Thursday, November 24, 2016

Writing Unconventional Classroom, How This Started

The over eighteen years Det. Sweet has worked as a police officer has no doubt impacted many peoples’ lives. But those years of experience have logged more than hours, more than case numbers for him; those years have provided an unconventional, sometimes brutally, sometimes beautifully, effective classroom for many universal life lessons that he, and so many of us face. This book is Det. Sweet sharing those lessons that have had a profound impact on his life in the hopes that it may in some small way benefit others and the choices they make.

How does Sarah fit in? The very nature of the work Det. Sweet does conditions a person to the job. Writing a book to be consumed by an audience wider than those in law enforcement, while having nearly two decades of officer conditioning, meant there was a significant chance some of those messages might be lost in either police-speak or with a modified social filter, neither serving the reader. (Watch for Chapter 8 were he discusses more on this in Thinking from a Different Box.) Sarah’s an author, former archaeologist, and her Indigenous Knowledge facilitation work with Aboriginal communities and oil companies has given her experience communicating both sensitive and technically-specific information, often within the context of contrasting world views, to varying audiences.

The collaboration works, perhaps because of how different they are and what each bring to the table; Det. Sweet’s conservative self has nearly two decades of dealing with the often darker aspects of humanity, Sarah’s more hippie outlook has over fifteen years in environmental fields. Sure, there are times they drive each other crazy, but they both are working hard to bring you this book sharing lessons, insights, decision making models and to inspire positive social change.


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