Update Biographical and Educational Details
on Ms. Tammy Yard-McCracken
Credited VS Unaccredited Degrees, licensing, educational standards and the Case of Tammy Yard McCracken, a doctor by some standard but not others
Experts? More Questions about Tammy Yard-McCracken, self described violence dynamic expert
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| An excellent book by Rory Miller, one of the instructors |
The purpose of Violence Dynamics was to teach people about violence. The attendees paid a lot of money to be there. They left satisfied. There were a variety of topics taught. The instructors were flown in from around the country and one from Canada. There are similar events around the country and the world. (As I write, the instructors are preparing for an event of this type in Bulgaria.)
I know a lot about violence. Okay, "a lot" is a relative term. "More than average" --let's just say I've had many positions over the years where my duties consisted of either dealing with real violence, preventing violence, dealing with or preventing or reducing the likelihood of violence, or simply cleaning up the mess after other people committed violence, and, more than once, when violence has
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| an Upstate New York post-industrial, semi- civilized lifeform |
I know something about violence and related subjects, so I went, watched, tried to figure the thing out and who the instructors were and what they know and don't know and the most interesting thing to me was the presentation on pre-attack indicators and the practice session on how to deal with street people. Do I know anything about street people? A bit. I am after all from Schenectady and lived downtown for many years.
Are there lots of strange street people in Schenectady? Well, let me offer a pair of videos to illustrate life in downtown Schenectady. First, a random encounter with a street person at a coffee house in downtown Schenectady.
So there we have it. A slice of life in Schenectady. I miss Schenectady sometimes. I left. I know why I left and it was good that I left. I moved to Ithaca, It was too clean for me, a bit like a park full of college students. Ultimately, I wound up in Albany with a few years in Shanghai and Boston in the middle. I can now visit Schenectady any time I wish. But I usually don't. Yeah lots of street people in Schenectady. So, how do we deal with it and them? Kind of like this.
(Where did the video go See here for an explanation please)
Simple, we give them their own TV show on the Public Access TV. Yeah, it's a Schenectady thing. It makes sense to us. The Unreal Variety Show -Schenectady Public Access Enjoy. Check it out. Maybe you can turn any lessons learned into part of a street survival seminar.
I mean I'd never thought of any of this, any of these life lessons learned, as a saleable skill that people would pay money to learn. But, not just apparently, but provably, (Randy King was flown from Alberta, Canada to teach this. And I'm sure with a bit of thought and imagination (and sleep) I could create a better one. ( Randy King and I are both contributors to this fine book: Beyond the Picket Fence He wrote about what it's like to date "bad asses" like himself. Really. I wrote about how to adapt to life in Taiwan. I read the whole book. He told me he didn't. Randy King, like Rayford Faulkner, has a youtube channel but I don't think he has a TV show, at least not in Schenectady on public access.)
So I've been toying with ideas here. To some extent, like so much in society, teaching something like this is marketing, creating an image. (Which reminds me, does anyone know if Tammy Yard McCracken's PhD in Holistic Psychology is accredited? Does anyone know if the Eisner Institute, the on-line school it came from, is accredited? It's important to research these things as trauma counselors are notorious for exaggerating their credentials and making statements and pronouncements about things outside their area of expertise. It's endemic to the field.) Not only that, at an event like this one only needs to teach on a subject for an hour or two per subject, cascading through them, on a whirlwind presentation for a few days. (I recently got an invite to a very interesting traditional martial arts seminar --I'd rather not say which one in this context-- where a prominent practitioner of that art will be teaching for the day. --the cost, $150 dollars for four hours from 10am to 2pm. I am dying to know if there will be a break for lunch. I don't plan to attend at that price but I am 100% confident that many will and will not just leave satisfied but prize their experience.)
But this has me wondering, would anyone consider flying Rayford Faulkner, the legend, across the continent to teach seminars at over a hundred dollars a day per person on his unique approach to life and how to either embrace or avoid his understanding of life?
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| A book on violence, not a particularly good one. Remember, always check credentials. |
I remember years ago, I had a job working security in the Albany subsidized housing --a job that I promise was much less dramatic and dangerous and courageous than it sounds. Mostly what I did was hang out with the residents of the subsidized housing and make sure the front door on their building stayed shut. The residents supported keeping the door shut because if it was left open crack-whores (er . . . should I say "chemically addicted people who work in the sex industry"? No, too long. Crack-whores will work just fine. Besides it was the term in common usage at that time and place.) Most of what I did was hang out by the door at a table and talk to the people who lived there.
They had interesting experiences. Their lives were very different from mine. Many were recovering drug addicts. Recovering drug addicts, whatever else one can say about them, often tell great stories.
One day one of them who I considered a friend told me about how one can find a crack house and a source of crack in a new environment. It was interesting. I've never actually tried the technique out --after all, I've never needed crack or thought it was something I'd wish to try. I've got enough bad habits and don't need to add to them.
On the other hand, I have bragged to a lot of my friends that I do, in fact, know how to find a crack house in an urban environment. And this, by itself, combined with my experience at the Violence Dynamics seminar in Boston, has made me realize that this is, in fact, a saleable skill. Somewhere, some place, there are people who will pay a great deal of money to learn how to find crack houses. And most of them have no need to know this knowledge and no desire to find crack. They just wish to be able to say they know how to do this and would be willing to pay money to learn it.
Which has me wondering, could I, should I package this? Might I find a drug addict or two or three (and perhaps buy them an unaccredited PhD in psychology to boost their standing among people who don't check credentials?) and then arrange to fly them around the country, continent, or even to Bulgaria to teach people with good dental plans skills they don't need to know but would like to know if for no reason except that it's something that people like themselves usually don't know? Really, this would work. A couple years ago, I attended a one day workshop seminar on human trafficking held here in Schenectady (another field, by the way, where it is very important to check credentials among trauma therapist types. --they lie like rugs and when they try to tell the truth they often use bad statistics.) And among the presenters was an ex-teenage prostitute, now an adult, presenting for an hour and a half. She did this regularly and she seemed to be enjoying herself and quite proud of her new status as an expert. You could see it by the way she held her head and body language.
So . . . I confess, although my background includes many interesting jobs and experiences, I was not a teenage prostitute. But I do have my own unique skills and talents. And it all comes down to packaging.
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