Dear colleagues in forgiveness,

Where forgiveness is concerned we actually ARE all colleagues, with much to learn from one another. 

I am delighted with the quality of your posts thus far, and look forward to hearing from those who haven't tuned in yet.

In most cases, rather than respond immediately to your posts I first give them some thought. And although I don’t specifically respond to every post, the responses I do make take into account what has been said in those to which I do not. 

I also encourage you to respond to each other, because collaborative learning – which is what online classes are all about - is meant to be more like a seminar than a classroom. You can have your own conversations, as it were, without distracting the rest of us. Remember, cyberspace is more like a seminar room than a lecture hall. We can all be talking at once, as it were, without running interference with one another.

The primary purpose of this message is to acquaint you with the material that follows, which  is also posted as a discussion thread in the “Social Forum,” where your responses are invited.

WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE WORK

This course is an adventure in collaborative learning and the generation of new knowledge.  Our learning will be collaborative insofar as we share information concerning our respective experiences of and perspectives on forgiveness.  And new knowledge will be generated whenever someone’s information and/or perspective intersects meaningfully with someone else’s experience.
 
In other words, what makes this course work is the intersection of information and experience.  Unfortunately, this intersection tends to be fraught with collisions unless our information is driven carefully.  
 
Safe driving on any information highway is guaranteed only as we practice the “rules of the road,” which include the following:
 
1.   Give options, not advice.
We all tend to have a built-in resistance to being told what we should do.  As a consequence, “shoulding” on each other tends to prevent learning rather than facilitate it.  What therefore seems to work best in this course is to share our information (whether it be fact or opinion) in terms of options for one another’s consideration rather than as the giving of advice.  
 
2.   Provide perspectives, not answers.
Someone has written a book entitled The Question to All Your Answers, thereby acknowledging that every answer is questionable. The moment I have an answer, I can no longer learn from the question that it has thus put an end to. Sharing our information and opinions as perspectives that we value rather than as final answers for others’ acceptance will also tend to prevent collisions in this course’s intersection of information and experience.
 
3.  Respect confidentiality.
The anonymity of the cyberspace "classroom" encourages many students to be more open with one another than they are in "Hi there!" space classrooms. This comfort level is best maintained as all of us honor a simple rule: do nothing with another's information that would feel like a violation of your confidence were they to do likewise with yours.

4.  Can you think of other useful "rules of the road" for this course? If so, click on "Reply " [i.e., in the “Social Forum”] to add your response.