April 11, 2015

April 11, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

It is in the middle of the night and I just woke up from a dream. I was crying, because I was so happy that I finally got the fulltime job as a psychology instructor, the position I am currently applying for. However, my  boss was looking at me suspiciously. I felt uncomfortable. I wasn’t feeling grateful to him for giving me a full-time job as teacher and I felt judged by him for showing my emotions. My inability to say to this person that I didn’t like him was picked up by him. 

Today I give another seminar at the Faculty Conference Day. A while ago, I had received negative feedback about my seminar at the previous Faculty Conference. The criticism was I had been too repetitive and apparently had made some of the faculty feel as if they were students. It came as a shock that they decided to tell me about this months later, at our department meeting. It made me feel awkward and now that I am presenting today, I feel I have to be watchful not to step on anyone’s toes. I am concerned about how I am perceived as I apply for the full-time position.

It is natural I should feel that way, since there is such great competition for the this full-time position. It is nothing new to me to get negative feed-back about my seminar. I would like to have that full-time job very much and that is making me so worried. If I don’t get it, it will won't be the end of the world, even if they won’t interview me.

Writing down these thoughts and feelings clears my head. It amazes me how worked up I can get about this. Since I am convinced about my Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) teaching, I feel scrutinized and not sure if I will be hired with my revolutionary ideas. Let's face it, SVB cuts through all the crap. I am not supposed to say that or repeat that because it hurts certain people. It cannot and it should not be hidden that there is real human interaction.

What goes on in the name of human interaction is something else. If they don’t hire me, if they don’t even interview me, there is nothing I can do. All I can do is prepare myself as best as I can for my seminar and make it into a success. The theme of today is “Social Responsibility”. This topic was chosen because of our lack of communication. To me communication equals social responsibility. If we would have communication, we would have social responsibility. These are different names for the same thing. We are so often beating around the bush, because we are avoiding the real issue: what goes on in the name of spoken communication is not communication. Everyone is continuously buying into this, but I am not. I can’t deny what I know. 

Let the chips fall as they may. If I am accepted, I will be accepted for who I am. Each of my presentations has made clear I am not into any esoteric or political bullshit. I mean business when it comes to human interaction. My success as a teacher is due to SVB. I am responsible for conveying the knowledge I have gathered. There is no way back. It got me where I am. I stand for it and I am not crying about it anymore, like in my dream.

This is my midnight preparation for today’s presentation. I will point out that all sorts of things have become important, when in fact, everyone, just like me, is getting worked up about stuff, which is distracting from and replacing the real thing: communication. I will put it back on the map again. I have a world map hanging on the wall in my office. I put a sticky note on California saying: Communication. I came to this country with a mission: to spread my message of spoken communication and to change the way we communicate. 

I never knew it would be such an undertaking, but I am proud and satisfied with what I have achieved. The other day, I realized I was lucky to be let go from my full-time job as a caseworker with parolees after my probation period was over. Working with students is more reinforcing to me. Also, it was a blessing in disguise that I withdrew from my graduate study, because I would never have had the chance to study behaviorism the way I currently do. Furthermore, if we hadn’t returned to Chico, I would never have tasted what teaching at Butte College was like. My part-time job as psychology instructor is the best job I have ever had. This already is the peak of my career. Another important decision I finally was able to make since I got back to Chico was to stay away from my toxic family. All of this has freed me. 

Like everyone else, I also got side-tracked because I was conditioned that way, but SVB kept guiding me and has only gotten better and better. In my seminar today I will emphasize that it is our social responsibility to learn about and recognize SVB. With SVB, we will create a better world, we can improve our teaching and our relationship with our students and colleagues.