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SECTION NINE
ATTAINMENT TARGET THREESKILLS APPROPRIATE TO THE LIFE OF A BAHÁ’Í
d. ADMINISTRATIVE SKILLS
How often have we longed for the firm and sure-footed guidance of a strong local spiritual assembly? How frequently have we puzzled over the decisions of a committee? And how many hours have we endured of boring, unfocused opinion-giving that passes for true consultation in our feasts and meetings? And, yet, what else should we expect when the majority of Bahá’ís come into the Faith as youth or adults without benefit of training in assembly membership, collective decision-making or consultation; and when the majority of those raised in the Faith fail to be taught, or, when taught, fail to learn these things?
The administrative order is a wonderful instrument for the advancement of the human race, but its wonders have yet to be seen because we are too few and too unskilled to make proper use of it.
By teaching those skills which will equip our young Bahá’ís for administrative service, we will create more eager and empowered individuals and more mature institutions capable of dealing with the more rapid changes, greater challenges and heavier responsibilities which will come with the advancing process of entry by troops.
As must be obvious to any observer, the skills in the four strands are interconnected and success in the one often means success in the others, while failure in one may lead to difficulties in the others. Each one of the four is vitally important in preparing our young people for the lives they must lead as active Bahá’ís in a non-Bahá’í world.
Programme of Study for Administrative Skills
What kind of skills are administrative skills?
When and where do we exercise them?
Community, committees, spiritual assemblies and the learned arm
General
Consultation
Decision-making
Conflict-resolution
Preparing agendas
Making suggestions
Voting and Bahá’í elections
Voting rights and their loss
Understanding and acting on the plans that come from the World Centre
Community
Preparing devotionals
Conducting Nineteen Day Feasts
Holding Holy Days
Publicity and contact with the media
Arranging firesides, public meetings, prayer meetings, deepenings
Conducting marriages, funerals and memorials
Conducting unit conventions, being a teller or delegate
Committees
Committee formation and membership
Being a committee member
The brief and the vision
Spiritual Assemblies
Local Spiritual Assembly formation
Being an Assembly member
Confidentiality
Developing local plans
Duties of Assembly officers: chairing, secretarial, treasury, archives
The Learned Arm
Counselling and leadership skills
Human resource development skills
Identifying suitable members
How to keep in mind what the administrative system is for.
The relationship of what we do in the administrative system to the Covenant
The administrative system as the blueprint for the world order of Bahá’u’lláh
The plans as stages in the establishment of the New World Order
KEY STAGE APPROPRIACY
KS 0, KS 1: Here administrative skills might chiefly be approached through such avenues as co- operative games, which would help the children to learn to work together. Let them choose prayers and readings for their class devotionals, etc.
KS 2: Introduce the basic skills of consultation, allow students to practice them by being set group tasks to accomplish something for later wider consumption, etc.
KS 3: Here most general and community skills could be taught, through interactive tasks and games, with opportunities to practise newly acquired skills in real settings for class, school and beyond.
KS 4: Enable students to be confident in exercising all administrative skills at a basic but effective level in those real situations where they might expect to participate and to be able to assist others in acquiring those same skills.
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