Chapter 4: Underlying Principles of START

• A. Foundation
• B. Group Process
• C. Readings
• D. Exercises
• E. Action

The START course is constructed upon several important principles. By making these explicit, we hope you will better understand what part the various procedures and techniques play in implementing the guiding principles, and avoid making changes that could leave your group seriously disoriented or damage its morale. With an understanding of these principles, it should be easier to:

• Agree that a certain principle is good and innovate new ways to apply it,
• Lay aside a principle, develop an alternative principle, and develop practical ways of implementing it, or
• Incorporate additional new principles and find ways of implementing them.

Also, while we are pleased that an extremely diverse range of individuals and groups have found some particular dimension of START to be useful (such as the group process suggestions or the study-to-action procedures), we hope that a familiarity with these underlying principles will enable users of the study guide to decide for themselves whether what they are doing is really a START course or whether it is different enough to be better described as something else.

These principles are very much open to change and expansion. The entire START process is always experimental, changing in response to the cumulative experience of thousands of groups. An example of change is the increasingly apparent importance, in a world that seems more and more depressing, of START groups encouraging a positive, hopeful, mutually self-affirming, and trusting attitude among participants.

Here, then, are seventeen principles which, to date, have been important in defining START. Following each principle are the reasons it is considered important and a description of the procedures useful in implementing it.

A. Foundation

1. Combine analysis, vision, and strategy — all oriented toward positive action. This is the essence of START: to work with other people to analyze what is wrong with our society, develop a vision of a better society, and figure out effective strategies for moving from here to there.

B. Group Process

2. Maintain participatory democracy in all the activities of the group. This is important because:

• Participatory democracy is a crucial part of our vision of a better society, and we will best achieve that by practicing it now at every opportunity
• The evidence of many START groups, especially when contrasted with standard high school and college learning situations, is that people learn faster and more effectively — and are more likely to move on to applications of their learning — when they are in charge of the learning situation.

Participatory democracy is maintained primarily through procedures that encourage:

• Equal participation in the course
• Equal sharing within the group of the power and information necessary for decision-making

Equal participation is aided by:

• Everyone’s access to and familiarity with the START study guide (this document)
• Regular rotation of the role of facilitator and other roles
• An agenda which is visible to everyone, which is reviewed each meeting, and which is open to changes suggested by any participant

Procedures encouraging equal participation include:

• The reports format in which each person has the opportunity to contribute information
• Agenda items like excitement sharing which include everyone
• Agenda items in which the person speaking is not to be interrupted, including report giving, brainstorming, and “think and listen” exercises

• Exercises that raise the consciousness of people who tend to speak too frequently

3. Create a safe environment for thinking and expressing unconventional perspectives. Procedures that help create a safe environment include:

• Ground rules for behavior agreed to by consensus
• A vibes-watcher who looks out for disrespectful behavior and is committed to intervening
• A facilitator who guides the group toward productive discussion and exploration and away from useless ranting and disrespectful behavior

4. Build group trust and understanding. If group members come to trust and appreciate each other more and more as the course goes on, then:

• The course will be a more enjoyable experience
• The group will come to mean more to each participant
• More effective learning will occur because people will feel trustful enough of the group to share ideas they are not really sure about
• Participants are more likely to develop social action plans that will really be meaningful and implementable
• The quality of meetings will improve because everyone will really care about giving good reports, being an alert facilitator, timekeeper, etc.

Procedures which encourage this deepening level of trust include:

• The personal reflection exercises and other structured sharing in the introductory sessions of the course
• Excitement sharing — and occasional extended excitement sharing
• Potluck meals together and other socializing

5. Develop an empowering learning/teaching experience that encourages people’s reliance on and respect for their ability both to think clearly and to successfully tackle problems — rather than concluding that only the “experts” or powerholders know enough or have enough power to act on these issues. This principle breaks down into two more specific ones:

See Chapter 5 for more discussion about empowerment.

6. Do enjoyable, energizing things to help keep group morale and energy level high. Precisely because START groups have a very serious purpose, participants need energy from many sources:

• The attainment and appreciation of solid achievement described above
• The combination of excitement sharing, singing, stretches, and active games, which can be inserted at low-energy points in a session. These raise the energy level for more creative work, release tension, and help people to start implementing now aspects of a society in which people enjoy each other through work and play.

7. Regularly carry out effective evaluations. This principle is placed at the end of the group process section because in some ways it encompasses all the previous principles. An evaluation that is both frank and honest, and at the same time sensitive and supportive of participants, is a crucial mechanism for sharing everyone’s assessment of how well things are going in all the previous areas and making use of the collective wisdom of the group to make improvements for the future. It is the major opportunity to implement the process of molding the course structure to meet the group’s particular needs, and to strengthen group trust and increase energy by reflecting on things that went well.

C. Readings

8. Include readings that are positive, visionary, and empowering.

9. Include readings that address the roots of problems — ones that raise fundamental questions about what is really necessary to solve problems, and go beyond commonly suggested remedies that leave strong vested interests and staid cultural norms unchallenged. This is important because:

• This fundamental change perspective is one which is usually not well known. We are all constantly presented with the perspective that the problems we face are not really problems at all; when they are finally acknowledged as important, we are usually presented only with arguments for limited reform.
• The case for fundamental change is a sound one with which change activists should be familiar.

10. Include readings that advocate strategic change efforts that utilize methods consistent with progressive values of honesty, democracy, freedom, liberty, morality, tolerance, compassion, cooperation, rationality, fairness, and nonviolence. This perspective is essential if we truly hope to create a good society.

11. Include readings that reveal that change efforts by ordinary people can be effective and bring about momentous and vital change, exposing the myth that positive change is impossible or can only be carried out by members of the power elite.

12. Include readings that present a variety of perspectives. Most of the readings advocate a progressive perspective. However, to allow a critical examination of a variety of outlooks, clear and understandable alternative perspectives are also included.

13. Include readings that expose the connections between ostensibly different topics since the complexity of life is often obscured by segmentation into narrow categories.

D. Exercises

14. Include exercises that reveal that we are all affected by the problems studied, not altruistic social reformers working on someone else’s problems. When participants in a START group understand this, and look upon their action as the opportunity to improve the quality of their own lives, they have more strength to draw on in the struggle.

15. Include readings and exercises that provide practical change skills such as researching a social problem, developing an alternative vision, developing a strategy for positive change, designing a specific change campaign, empowering oneself, providing support and encouragement to other activists, making personal lifestyle changes, organizing a change group, and facilitating a meeting.

E. Action

16. Reveal that a small group of people can undertake meaningful and successful social action that will move toward resolving an important problem. The best way to learn this lesson is for the participants in a START group to actually engage in a successful activity. Second best is to learn about the successful efforts of other, similar groups through readings about historical campaigns, especially recent efforts by ordinary people.

17. Show the many ways that a small group of people can work for change. Change activists often get stuck in a rut believing there is only one way to bring about significant change. Many readings and exercises are oriented toward presenting a variety of options and developing practical skills for carrying them out.

Next Chapter: 5. Empowerment

---

This page last updated on August 5, 2014.