What are these comments from "unhappy people" in early 2014 about?

[Jessica N Colorado]

Hi Beth and Amy,

In other online groups many people have been asking about what is going on with the "unhappy people" regarding Enki as of late. It being a long process of many months, I've suggested asking that question here on Enki Experience so you can respond from your perspective. In case people are feeling shy, I'm asking the question for them. Would you provide a summary of the recent unfoldings within the Enki community for those just coming to Enki now? 

Thank you!

Jessica

[Beth Sutton]

Jessica - and any one else interested, 

I would be happy - actually relieved - to offer a summary of what happened. But we spent 6 months trying to find a meeting place so it will take a day or two to figure out an accurate encapsulation, but I am on it! 

What I can say at this point is that, although this was an odd situation focused on the use of our name, it raised much more important and pervasive issues about the structure of Enki and the way we approach leadership. Those are important things for anyone choosing Enki to know - because whether you agree with the Leadership structure or not may make a difference to whether you want to purchase Enki or not. As this unhappy situation makes clear, it helps no one for those for whom Enki is not a good fit, to purchase. 

So although the issue itself is odd and may seem unimportant to many, I think the underlying structure issues really matter. I will get a short write up done as quickly as I can. I have to finish with the video editor today to get our "homeschoolers video teas" done and up on the web, so everyone can see and hear from long time Enki parents, but as soon as that is done, I will get on this. 

Thanks for asking. 

Beth

[Beth Sutton]

 Jessica, 

Hoping to respond to your request: I will do my best to summarize the recent events and difficulty of this time. Unfortunately, there are many rumors and accusations floating out there so even a summary will take some time and I can't do it all at once. But here is a start.

In a folder on this site named Current Issues, I will put the central posts we, the Enki Leadership, shared with all in our efforts to find understanding. I would encourage those interested to particularly read the one on Empowerment in Enki. 

The Current Issue in a Nutshell:

The difficulty at hand began when some parents did not want to abide by the decision of the Enki Leadership on the use of the Enki name (which is trademarked, as they were told from the beginning). 

Despite much invitation for conversation and much actual conversation, and despite our providing a Facebook group for any Enki package owner, they refused to honor our decision. As a result, they were told that they were not welcome to the complimentary services offered by the Leadership - they are still eligible to receive the services that were described as part of their packages at the time they purchased. 

So that is what sparked the explosion of anger. We did try to work through the issues with them, as you can see in the chronological synopsis below and as is detailed in the Current Issues folder, but no progress was made. 

Underlying Enki Perspective: While the name use issue may not be that important to most, I think the underlying issue should be since it affects all we do. Parents come in to Enki for a time, and their input is a very important part of showing us how we can best tailor our delivery of Enki to support them - and over the years we have made countless adaptations to the delivery of information (not to the core of what Enki is). But this input does not and cannot steer the heart of the work. Maintaining the integrity of Enki is the job of the leadership, and for Enki to survive, the decisions we make for Enki must be abided by.

Enki is a unique and specific approach to education and, although we support and strongly encourage every parent to adapt the work to serve his or her family,  all decisions for Enki itself (curriculum content, methodology, official discussion groups, programs, faculty, use of the Enki name, etc.) are made by the Enki Directors, through consensus.  So we do solicit input from the community to help us see as broadly and deeply as possible, but decisions are the right and responsibility of the leadership and are not made through a democratic processes. For those seeking a program run as a democracy or through consensus, Enki is not a good fit.

There is an outline of the chronology of this issue below, and details on how we approached it will be put in the Current Issues file asap. But probably most important here is that this issue brought to light the importance of people knowing more about how Enki is governed. To that end, the posts in the Current Issues file on Community, and on Empowerment, and on Decision Making in Enki, would be good to read if this is of concern to you. If nothing else, a scan of the posts there will tell you a lot about how we work with issues and problems. 

I hope this proves helpful, and allows people to make an informed decision about how they see this issue and whether Enki is a good fit for them. 

I am aware that there are also a number of accusations against the Enki Leadership being put out there, accusations that should be of concern to all. Virtually all the accusations we have heard have absolutely no truth to them, or, at most are so exaggerated and without context as to have lost all truth - but I will address them more fully in another post, as soon as I can. 

Please feel free to ask more questions here. We look forward to clarifying here, and discussing any questions you have on this or any other aspect of the program. 

Beth

 

Brief Chronology (it was a 6 month process, so even brief is long!): 

• An Enki mom wanted to start a Facebook group for Enki parents; 
  
• An online discussion took place in our Google community to explore Facebook as a potential online platform for our Leadership hosted community discussions. We also explored other platforms. After a close look, we determined that FB is not a good fit for Enki because its structure doesn't foster the deeper discussion that defines Enki.
  
• The mom went ahead and started a FB group and used the Enki name in her  group name. 
  
• She did an automatic invite to the entire Enki discussion group, and many people accepted the invitation - some unwittingly;
  
• We reiterated, in an email to the mom who is the group owner , that the FB group could not use the Enki name as it is trademarked, and that she needed to change that so there was no implication that they represented Enki. We also said that if the name was changed, we would let all Enki package owners know about the group in case they wanted to join.
• Enki Leadership communicated through the online group that the name went against our name use policy. Discussion took place on the Google community regarding whether Enki could be used in the subtitle, but ultimately we told them that, while of course they can start whatever group they want, they cannot use the Enki name - and that it is trademarked (Enki, not Enki Education);
• We attempted to contact the owner many times, and received no real response from her. Because we believe that that each member of the group is responsible for her or his own decisions,  this was brought up to all several weeks later - this discussion bore little fruit and the group owner still refused to take "Enki" out of the FB the name;
  
• We heard very little over a 6 week period;
  
• We told people that anyone disregarding the Leadership decision by staying on that group would not be welcome on the complimentary Leadership hosted discussion group. We also clarified more fully the nature of the Google Community and renamed it the Enki Farm.
  
• There was a great explosion and we realized we had moved too quickly. Therefore, we apologized, and we hosted three video calls ( a total of 6 hours) for people to speak their piece to be sure we had heard all opinions; 
  
• We then went through a long reevaluation process.  We wrote many posts to the group as we went through this process to help people see how decision making in Enki works, and, hopefully, to understand this decision more. And we made some changes including setting up a FB group and Google Group for all Enki families, groups that Enki purchasers would be notified of as places for peer support, but groups that did not use the Enki name as they do not represent Enki. 
  
• The facebook group went secret and, with no more means to see who was on it,  all who had been on at the time of it going secret, were removed from the Leadership hosted discussion group, but NOT from the two online Enki peer groups. It was at this time that members of the secret group chose to begin a negative public campaign.