicates love more than judgment, conversation more than critique, and mutual growth more than an expert/novice relationship.  Let your time together be marked by a kind of sighing your way into a comfortable way of being together in which the threads of trust are gradually strengthened.

It can be appropriate, in these early weeks, especially, to let yourself be known.  Each supervisory relationship has its own character, and there are countless right ways to do it.  I would invite you to consider to what extent it would be appropriate, even helpful, to share something of yourself in this relationship.  Often these relationships have a quality of collegiality, an unexpected gift to be celebrated.  Being mindful of the power differential that is undoubtedly present, be wise and intentional about letting yourself be known.  Model self-awareness.

And finally, consider getting out of the office.  Take a walk.  Get a latte.  Meet for lunch.  These small efforts signal to the student that you place a high premium on this time.  They experience you acting in ways that tells them (as well as other folk) that this regular weekly time is important.

I think of these early weeks of supervision as rather like the early stages of planting a garden.  We might walk around the yard a time or two, sleuthing out the place that is just right.  We might pore over seed catalogs and even sketch out some rough draft plans.  We might begin to make sure we have all the tools we need for this work.  And of course we plant some seeds.  The fruits (and vegetables!0 we are sure to experience in the coming months would not be possible without this early work.

Enjoy!

 

 

THE "F" WORD IN THEOLOGICAL FIELD EDUCATION SUPERVISION

The "F" Word in Theological Field Education Supervision

 

 

"I don't have time*!"  "I can't find the time!"  "They** won't give me time!"  How many times have we heard – and said - the same thing?  As mid-term approaches, I hear this Greek chorus in the halls of the academy.   In my recent conversations, this mysteriously missing time is time for attention to life of/with/in Spirit – time for the "F" word, formation, spiritual formation - life forming of/with/in Spirit.  I call this missing time the tyranny of "when" – "when I finish the semester" – "when I turn in my senior project" -  "when I graduate" – "when I develop this new course" – "when I finish this book" – "when I get through Advent" – "when Easter is over" – you get the idea.  We all do it.  Futurity will provide the elusive missing time.  Except that it won't, can't.

 

Dictionary.reference.com defines the "F" word as "the act or process of forming or the state of being formed." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/formation)  This tidy definition points to tensions inherent in "practicing spiritual formation."  Is formation the "act or process of forming?  Or is formation the "state of being formed"?   Well, yes – and no – and it depends.  Look closely at the definitions.  Remember active and passive voices from old school English grammar?  "The act or process of forming" situates agency within.  "The state of being formed" locates agency externally.

 

Theories of the social construction of self suggest that we are continually participating in the forming of our larger culture, as we are simultaneously being formed by that culture.  Formation is dynamic.  It is neither exclusively active nor passive but an integration that refuses binary definitions.  It is process; it happens in self in community. Spiritual formation happens whether we attend to it or not.  Without attention this formation can become malformation that leaves us still searching for that mysterious missing time.

 

What does this mean for supervision in theological field education?  Well, as the movie title goes, "It's complicated."  Intentional spiritual formation is not a set of practices or disciplines that we can give to a student to enact.  It is not direction that we can give another to follow. Neither is intentional spiritual formation something best unmentioned and left to the student's own devises (It seems that culturally we have tried that with human sexuality to less than salutary results.)  I suggest that spiritual formation is relational, intentional, mutual engagement of/with/in Spirit.  Intentional spiritual formation requires the courage to risk engaging that which "blows where it will."   Intentional spiritual formation requires self-aware vulnerability.  It requires transparency and honesty – with ourselves and with one another.  Intentional spiritual formation has no hierarchy of "experts" but is a democracy of journeyers.  It is not just students who are challenged by Rilke's advice to:

 

Be patient with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.                   Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

Intentional spiritual formation invites us to "STOP in the name of love" (a nod to Diana Ross and the Supremes), to listen for Spirit in and among us.  To stop "buying, finding, saving, spending, giving, losing" time, to refuse time – and life – as a commodity and to engage it as gift, a gift of love from a God who is Love.

 

This understanding of "spiritual formation" may well open itself to charges of not being rigorous enough, demanding enough, even sacrificial enough.  My experience is (yes, I am appealing to a particular epistemology) that life provides plenty of rigor, opportunities for sacrifice, and demands.   Only in learning the practices of loving are we equipped to live into the fullness of our creatureliness within creation, to be life-giving.

 

So, what are we to do about spiritual formation as supervisors of students of practicing theology?  STOP, breathe, listen, risk transparency, live our questions, love every day with intention.  Practice these actions in relationship with our students.  Sleep.  Begin again.

 

Trudy Hawkins Stringer

 

 

 

*Time - noun) Middle English; Old English tīma;  cognate with Old Norse tīmi;  (v.) Middle English timen  to arrange a time, derivative of the noun; akin to tide1     http://dictionary.reference.com 

 

**My high school English teacher, Corrine St. Clair King Guild, referred to this usage as "the old, indefinite 'they'."

How is your On-Line Pastoral Presence?

Part of the “new normal” about the context in which we minister is the reality of social media. Whether we have fully embraced the likes Facebook and Twitter, or whether we reluctantly are coming to embrace these new ways of communicating, social media has become something which we ignore at some cost to our effectiveness in ministry.

For most of our students, one of their places of “residence” is the virtual neighborhood of Facebook and other social ministry outlets. For us to be unable to converse with them about ministry and social media is to not take seriously their lived context. Many of our students work with youth and young adults. Tweets and status updates are the currency of this generation.

So the question is not, “are we in favor of social media or not?” The question has quickly become, “how might we establish an on-line pastoral presence?” or “How might social media become one of the pathways along which we minister?”

These are the sorts of conversations we’ve been having with our students and supervisors lately, and I invite you to join the conversation here. Our pastors are telling us that daily or twice-daily check-ins on Facebook help them know their parishioners in ways never before imagined. Our students are teaching us that often, on-line communication is the portal that leads to important face to face conversations. Both generations are teaching us that one without the other (face time as well as an online presence) are important.

What are you learning about social media? About yourself? About how to authentically cultivate a pastoral conversation on-line?\

Please join our conversation in this space so that one day we might talk about it face to face!

Viki Matson

LEADERSHIP AND POWER

Leadership and Power

 

In the midst of holiday garlands and end of the semester grading, carols and case studies, I received a very "Official Appointment Advisory Form."  Hurriedly I clicked on the e-mail, opened the document – mainly to see how long I could put off attending to it – but the first question peaked my interest.  It read:  "What missional factors have you considered in making your appointment request and how does your pastoral leadership contribute to these factors?" (Italic mine)  Leadership – I was intrigued.  We talk about leadership, we even teach about leadership.  We enact leadership every day, but do we have/take time to think deeply about the leadership we practice.

 

This ecclesial form offered me the opportunity to think more deeply about leadership.  Below are some strands of my evolving understanding and practice:

Leadership is no longer a set of practices to be mastered and implemented.  Leadership is not about exerting power over the other(s).  Leadership is a way of being – in honest, intentional relationships.  Leadership requires listening often- both to others and to the quiet whisper of Spirit - they frequently merge into the same voice.  Leadership is not all about me.  What a relief.  Leadership is about relationships. I experience this as a liberation to love that fuels a more authentic leadership. 

 

Power understood as relational, contingent, and open-ended is risky and rich with possibilities rather than certainties.  Like manna this power spoils when we try to hoard it, to amass a stockpile against possible threat.  This power is expectant.   Perhaps that is why this ecclesial form came during Advent…

 

Trudy Hawkins Stringer

 

 

 

 

 

Having Double-Vision as a Supervisor

Being a skilled and artful supervisor of a Divinity student requires the capacity to see more than one thing at a time.  It requires a kind of double vision: near-sighted as well as far-sighted.  That is, sometimes the work before us requires us to look very closely (together) at one task that is before us.  It might be word-smithing, word by theological word, a sermon, a prayer, a news release, a statement to board members.  This kind of work reminds me of the kind of sight Annie Dillard must have had when she wrote, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek based on her very close observations of one square foot of land over time.  It requires seeing detail, nuance, slight movement.

And then there are the times when we need to see as far down the path as we can.  A student might be encountering a difficulty in the internship that could have long-term ramifications.  What if I do not have this gift?  Should I change course?  At times like this it is helpful to have the vision (and navigational tools) of a sea captain.  Having a sense of where the currents change, where there might be something lurking beneath the surface,  and what might be the best timing for a course correction.

Where have you recently encountered the need for one or other of these kinds of vision?

What wisdom might you share?

Finding Voice in the Second Year

http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=9812

"Community of Truth"

"A Community of Truth"

 

In Proverbs of Ashes:  Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us, Rebecca Parker, addressing her own journey of healing, writes:

       I also had to find a community of truth.   When friends sent me to a

       support group for people struggling with their response to the 

       effects of alcohol on those they loved, I found a place of unmasked

       human presence.

       Because that group was one in which people didn't hide, I   

       began to learn not to hide.  It took a long time, but I gradually

       began to tell the truth about my life.  It was like learning

       to speak all over again.  The habits of hiding and denying

      were so old, I didn't know how to speak except in a way that

      was a kind of a lie.  I didn't know how to say, "I hurt.  I am afraid." 

      I only knew how to say,  "I'm fine.  Nothing is wrong.  Everything is great."

      (Brock and Parker, p. 214)

 

What is a "community of truth"?    According to Merriam-Webster a "community" is "a unified body of individuals", and "interacting population" with "a common characteristic or interest." (Merriam-Webster)  What would a community whose stated common characteristic is truth telling look like?  This is not, I think, truth with a capital "T", connoting an absolute certainty beyond the capacities of human finiteness.  According to Parker it is a community that does not require hiding and denying.  It demands a new language – or perhaps the reclaiming of an old, old language forgotten in the pull and tumble of human existence, a language that can express what is real inside and among us, our truths with a more modest lower case "t."  A "community of truth" needs listeners, those able to hear the hard, tragic , sharp, brutish edges of life and hold fast in community.   A "community of truth" requires a kind of mutuality born of an awareness of sharing in the human condition.   A "community of truth", I think, is based in the ancient art of story telling, in this case, our own tattered volume, including chapters of hurt, fear, anger, and grief.  A "community of truth" holds one another accountable in love.  A cheap love can embrace the "fine and great" and even a measure of woundedness.   A "community of truth" needs an expensive, extravagant love to encompass the hard, tragic, sharp, brutish edges of life as well as its joys and to remain vulnerable to hope and possibility.

 

What does this have to do with theological supervision?  That hinges on the goal of theological supervision.   I am not sure what exactly is meant by "training the next generation of leaders", a phrase we hear often enough, but it strikes me as timid.  What if, rather than settling for "training", we decided to risk mutual forming –perhaps trans-forming - by gathering and "practicing" being "communities of truth"?

In some ways this is easier than being the expert with "answers."  However, vulnerability does seem to be requisite - not unfettered disclosure - but a willingness to at times forthrightly "not know", to listen, to be as authentic as we can be at any given moment, to do our own hard, necessary, continual practice of  inner assessment.   There just may be more authority in this practice of authenticity than in having answers.

 

Come to think of it, in the Christian faith tradition, a "community of truth" sounds a lot like some descriptions of the "the Body of Christ."

 

Trudy Hawkins Stringer

 

Brock, Rita Nakashima., and Rebecca Ann. Parker. Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us. Boston: Beacon, 2001. Print.

 

"Community - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/community>.

 

 

--
Trudy Hawkins Stringer
Assistant Professor of the Practice
Associate Director of Field Education
Vanderbilt University Divinity School
615 343 3962

"Coaching" in Supervision

A recent article in The New Yorker (“Personal Best” by Atul Gawande) raised the very provocative question of whether or not all kinds of professionals might benefit from a personal coach.  The author, a very accomplished surgeon, described himself as being “at the top of his game” when he decided to experiment with this question.  Interestingly, it was a random encounter with a much younger tennis player who offered the author some tips on improving his serve, which prompted this vocational reflection.  

The entire article can be found here:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/03/111003fa_fact_gawande
I will go ahead and spoil the ending by telling you that even a seasoned surgeon found it useful to invite a trusted colleague to observe his work and offer feedback about becoming even better at what he does!

While the work of personal coaches is often geared toward a particular challenge such as weight loss, improved athletic skills, better public speaking, etc., there is some wisdom in the practice of coaching that might be of use to those of us who supervise Divinity students in the mysterious process of coming to confidence and competence in daily practice.  Religious leadership is difficult to teach partly because  “jobs that involved the complexities of people or nature seem to take the longest to master.”  (p. 44)

Often I think that I do too much of the talking when I am supervising a student.  This article offered some concrete techniques that help me quickly shift into listening mode, while still being attentive to important feedback that needs to be given.  After the student has engaged in some work of their own, instead of the supervisor immediately offering praise and possibly critique, experts from the world of coaching suggest a few simple and straightforward questions:

• what worked?
• what did not work as well as you would have liked?
• What might you do differently next time?
• What else did you notice?

What I like about these questions is that they ask the student to quickly get to the heart of the matter.  It gets them in the practice of reflecting on their own work, in the moment.  Part of the work of supervision is to be attentive to unhelpful dynamics, such as exaggerated self-criticism or self-praise, a tendency toward perfectionism, etc.  But the starting point for this work is what the student herself says about her work.

Sometimes a student’s reflection offers a natural segue for the supervisor to share practical wisdom.  “Others in this situation have done this or that.  Or: sometimes I have had success with this.  Saving this part of the conversation for later assures us hat we are offering advice that is needed and welcome, and speaks directly to the student’ situation.

I invite you to read the article for yourself and share your own comments and reflections about times you have coached or been coached.

--Viki Matson

EXPERIENTIAL PEDAGOGY

Experiential Pedagogy

 

In The Rule of Benedict Joan Chittister relates the story of a visitor to a contemporary monastery asking a monk,  "'What do you do in the monastery?'  And the monastic replies, 'Well, we fall and we get up and we fall and we get up and we fall and get up."[1]

 

Experiential pedagogy (or experiential education), the stuff of Field Education, is variously defined as "learning by doing"[2]; or "the process that occurs between a student and an educator that combines direct experience with the learning environment and subject matter"[3]; or "a philosophy and methodology in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarify values."[4]

Recently I attended a workshop on "Habits of Creative Problem Solving."  The presenter pointed out that the words "experience" and "experiment" share the same root, the Latin experiri which means "to try."[5]  An experience is defined by Merriam Webster as  "a direct observation of or participation in events as a basis of knowledge" or "the fact or state of having been affected by or gained knowledge through direct observation or participation."[6]

 

Experiential pedagogy at its root invites – requires – experimentation.  Did you have a Young Scientist Club Science Kit Set or perhaps the Test Tube Adventures Lab?  If so, you may remember that not all experiments turn out as expected.  Some things work; some don't work; and some don't work as expected.  All three outcomes are expected in the learning process.  Similarly, experiential pedagogy requires that we risk finding out what works and what does not  and what does not work as we expected– that we risk being wrong – risk failure.

 

How can we best help our students to move beyond "getting it right" (whatever the current "it" may be), to move beyond a kind of ingrained academic perfectionism, and move toward experiri?  In "An Experiment in Feedback" Barbara Blogett challenges us to challenge ourselves as supervisors by differentiating between praise and feedback.  Blogett suggests that we help the student identify a specific learning event, specify learning goals for that event and request specific feedback on these learning goals.[7]  I suggest that praise can be understood as a generalized affirmation, while feedback ( Perhaps "constructive" would be a useful qualifier for feedback.) is particular to a discreet experience.  One obstacle to giving and receiving feedback, Blogett points out, may well be our own "intern inside" us, the one who likes " receiving praise for hard things as a substitute for analyzing what is hard about them."  And the one who uses "praise to cover our own anxiety about the hard things we are asking others to do."[8]

 

Do you remember in the 1970's and 1980's when  "continuous" or "continual" quality improvement programs were all the rage?  Some of us became worn out with the notion that nothing was ever "good enough."   I do not think this was the intention of these programs; however, the context, the organizational culture, can make all the difference in implementation.  And so, I suggest, it is with the use of feedback.  If we begin with a theological anthropology that acknowledges that "we fall and get up and we fall and get up", then perhaps we can risk admitting that we have fallen in the past and are likely to fall again in the future.  If we covenant to do this in community, to give and receive constructive feedback as a way of helping one another get up again, perhaps our "inner intern" can be stilled and the courage to risk trying can replace the fear of failure.

 

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[1] Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict:  A Spirituality for the 21^st Century (New York:   Crossroad, 2010) p.

[2] "Worldview Literacy Project, Experiential Pedagogy, Middle School, High School, Web Based, Self-aware, Qualitative, Classroom Observation."  Johns Hopkins School of Education.  Winter 2011.  Web. 26 Sept. 2011. http://education.jhu.edu/newhorizons/Journals/Winter2011/Schlitz

[3] Jesse Jewell, "Experiential Pedagogy",  Web. 26 Sept. 2011 http://yukonee.wikispaces.com/D.+Experiential+Pedagogy .

[4]"What is Experiential Education?" Association for Experiential Education:  a Community of Progressive Educators and Practioners, Web. 21 Sept. 2011.

http://www.aee.org/about/whatIsEE

[5] Eric Booth, "Creative Problem Solving", Creative Practice Boot Camp, Vanderbilt University Curb Center, Nashville, Tn. 2 Sept. 2011.

[6] "Experience – Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary", Dictionary and Thesaurus – Merriam-Webster Online.  Web. 26 Sept. 2011.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/experience

[7] Barbara Blogett, "Experiment in Feedback", Alban – Building Up Congregations and Their Leaders. 19 Sept. 2011:

[8] Blodgett, http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=9754 

Trudy Hawkins Stringer

Link to thoughtful article about giving feedback

http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=9754

Walking Wounded or Wounded Healer?

"A good half of every treatment that probes at all deeply consists in the doctor's

 examining himself (sic)….it is his (sic) own hurt that gives a measure of his (sic)

 power to heal."

                                                                        Carl Jung[i]

 

Occasionally theological students are drawn to do ministry in a setting that is deeply personal to them, or because they have an intimate connection with the issues addressed in a particular context. For example, a mid-life woman who lived in an abusive marriage for years feels compelled to work in a shelter for victims of domestic violence.  Or a young man whose mother killed herself 4 years ago senses a call to invest his time in a Suicide Prevention Coalition.

 

When making decisions about placements, a wise Field Educator will take her time with such students, learning more about their personal story and their journey toward healing and restoration in order to discern where the student lands on the continuum of Wounded Healer ↔ Walking Wounded.  It's not that every student (or minister) must have every conflict resolved and be perfectly healed in order to be of use.  We all have vulnerable places and issues which need continued attention.  But it is entirely appropriate to expect that religious leaders have a high degree of self-awareness about their own emotional landscape, including triggers, unfinished business and lingering grief.

 

When a person lands more toward the "Walking Wounded" end of the continuum, their conversations and their reflections will largely be focused on themselves and their own healing process, almost as if they were a client.  They lead with their own needs, and their own unfinished business enters too heavily into the daily work.

 

In contrast, a person who is a "Wounded Healer"[1] is aware of their own wounds and griefs, and has travelled along the road of healing far enough that the wounds are not open and gaping for all to see.  A wounded healer is actively tending to their own emotional and spiritual work, so that they come to the placement or the client out of a sense of wholeness, rather than brokenness.  Sometimes these wounds can even be something of a gift, offering the minister a rich resource out of which to care for another in a similar circumstance.

Part of the art of supervising a divinity student is being attentive to where they might fall on the continuum, and bringing to self-consciousness the motives, memories and unresolved Powerfor another. 

 

The poet, Adrienne Rich, says it this way:

            Today I was reading about Marie Curie:

            she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness

            her body bombarded for years by the element

            she had purified

            It seems she denied to the end

            the source of the cataracts on her eyes

            the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends

            till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil

 

            She died a famous woman denying

            her wounds

            denying

            her wounds came from the same source as her power.[ii]

--Viki Matson

           

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1 Jung quoted in Anthony Stevens, Jung (oxford 1994), p. 110.

2 Thanks to Carl Jung for identifying this archetype and to Henri Nouwen for reflecting on its place in ministry.

3 Power, a poem by Adrienne Rich