From their Own Lips: Spreading The Word Face to Face

Face to face education is essential because the act of people talking in person is part of what we want to encourage in of itself. Any communication with other another human being that helps us break down walls of misunderstanding and anger is a victory. Consider each face to face encounter as a work of performance art; an exercise in Socratic dialogue; a chance for you to learn from someone; a game of mental chess.

Not everybody is a good at engaging face to face. The following qualities are necessary to be a good face to face educator.

The ability to listen. The goal is to be able to listen at least 51% of the time. Not saying anything while you are waiting and thinking about what you’LOL say when it’s your next chance to talk does NOT count towards listening. Listening means you are giving the person you are engaging with your full attention. You will have to listen in order to be able to have any chance of understanding them. If we don't give people a say in the conversations they have with us, why should they believe we will help them gain a voice with their government? Do you interrupt your television set? If you can't listen to another human being at least as well as you can listen to your television set or radio, maybe you should not be a face to face educator.

Honesty. Belief is powerful. And it’s catching.Telling the entire truth about your beliefs is the single most powerful thing you can do to support them when talking to people. Human beings really do almost always at least subconsciously know when each other are lying. You not only damage or ruin your credibility with other people when you lie, you damage your credibility to yourself. It doesn’t matter how harmless the lie or how well intentioned. That’s just how human psychology is constituted. If you met another person who lied you would not trust them. The same is true for how you gauge yourself. It sucks because lying seems so darned convenient sometimes. Oh well.

Enthusiasm. If you're not having fun making the world a better place, why should anybody want to go with you and do the hard work necessary? Ideally we're looking to motivate people using the positive emotions: laughter, the feeling of a job well done, the desire to learn new things, the appreciation of freedom, the joy in working hard towards goals you believe in with people you like and respect, the excitement of being a part of a movement and getting to keep your ability to think for yourself.

A sense of humor. Especially about yourself and what you believe in. If you can¹t poke fun at yourself and your beliefs, chances are you've lost your sense of proportion and are behaving outrageously self importantly. Worse, you may have turned into a fanatic. Laughter is the closest thing we have to a litmus test for fanaticism. Laughter and smiling and twinkles in the eye are tools for defusing hostility and turning people who think they are our opponents into friends.

The ability to say "I don't know." There are a lot of things you don't know about. Live with it. If you have to be the expert all the time, you will only make yourself look like an idiot and you'll make everybody you are associated look like idiots too and believe me we don't need any help from you to look like idiots. Admitting you don't know is the sign of an adult human being; of somebody who is looking for the truth rather than looking to look superior.

The ability to keep your cool. In a confrontational situation if you can¹t keep calm and collected you lose credibility. Instantly and usually forever. If you are raising your voice you will look like a bully and a fool and you will turn people off. If you have a dramatic flair, you might be able to display anger very sparingly during a conversation for impact. Losing your temper is not the same thing as displaying anger for dramatic effect.

Actual knowledge of what you're talking about. If you haven't done your homework and all you¹ve really got is opinions, well that just leaves you at the same level as most of the rest of us. But when talking to people be careful to admit that this is what you have. Anybody with half a brain will know if you are trying to pass opinions off as facts that you have researched and are reasonably certain of. If your opinions are like those of almost every human being ever born, they will be of limited interest or use to anyone else but your closest friends some family members. Remember this when talking to people.

Desire to learn from the person you are talking to. If you don’t want to learn anything form the people you talk to, why should they take the time to learn anything from you? Some people will respond to your taking the teacher role, but you’d better wait and see if they show you that in the course of interacting with them. Meanwhile remember that the inability to learn from a person you are interacting with is yours and not theirs.

Patience. Sometimes, despite your brilliance, good looks, smug sense of moral superiority, impeccable performance in the conversational arts bolstered with both obviously superior logic as well as the actual factual near infallibility of the philosophy you espouse—sometimes—these people these poor addled fools will hold to their own perspective they’ve had all their life that disagrees with yours even though you yourself have had a whole conversation with them. I don’t get it either.