Matt Noyes

Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band made a music video of her song "Bad Dancer" in which Ono and other celebrities dance badly and joyfully. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3mvEfON2CI) The idea of the song is that we should free ourselves of the burden of "being good" and embrace being bad at things, so as to do them freely.

This idea can be applied to any activity in which fear of poor performance prevents us from acting with freedom. For example, "Bad Presenter," "Bad Singer," "Bad Listener," "Bad Writer," "Bad Artist," "Bad Translator," "Bad Innovator," "Bad Activist," etc.

Write up use of tag cloud and add this idea: use I love, I hate, etc to process the tag cloud, creating a kind of poem, can have three or four tags for each line, e.g. I love peace, freedom, mountains, chile. I hate militarism, racism, McDonald's, capitalism...

Slam the resulting poems.

Another idea: have people choose own personal key word from tag cloud and then slam it?

Rather than teach people how to practice "active listening," this activity requires them to listen poorly, impatiently, passively.

The Flow:

Ask participants to define "active listening." If the term is unfamiliar, ask people to brainstorm features of "good" listening and, in another list, "bad" listening. (Alternatively, use the See, Hear, Feel activity to define active or good listening in concrete terms.)

Then have people form pairs and take turns, with one person telling a story and the other passively listening.

In this self-assessment activity you use a partner to represent yourself. This requires you to articulate your self-assessment clearly and respectfully, and perhaps more objectively?

In pairs.

The first person speaks to the other as if speaking to him/herself. The task is to assess one's one participation in an activity, meeting, class, etc. The second person stands in as the "self" to whom the first person is speaking, listening actively, only asking clarifying questions.

Two variations by Lo Manho, with a few adjustments by MN.

“Beat the fears”

1. Joker separates the class into two groups: Demons and People.
2. The Demons have to make a list of twenty five things that the people in this particular learning group (e.g. university students, Sanitation workers) strongly fear, writing each fear on a separate index card. Ideally it should be something specific to that group, but people should feel free to name basic human fears, like death, too.
   

Variation by Hirabayashi Shunichi, with a few adjustments by MN.

Make a list of fears in advance, to save time. From the list, players vote for the top 10 fears that they have. Of course, they can add another words not on the list, but the number of fears should be the same as the number of demons.

Divide the participants into two groups. One group is the people, the other is the Demons. Each Demon will choose one fear to represent, keeping this secret from “the people.” The Demons will draw masks that somehow express – without words or symbols – the fear that they represent.

I got this idea when a member of the Human Rights Study Group of the Tokyo Sanitation Workers Union gave a presentation on Hate Speech and Racism. It is always good to stretch before running, to loosen up our conceptions and assumptions.

The Flow:

The Joker writes the words Hate Speech on the board. Check if everyone understands the concept, maybe ask for a definition.

Then write "Love Speech" on the board and ask for examples, explaining that we are looking at the opposite of Hate Speech.

You can then have people practice making love speeches, slogans, or posters.