Social Networking...

I posed a question on Twitter yesterday and wanted to further explain what I was trying to say. I was with my social work professors during the week and was posed the question whether or not you can teach a student to network. I don't mean networking as in making a computer network, but to learn how to talk with other people, to social network?

I don't know if this is actually a quantifiable skill that can be taught. I believe this comes from experience of being with others and talking with others. Its a life skill that maybe has been lost over the years. Citizens don't seem to like interacting with each other or their environment anymore. People seem to have lost that sense of caring that used to be evident in neighborhoods where every adult would be responsible to watching out for the young in the area. I remember being able to go out and play without adult supervision for hours, if not all day. Nowadays parents are all watching over their children for fears and safety concerns.

If networking is a skill be taught in social work class, how can this come to be? During my placement, I've talked to many people about school gardens. I've met many people over the last 6 months and enjoyed interacting with like-minded people to help implement school gardens in the schools of Thunder Bay. I think one of the reasons I've enjoyed this so much is because I actually like people and like talking with people. This is definitely an asset when it comes to macro based community practice. Many social work students go into the profession it seems because of their micro skills. Can these be used in macros based practice too? Is it so difficult to interact with the larger community to discover assets and gifts to help people in the larger neighbourhood before clinical counselling and micro skills are needed? 

Here's some more of my thoughts on social networking skills. Why is it that many people just don't seem to care anymore? Why do we stand behind our curtains and watch our neighbours but don't join in? To greet each other? and how can we change that? How can our younger students learn how to interact in the community?