Why?

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Why?

The purpose of probably the most important lecture I have held in my life is to explain why the polarity of the clay collides could be said to be related to the scripture on the stones handed over to Moses

Now I am LOOKING AT YOU.

You have that glassy look typical of a hard hangover, you are scratching your nose, you are balancing on your chair and you are wondering why you ended up in that lecture room when you could instead have been shopping, running after girls, writing a best seller.

WHY ARE YOU HERE ?

The point our Trainer at the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) wanted us to understand was that it was meaningless to gather twenty farmers and explain the advantages of the new hoe compared to the old one. That was really a lousy sentence, far too long.

As you are not fully versed into African agriculture, you have a feeling that a Peace Corp Volunteer explaining to farmers a new hoe, that's great stuff, that's American, that's progress?

Indeed it is !

Have you identified where the catch is ?

No?

Here comes the clue: who is listening to us?

You got it?

Yes, if it is an outdoor meeting help by a male farmer, then the listeners are male farmers.

You still do not get the point?

Don't feel ashamed, most of our work in Africa is spent speaking to the wrong people about the wrong subject.

Hoeing is done by women, not men.

Men do not convey to women the information they have received ; did you ever explain to your Christmas Turkey the complexities of the Quanta theory?

So it is pointless to explain to the men the new hoe. It is not totally pointless as the women will be standing there on the outskirt and listen.

Let us come back to our FAO trainer (Do I explain once again what FAO is or have you got the message that as you pay for it you may as well use it?).

So the main point, whenever you want to start a training, is to find out what the participants want.

It is rather strange that this should have to be stressed as all of us have gone in a restaurant and ordered a meal and would be slightly annoyed should the Chef decide for us what we are to eat, at what speed and at what cost.

What the participants want ?

But what kind of big teaching is that? You have all hosted friends. As the host you are well aware that you must make your friends enjoy the evening.

How will they enjoy the evening?

By speaking of themselves of course.

That's boring!!!

Sure, that's why they are friends.

and the reverse will take place when you go to their place.

Still, us human (you may include or not include men in that word, it is up to you) us human are clever. Women solve the problem of boring against being bored, by speaking all at the same time of what they are interested in and listening at the same timet ; well, us normal people from Earth will never understand that extra-terrestrial technique. Us "Men From Earth", we rush to the stream, we lean and we engulf as much liquid as we can. This is normal behavior. Should we be forced to utter some words between two gulps, football, golf are acceptable subjects.Women are not!

More diversity, women will discuss men in the most intimate and cruel details, men blush is they see a, well, you know, if they see a... well what was I saying about the PGA results of this week-end?

So, our trainer, from our beginning as trainee at the Agricultural school, hammered into our head that farmers are only interested in what will increase their wealth. Theirs, not their neighbors their wife's. Or yours. Or the Party.

In my first agricultural year, our Hadmaster gave us a trick :

Every third sentence include the magic word.

The magic word?

DOLLAR !!!

Then they all wake up.

Let us go back to FAO (those of you who have fallen asleep may wish to check up FAO earlier in the text or using Google).

As trainers and trainees, we were given a sheet and on that sheet we were to write one sentence, possibly three sentences about what we expected to have learned by the end of the training.

Then the sheets were displayed on the wall, the participants would read them.

The sheets would be discussed, subjects regrouped until we seemed to have a coherent subject.

LIARS !!!

during early years you got for it, you praise the system, it takes you quite a while to catch point 22.

Catch 22 states

"You are there to teach what the trainees want to learn

"Trainees are there to learn what you want to teach them

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