7

AOD Principle(s) Applied: Mentoring

I spent this past week as a cabin leader and camp counselor at Camp Waskowitz. I went there 5 years ago when I was in 6th grade and had an awesome time. The only reason I signed up to be a cabin leader myself was because I looked up to my camp counselor so much when I was there.

Over the week, I experienced something completely new. I had never been given so much authority and responsibility before. I was literally in charge of eight 5th graders for 12 hours out of the day. That came complete with all of the joys, pains and strifes too.

I had the amazing opportunity to get to know all of those kids on such a close level. I was their mentor and I taught them so much. I helped them out with problems with eachother, problems at camp, and problems they were experiencing at home too. By the end of the week, they had grown so attached to me that they were begging me to let them stay at camp. There could have been buckets filled with tears on the last day. That's how I know I did an awesome job being their mentor.

6

AOD Principle(s) Applied: Political Imagination, Public Dialogue

This past week, for Political Science class, Maggie took us all down to the Federal Way City Hall to meet with the Regional Council. We met two council members, the city manager, and the man in charge of economic development in Federal Way.

The things we learned were not watered down concepts prepared in advance for our class. What we learned were real issues in Federal Way and real plans to help fix them and develop the city. The man in charge of economic development told us how they wanted to build a new complex that had four towers and a park in the middle. In addition, they wanted the stores to come all the way up to the streets and have larger parking structures built to facilitate vehicles.

Not only did we learn about the plans, we had opportunities to speak. I asked him questions and visioned the new city plans myself. He took into consideration the things I had to say. I feel like I made an actual impact on the plans for the future federal way.

5

AOD Principle(s) Applied: Mediation

Recently, Ian and Brittany were in an argument. I suppose the argument itself is not that important. The important thing is the fact that initially when two people are in an argument, they oftentimes have problems seeing things from the other person's perspective.

In this case, Ian was only focusing on what Brittany did wrong and Brittany was only focusing on what Ian did wrong. Although this is not very helpful to the resolution, it is very common and very understandable. This is the time where the two people need the help of a mediator.

When Ian and Brittany weren't together, I went to each of them separately and talked to them about how they could have changed their own actions instead of the other person's actions. This helped them realize how they were each wrong. The next time they came together, they were able to talk about everything rationally and with only creative conflict.

I was practicing the principle of mediation as an effective manner to elevate a heated argument into neutral territory where there is sensitivity for each other's feelings towards the matter.

4

AOD Principle(s) Applied: Active Listening, Reflection, Negotiation, Evaluation and Diversity.

So in a rather large nutshell, I was in a delightfully heated dispute with Ian. We choose to engage in this sport rather frequently and with a tasteful amount of consistency. We also choose to verbally kill each other to no avail. Neither of us gain from it and we finally realized that in those situations, neither of us are right. But neither of us are entirely wrong either. It took a lot of Active Listening on both of our parts to finally understand where the other person was coming from. When a person would Evaluate the other persons actions, both would Reflect on how this statement made them feel. We eventually Negotiated to the point of understanding and respecting each other's Diversity in the matter. We understood that words like "always" and "never" are NEVER true and both of us are always somewhat responsible for the argument. By unifying many AOD principles and incorporating them into our argument, we arrived upon a nicely found conclusion that allowed us to finally understand each other's viewpoints and consequently settle the dispute.

3

AOD Principle(s) Applied: Active Listening, Reflection

When I was talking with my parents about school, they were trying to give me advice but I was busily texting my girlfriend on the phone. They were yelling at me to pay more attention and listen better but I was having a hard time finding the importance in what they were saying. I was thinking about what to write about for my next AOD post and I realized that I needed to work more on my active listening skills. I apologized to my parents and started listening more actively and processing their words more carefully so I could produce more meaningful and thoughtful responses.

2

AOD Principle(s) Applied: Public Judgment, Appreciation,

When Ian and I were driving along on Pac Highway, a man cut into our lane and we had to slam on the brakes. It was so sudden and scary that I yelled profanities really loud as a reaction. After I was done being mad, I felt horrible about being so angry with the guy. I reflected about the situation and tried to understand the other person’s interests. The man needed to make a right turn and he therefore had to get over somehow and it was probably my fault in part for not letting him in initially. I realized how my first reaction was an example of a poor democratic environment but my resolve was a much better example.

1

AOD Principle(s) Applied: Appreciation, Creative Conflict

Once we started learning about negotiation in AOD, I adopted a new perspective in my daily life. I started looking at situations differently and with a newly gained understanding of negotiation.

In many situations, Ian and I argue quite often. One situation that gets us quarreling nearly every day is the control over the temperature in the car. Ian likes it hot. I like it cold. That's how it is every morning.

The day starts by the heat being all the way on to warm the car up. Once we start driving a ways, I turn it to 3/4 cold. Ian then turns it to 1/4 hot and I turn it to the exact middle and he turns it back to about 1/8 hot.

That's when I get really mad and yell, "Can't you just meet me in the middle?"

Obviously, this would be the best idea, but even if I came up with the idea, I wasn't doing it in the best way. Yelling is never a good idea in a negotiation I learned. Neither is the explicit expression of anger. Therefore, to finally solve this problem, it would require me to approach Ian in a more acceptable manner and attempt to reach a mutual decision.