Sensitivity Training

SENSITIVITY TRAINING

Years ago, about 1968, I was living on state welfare. I hated it and wanted to support myself and my boys. I didn’t have any training in anything useful. I had been a telephone operator but those jobs were few and far between in San Diego. I worked in Prove as a telephone operator. They hired lots of wives as operators each year. San Diego wasn’t like that. I’m not a person that can just learn on the job so I was very miserable. And the welfare person over my case didn’t want me to work. He said I should be home with my children. Yes, I wanted that too. But I felt so worthless living off welfare. And people made fun of me at drug and grocery stores when they saw my food stamps. I was humiliated.

I asked the person over my case if I could have some help with an education so I could get off welfare. He reluctantly said there was some help available. I researched many occupations and schools. So many jobs took 4 years. Then I found a Dental Assistant school which only took 3 months and applied for admission. I was accepted by the school and the state was willing to help me with the tuition. Oh, happy day. I could get an education and go to work in 3 months. But first I had to take a Sensitivity Training class.

This was a big thing in the 60s. Very new and cutting edge training to learn to get along with your fellow workers. I attended the class in downtown San Diego somewhere. I can’t remember. There were 5 women and 5 men. We had to UNDERSTAND what another person was telling us. We had to read their body language and look into their eyes and really UNDERSTAND them. I thought this was nuts. It was obvious that everyone was hiding their true feelings. And some of the guys were always trying to read into what the women were saying. Some men made everything sexual. It was creepy. Eventually it was banned. But I got through it and went to my dental assistant class.

I did very well in the class. I had the highest grades and was quite popular with the other students and the teacher. This upset the administration. When they interviewed me they made it abundantly clear that I was going to be watched and if I made one wrong move, I would be kicked out. Sheesh!

The class elected me to give the graduation speech, which was very upsetting to the administration. They tried to stop my participation but I called the person over my case and he put a halt to that. I graduated and got a job.

That was Sensitivity Training of the 60s. Really creepy. Not one of the facilitators was trained in any way. Some of the women had a difficult time “opening up.” And then it turned out they had been molested. Boy that was scary to have that come up with a facilitator who didn’t know what they were doing.


ME AND GAIL AND SENSITIVITY TRAINING

When I was in Mesa AZ I was having a difficult time with some folks in church. I had to work with them and was in a somewhat supervisory position. They always seemed to put me in a situation where I had to tell them they couldn’t do something according to the church policies. This made me very nervous because they kept telling me what they were going to do, like take all the young women to Las Vegas. For what? For a T-shirt convention. Hmm. No, unless they wanted to do it on their own insurance as the church insurance wouldn’t cover the trip, according to the bishop. Oh, they were mad.

I complained a lot to my friend Gail and she was getting very tired of my complaining. One day she said; “No offense taken, no offense given!” I said; “What?” And Gail repeated it. I had to write it down. It took me a bit to really understand what it meant, but when I did get it I made it my own. I love that saying. Sometimes the natural man in me reacts but I do try to live by that motto as much as I can.

Does it mean I can’t be “right” ever? Well, to me it means that “right” probably doesn’t matter really. I still had to make sure the young women didn’t go on trips or to events that were not appropriate on the church’s dime. But it meant that I didn’t have to get upset at the other leaders when they gave me a bad time. It was their problem. I do not have to get upset no matter what.


CUBS AND SENSITIVITY TRAINING

My next association with sensitivity training was in Mesa AZ. Merlin and I were teaching Cub Scouts. We had a bunch of great Cubs. One of them was not a member of the Church. I had always had non-members in my Church Packs. It made the Packs so much better and the parents were great. We had a Navy Chaplin, a truck driver, and others. Lots of great folks.

Sometimes the kids who didn’t have church experience were a little bit edgy and rough. This included the LDS kids who didn’t have much experience with church. But the Cub program really was wonderful and things usually worked out.

This one time however, the boys were roughhousing and teasing at school and the church boys were forming a bit of a coalition against the one non-member. The non-member finally had had enough and told one of the boys that his mother was fat. This apparently was the worst thing that any of them could think of. The church boy vowed to never go to Cub Scouts again if that other boy was there, who said his mother was fat. His mother wasn't fat, but I don’t think that was really the issue. All the boys were in an uproar.

Both sets of parents called me complaining about each offending boy. There was certainly a case for each side. But who was right and who was wrong wasn’t really the problem. Learning to get along when things don’t go the way we want was the problem.

I called each offending boy and parents and asked them to come to the next Den Meeting. I then asked the dad with the fat wife (just kidding) to talk at the meeting about how we should try to get along with one another. He was a policeman and I knew he had to take sensitive training (not like mine I hope) so I thought he would be sensitive to everyone’s feelings.

The boys were great. They listened with great attention to the policeman dad’s talking about how we should watch what we say and how we say it. We should be considerate of everyone’s feelings.

Then I thanked him and reiterated what he said and supported the importance of always trying to be kind and helpful to folks.

Then I also talked about how we should not always take offense at what people say. We do not have to react to everything. We have choice. We can get upset at what people say or do or we can ignore it. Bad behavior does not have to affect us or our behavior or attitudes. We do not have to be “right.” We can look at the bigger picture, such as why should I take offense and ruin my fun at Cub Scouts? Or how will my taking offense affect my family and my friends? And we don't have to proliferate the commotion by enlisting others in support of our side of the situation.

I then put it to the officer dad and asked him what he thought of trying to be less easily offended. He agreed and went on to elaborate on that point.

We had a great meeting and everyone felt much better after my little Sensitivity Training with dads and Cubs.

BEYOND SENSITIVITY TRAINING

Of course there are some things that are just Beyond the Pale, and our feelings are deeply hurt and raw. I love the saying Beyond the Pale. The Pale was an area delineated by fences in English Ireland in the 1400s, near Dublin. Living Beyond the Pale was living in uncivilized society. Offenses that are Beyond the Pale are the times that prayer and fasting is of help to me, and time. One of our daughter’s in law said she doesn’t want any empty seats. I’m am quite impressed with that. I think I will make it my own too.

“No offense taken, no offense given.”
“No empty seats.”