Just came across this discussion while looking through the "rant" tag. Hubski is so much fun. re are students allowed to have dissenting opinions? (A conversation worth taking to the greater community - do you think?) Anyway, I've taken to beginning classes by putting my underlying assumption on the table. On Wednesday I ran a workshop on communicating nondefensively. My underlying assumption was this: in any disagreement, your initial response can make the conflict WAY worse quite quickly and shut down productive communication or your initial response can open the possibility of further communication. I asked the class if they agreed with that premise. When it seemed they had bought into that assumption, I continued. I think I'll do this more often....of course it requires examining my underlying assumptions. I think, though, the above is probably the underlying assumption of all my workshops.