Lesson 8 – Part 3: Communication Practice

Original journal entry from October 29, 2025 – Response to Lesson 8: Introduction to Communication (Part 3: Communication Practice). This was my real-world application of Celeste Headlee’s conversation rules and the three teaching methods (didactic, dialectic, Socratic) in two recent conversations — one about faith/prayer, the other about food and healing.


#1 Implementing chosen 3 points from Celeste Headlee TED Talk

In a conversation I was having over zoom with my friend from church, Xavier, we were talking about prayer and faith along the lines of Matthew 21:18-22 and Mark 11:23-25 found in the New Testament of the Bible. The discussion was about seeing how Jesus sometimes healed instantly, while in the example of the fig tree, the effects of His words were not visible until the next day, so in the same way as believers when we pray, if we don’t see instant results that does not mean that the desired outcome will not come… it may just take some time.

I had to keep myself from multitasking. As I mentioned in my L8P1, I’ve developed the habit of using my phone or doing other things around the house. Something I picked up during the pandemic when I was working exclusively remotely and just did housework during many of my meetings. However, in this conversation with Xavier, I was deliberate in not doing other things and really being present. I was able to do it but I really noticed how difficult it was to break that pattern.

In terms of the other 2 points, “don't pontificate” and “listen,” I caught myself several times trying to add something to the conversation that I thought was important but I chose to ask more questions about his experience, rather than try to dominate the conversation with my experience. Here again, I really noticed how difficult it was to break that pattern and I found it enriching to hear more about his life by asking “how” and “why” questions instead of trying to elicit “yes” and “no” answers.

#2 Implementing the didactic, dialectic, and Socratic methods

In my conversation with my coworker, David, we started out talking about “what is the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten?” I see the dialectic method at play there as we both tried to articulate what we thought were weird foods but then relatively opposed this with by rewording it to the most exotic foods instead. We both realized that we didn’t have much experience in eating weird foods to have any kind of basis to stand on, while we shifted our viewpoints toward what we thought would better answer the question. David, growing up in an indigenous community, and me, growing up in Switzerland, have eaten animals that you don’t often see served in the US.

The Socratic method seemed to surface as we boiled down to when and where we had had those eating experiences. For me, apart from having eaten traditional meals with horse, rabbit, venison, and blood sausage in Switzerland, I had the opportunity to eat various dishes with Australian animals at an Australian steakhouse, like crocodile, ostrich, kangaroo and snakes. I mentioned that they did not serve platypus or koala and that I wondered what that tastes like.

David pointed out that koalas mostly eat eucalyptus leaves which may make their meat poisonous. Which reminded me of manuka honey. David never heard of manuka honey and I found myself using the didactic method to explain the healing benefits of manuka honey and various applications in wound healing, including how my sister in law used it on the wound after having a c-section. We both had to go back to work so we concluded our conversation with the thought that maybe koala meat has the same healing benefits as manuka honey, leaving it open to learning more sometime.

The value of understanding these techniques as a Jedi is to have more fruitful and in depth conversations, as well as when we are teaching someone to use the appropriate method for the context. Sometimes, we are teaching rules and regulations where there is little room for creative thinking, while other times, what we are teaching is not right or wrong answers but rather the ability to decide for ourselves.

Umalohókan

House of Twin Suns
TM: Carlos Martinez

"You don't have to see the whole staircase just to take the first step."

(Signature links to IP Journal, Apprentice Journal, A.div Journal, and Degree Tracker omitted for brevity — these were forum navigation links at the time.)


Looking back now: This entry put communication skills into real practice — deliberately staying present, choosing to listen and ask questions instead of dominating, and naturally using dialectic, Socratic, and didactic methods in everyday conversations. It showed how the lesson helped me become more intentional and fruitful in connecting with others.