Upside Down

Have you ever thought what turning something upside down might create?

Like, when I get asked to speak on my topic of expertise... what if I decided that instead of interpreting this as dispensing my knowledge, I turn it upside down and become the listener of whatever knowledge is already there in the room?

Sounds messy, right?

But here's what happened when I intuitively tried it.

I had been asked to give a lecture about hospitality to a group of international Masters of Social Work students. It was a lecture I had given on previous successive years. It slotted in nicely into their social work curriculum.

On this occasion, the lecture was at 2 pm. I arrived early and sat quietly out the way in a corner of the room, while the course coordinator finished off her lecture. I was then introduced and welcomed without the students having had much of a chance to have a break. I looked around the twenty or so faces. They looked exhausted!

Later I discovered they had been 'lectured at' all morning, and then with only a small lunch break. Apparently the idea is that because they were paying top dollar to do this course, the students themselves and/or their sponsors, were keen they get everything they could out of the time they had! The more 'notes' the better!

I decided they did not need any more brain bash. So I began to reverse their expectations applying the welcome and introduction I had received to them! 'Good to meet you...which country are you from...? what's it like living there...? and so on, systematically aound the room. If I was hearing something about hospitality as it is practised in their culture, I would prolong the interaction, watching whether others concurred with their observations.

Soon it was clear that I had about half the class with me and listening to their peers. The other half, I guessed, were casualties of the vagrancies of wrote-learning. So for the second half of my allotted hour I decided to lean toward their needs, pulling some of the classes' observations together, introducing the theoretical framework expected of me by the Course Coordinator, and giving them all something to write down and take away!

The hour over, three or four of the more animated students wanted to talk further with me. I concluded that perhaps we had achieved more that a straight lecture. And for the astute, they had been watching aspects of hospitality in action.