The Meeting

I

From: !

To: %, $, @, &

Subject: Agenda for a norms meeting

Hey everyone,

I hope your week has been good so far.  We have that big meeting next week, and I want to pre-meet for just a few minutes to set norms in anticipation of it.  The floor is open to ideas for the agenda for the norm-setting meeting.  I will go ahead and send an invitation to your calendars.  

Go ahead with your agenda ideas!

See you soon – 

!

Reply All:

For something this important we should have the meeting in a conference room instead of one of our spaces.  From my lens that would help to create the kind of equity we need.  Just my two cents on that.  For agenda items: Showing intentionality, building to consensus? 

See you soon!

%

Reply All:

Thanks %.  I knew you would have good ideas.  Do you mean that we should have our norms setting meeting in a conference room or just the main meeting next week?  

I’m fine with those two agenda items for norm-setting.

Does anyone else have suggestions?

!

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Reply All:

Do we need to meet to establish norms?  Are we assuming that consensus will be a norm?  Is not intentionality assumed since we are doing things that we have decided to do?  But I’ll show up wherever called.

&

To: !

From: %

!, Do we need to include & in these discussions?  My perspective is that he is not taking this seriously and I feel that those questions are problematic.  Also, I think all of these meetings should be in a neutral space.  

To: %

From: !

I hear you.  & can be testy sometimes.  Don’t worry about it – we’ve all experienced it.  I’ll reserve conference rooms for all meetings.

!

II

• Thank you all for meeting on short notice, and I hope not to take too much of your time but I think moving forward I would like to have these norms in place so next week we can more fruitfully proceed forward – do you know what I mean?  It’s just a procedure to use so we -  

• It’s super-important to be so forward thinking so thank you for doing this work and in my perspective I value these times we get to work together.

• I appreciate that, %.  So I have just a brief agenda including %’s two items and a third I added because I reflected on this and thought we should discuss in addition to intentionality and consensus I want to discuss goals and how we need to remain focused on our purpose.  So, what are your thoughts about these as norms?

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• I really appreciate that lens of moving forward I think that intentionality and consensus are extremely important and that our goal for next week should be guided by what all our stakeholders put their faith in us to do: The Work.  We have to be doing the work always.  If you pose a problem, you must come up with a possible solution.

• Thank you %, and I believe that last point will be helpful as we move forward.  Any further thoughts?

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• Do we not all show up to work on purpose?  What else then could intentionality mean?  Have we reached consensus when we stop talking?  Or does it sometimes mean some one has given up trying to talk?  What if a problem has no solution or no viable solution?  If we pose such a problem, have we broken a norm?  

• &, I just think it’s important to be on the same page.  

• I agree with %.  I think we have to present a unified front.  

• Whether or not we are unified?  Does that not defend a kind of dishon –

• It’s all about doing the work.

• But !, are we applying the norms now and in the real meeting?  Even before we have decided on them?  Have we decided on them?

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III

• Thank you again for being here.  It was excellent to see such spirited debate about our norms and I’m glad we came to consensus about them.  I have put the norms at the top of your agenda as a reminder.

• Thank YOU for organizing this.  My personal perspective is that this is super-important and I’m definitely here for it as part of my learning journey.

• So, item one is potential uses of ChatGTP.  I’d like to start by asking how you have used it.  I’ve talked with % already about this, so if she’d like to start us off-

• Oh, my God, it is so useful as I’m trying keep with the readings for grad school and do research, like from a total practical lens when I have a long dense paper I can just feed it into the thing and it summarizes the whole thing and outline key points, so I don’t have do too much of the reading.  

• ~ 

• I’m already using it in my classes to teach good style.  These kids have no idea about subject-verb-object and it helps them make sense of what they are trying to produce.  It shows them how to follow like a traditional formula for good writing if you just know how to prompt it correctly.

• Can’t you communi –

• YES, @, that is so cool that you’re already in business with this!  I am so here for this.  Would you consider leading a professional learning session on good prompts to use this?  Don’t you think that would be helpful, !?

• Yes, I think we can figure that out.  & were you saying something? 

• It wasn’t important.  

• Well, try to remember to keep focused on the work.  Any further thoughts on this?

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• Okay, the next thing on the agenda is whether there is some reason not to use ChatGPT.  Any objections?

• None at all.

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• &, nothing even from you?

• You really want to know?

• Might as well get it out now.

• Okay.  This tool will make our students less literate.  The real danger with it is that it is like a reversed Turing test, and somehow we'll end up having to convince AI we are human, by acting like AI.  We will create total confusion.  

• There goes & “philosophizing” again.

• What kind of test?  

• I’m with % and $.  I’ve never heard of that test before.  Is there a prep book for it, like a Barrons that I can add to my collection?

• &, that pretty much went over my head.  I need for things to be very concrete.

• From my positionality within the praxis of our norms, that feels like a violation.  If you propose a problem, offer a solution.

• I have to agree with %.  What solution do you propose?

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• Are you serious?  The solution is that we don’t use ChatGPT.  

• You mean that?

• That feels like a silencing of everyone else here, like a position of erasure of our intentionality.  

• ~~~~.