Fiddling at Synod?

Oh dear. I've been remiss in my blogging - but I've been away. Not more continental junketings, alas, but at the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church. I seem to have participated rather often in this gathering over the years, but realise it's because I was a diocesan alternate before I was chosen as a representative ... but I maunder. Don't expect an official or exhaustive take on proceedings, however - you can find that here - my impressions are very patchy this year.

This is largely because I missed quite a chunk of things, including the task of facilitating discussion - I'd been looking forward to that - because I was no weel. Quite apart from my scheduled trip to Glasgow to have a small bit of me removed, I suffered horribly from our diocesan dinner and missed a whole morning on Mission; by the time I returned I realised I felt the way I used to after an absence from school: you caught measles or somesuch and when you went back you found out that everyone else had learned to do long division and you were totally lost.

And it's hard to get back into things in those circumstances. I was led to ponder how vital it is that individual speakers engage with their audience - it is so easy to switch off and let the mind wander as some voice drones on about ... but if I'm specific I shall pinpoint the offenders, and it is not my intention to wound. Rather I would beg that speakers are instructed in the art of eye contact, tonal variation and register - indeed, in the whole art of public speaking that they would have learned in Standard Grade had they been in my classroom. Maybe there's a job there for a certain bishop on the verge of retirement: having muttered resentfully about the boredom of one address, and having been rebuked by a more charitable neighbour on the grounds that this was after all the graveyard slot, I found myself once more engaged - and amused - by said bishop in his follow-up comments. Graveyard? I reckon he could make the dead laugh ...

Just to show that I'm not all girns and detachment, I should add here how much I enjoyed the break from traditional tedium offered by the indaba process. I was in a feisty group which in the end had to agree to disagree, but it was such a relief to be able to test responses on others rather than one's unfortunate neighbour or the twitterverse at large - though I had the feeling, confirmed later, that the twitterers had been somewhat discouraged while I was away being poorly. Someone had got it into their head that to tweet meant to be insensitive and crass and that it had therefore to be spelled out when tweeting would be inappropriate. I fear that is what happens when a spontaneous activity becomes respectable ... and I'm glad I didn't know about it, for that would have made me much, much worse.

But you'll be glad to know that my old friend the complacent male was at Synod. This was a cunningly camouflaged wee dinosaur, but his message was the same: it's a waste of time - in fact, it's navel-gazing - to fret about gender imbalance in church matters. He said it so quietly, slipping it in after one of the more mind-numbing exegeses, that we were onto the next item before I'd clocked it and got my hackles working - I told you I'd been no weel - and I was left frustrated. I shoulda said something. But then it was pointed out to me that his comment had been met by a wall of silence.  And it was suggested that I should perhaps think about this silence. What did it mean? Well for a start it sure wasn't applause - and we'd had plenty of applause for other speakers, so people were by no means apathetic. As a teacher and speaker, I know there is nothing more disheartening than silence - for I take silence to show indifference or apathy, or perhaps that everyone has gone to sleep. So maybe I wasn't needed after all - maybe the church as a body is getting past the Mesozoic age (I had to look that up) and his remark was indeed seen as crass by the majority of those present. Maybe my more normal kneejerk reaction would have merely confirmed him - and others, for I'm sure he's still not quite alone - that women (or other excluded groups) are only interested in their own causes and don't care that creation burns (see pic). The silence on the part of all the Saturday Synod survivors might even have taught him that he really shouldn't say these things. (It may be too late for him not to think them - he was not in his first youth)

But I feel I'm going on a bit. I shall finish with what, after cooling down slighly, I tweeted as my last word on the Synod:

The day a woman stands up and says we should not fuss about gender balance, all will be well. #pisky #secsynod

Synod - a personal take

Bishop Katherine addresses Synod
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I spent the end of the week at the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church. You can read all about it here, where you can also listen to the speech from the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA (pictured, rather distantly, with my phone), and you can pick up more personal takes on blogs like Kenny's. I didn't take my laptop - too heavy, too uncomfortable to sit in the pews at the side where the bloggers lurk, and to be honest, too tempting to sit surfing in moments of tedium.

And there were such moments. It is my contention that no-one aspiring to address a hall full of people should be allowed to be boring, no matter what they're talking about. Balance-sheets, maybe - but there are interesting nuggets hidden away in there, like the average giving of each communicant in the church (quite shockingly low), or the discrepancy between numbers on rolls and actual bums on seats on the Sunday next before Advent. But I'm pushing a point here. I know there has to be a business-like approach to pensions and quota and all the stuff I find personally so daunting. However, we are all sent the papers in ample time to read them from cover to cover - and yes, we can all read. So why, in the name of charity, do speakers insist on putting up Powerpoint slides and then reading them out aloud? Or explaining maps that we're quite capable of interpreting?

And another thing. When is everyone going to realise that if they're going to read every word of an address, verbatim, from the paper in front of them, they will have to work hard to produce a paper in the register of speech? It is soul-destroying to sit, on an aching posterior, with a sore back and restless feet, listening to a monotone voice reading a written report which the speaker shows no signs of having mastered sufficiently to interpret in any way. Surely if someone has worked with a committee and laboured over its report, they can then set aside the written document and speak about the highlights?

I'd like to suggest a self-check for speakers: Are you enjoying yourself? Are you gripped by the thing you're saying, right now? Are you communicating that passion? No? Then think again. Try another tack. For if you're bored, or unable to convey the sense of that convoluted sentence without hesitating, what chance do your listeners have? In fact, what chance is there that they're still awake?

Of course there were great moments, witty speeches, ad-libbing and hilarity. But apart from the social aspect of Synod, I regard attendance at it as a kind of penance. And that's a shame.

On a brighter note, this morning I returned to the worship of my own wee church. Last week I worshipped with a bevy of bishops, a clutch of clergy, several dozens of delegates. The organ was loud and the singing confident. The liturgy was at times involving (though at times the reverse). But nothing happened. Not for me, anyway. This morning there was no priest - he was in Rothesay - and there was a congregation of about 15. The singing was gentle (but in tune!) and the organ is a computer (but in the hands of a fine musician). We received communion from the Reserved Sacrament.

But the magic was there, there in a way that reminded me of why I hadn't headed for the hills. Whew!

Teaching, Jim, but not as we know it.

I was chatting at the shallow end this morning - we have an excellent pool in Dunoon - with the former heidie of one of the local primary schools. The sun was lighting up the green water inside and the blue water of the Clyde outside, and we agreed that it was wonderful not to be in school on such a day - for today was the first day of term here. But it struck me that I'd just spent a weekend using the skills I'd accumulated over all these years in the classroom - skills that I never thought about, but which non-teachers seem to find impressive; skills such as being able to command a room without speaking, see what is happening in one corner while apparently looking in another, engage with a roomful of people confidently.

Do we ever consider these attributes, I wonder, while we're being called to exercise them day in , day out? I don't know that I did - there was so much going on, and latterly we tended to engage in other forms of interaction with pupils and in fact might not have been up there in front as often as in the past. But I have to say that it's the old-fashioned leading from the front that is most useful in life beyond school, and as I stepped up (being a bit of a short-arse, I had to use a step) to the lectern for the first time in that conference room I felt quite a frisson of enjoyment - and of recognition. But there was another aspect to enjoy. There was no-one trying to stick a pencil into their neighbour, and no-one writing obscenities in their jotter. Everyone was looking at me with every appearance of wanting to hear what I was going to say.

And there wasn't a spit-ball in sight.

Quietly enthusiastic?

Well, we found BarCamp, and we found Ewan and managed to snatch a few minutes of face-to-face conversation, although, as Ewan remarked, he was gaining a new understanding of what it was like to suffer from ADHD. To be fair, it wasn't really his fault that he couldn't concentrate for more than 30 seconds at a time - there were a great many people looking for his attention.

I wasn't around for long enough to hear much, but I was there for the "Mexican Wave" of self-introductions and heard some of a talk later. One thing struck me very powerfully. Here was a gathering of obviously luminously bright people, some of whom had great new ideas to share, some of whom wanted to impress potential customers - or employers. Yet one very basic and old-fashioned skill was notable, in far too many cases, by its absence. No matter how wired, no matter how skilled in exploiting technology, if you're introducing yourself to a group of any size there are two things to remember. You have to be audible, and you have to engage your audience's interest.

Presumably many of these people were young enough to have had to do a measure of Spoken English at school - but perhaps their teachers weren't careful enough in preparing them for this sort of thing. I couldn't hear the intros of more than half of those speaking, and several people would start ok and then lose it, as in "I'm Henry Kissinger and I'm interested in prom...... mumble mumble." Not much impact there. Words like "support", "diaphragm", "projection" and "pitch" come to mind.

And yes: you may have a fascinating project to share, but no-one, repeat no-one, is going to share your enthusiasm if you bumble about muttering at the computer while your audience stares at the screen, and then bore them all to sleep with the inner workings of your mystery. There are many, many unconverted people out there, and you need all the skills of the televangelist to get them on board.