Those who are unfamiliar with the meaningseekers learning model mistakenly think that discussion of life experience distracts attention from the text. They insist that they have only come to hear and learn from the teacher, and are not interested in listening to any of the other students.
However, the method of engaging group members in discussion, particularly of their life experience, is not a distraction.
Actually, their contribution of life circumstances to illustrate theoretical concepts is essential to absorbing the concepts and to the personal change that learning brings. This assumption that shared experience is a critical component to learning is based on the following teaching:
Wisdom that consists only of abstract knowledge is not true wisdom. Practical applications must be found for theoretical ideas, and real-life experience must have a conceptual counterpart. Therefore, for learning to take place there has to be an emotional expression to intellectual understanding and a rational formulation of emotions. The reason this is true is because we are not made up of dangling entities of body and spirit but are one integral whole. Consciousness is the glue that binds together the physical and spiritual planes of existence. This requires that we bring all aspects of meaning, including mind, body and spirit, to awareness. (Pirkei Kinyan Da’at, p. 22)
Based on the above idea, in a meaningseekers learning group life experience informs the text and the text informs the meaning of life experience.
On the other hand, group members who do not understand this concept think that an interactive discussion model means that the learning is not serious, and it’s a free-for-all, a chance to make irrelevant comments.
One of the most important rules in a meaningseeker learning group is to only make relevant comments, and not irrelevant ones. However, unlike a traditional classroom setting, what separates “irrelevant” from “relevant” is not the assigning of life experience as irrelevant, but rather what is not meaningful is irrelevant.
The following two questions are designed to help guide you in determining whether or not your comment is relevant to the discussion
1) How will this comment you are about to make contribute to a deeper understanding of the meaning and value-messages that came through the text?
2) Are you interested in finding out how this situation is calling you to certain tasks or attitudes, or are you using the group as a platform for complaining?
Comments that are off-topic are designed to draw attention to one member in a victim-mode. Comments that are on topic serve to reveal meaning, expand awareness and stimulate growth for everyone involved.