The following BPLs and HCO PLs which canceled issues on twinning, or canceled or suspended twinning itself, are now canceled:
1. HCO PL 29 Jul 72 II Fast Flow In Training written by Training and Services Aide. Though the issues it canceled remain canceled, this HCO PL itself was canceled by BPL 10 Oct 75 X Cancellation Of Policy Letters 1972 and remains so.
2. HCO PL 31 Aug 74 Fast Flow Training Reinstated which suspended twin training or checkouts, was previously canceled and remains so.
3. BPL 18 Oct 76RD, Rev. 10.9. 78 Urgent, Important, Successful Training Lineup, which canceled requirements of twin training or checkouts for Academy, has been canceled and replaced by HCO PL 25 Sep 79 I Urgent, Important, Successful Training Lineup.
There are no valid BPLs or HCO PLs now existing which cancel twinning.
"Twinning" is the pairing up of two students training on the same subject to work together on their materials.
It is a Scientology innovation in training. For years it was used highly successfully when done correctly and as a standard action on Scientology courses.
Recently I discovered a big WHY behind course failures. That is that twinning as a subject and practice has become confused and fallen into misuse or fallen out completely and one of the reasons behind that is that a number of HCOBs on twinning were canceled and no one issue exists that covers the subject in its entirety.
This HCOB reinstates twinning firmly and with emphasis.
It is not subject to cancellation.
It fully lays out the purpose of twinning, the basics and rules and correct use of twinning, when and how it is done, the responsibility of twins and the responsibility of the Supervisor and the handling of twinning bugs.
It re-establishes mandatory twinning on all practical courses, such as the TRs Course, or on the practical sections of a course, such as E-Meter Drills. It also covers twinning in some areas of theory study where it is obviously called for, such as Method 9 Word Clearing when done between students.
In 1954 we found that when you teamed up students of comparable case level and ability they then made progress. When we find something that is that workable we put it to use. Twinning was installed as a fundamental part of the Scientology system of training and it immediately and effectively brought up the participation and action levels of entire course rooms of students. Students grasped the application of the materials faster. It gave us results.
Originally twinning was used almost exclusively on practical drills. Later, in the early '60s, it was carried over into twin checkouts on theory. Still later, with the advent of Word Clearing, applied study tech and fast flow, twinning as a broad mandatory action for all students on theory was canceled.
Even so, some orgs continued twinning students unnecessarily on admin courses and some theory courses and were not enforcing twinning on courses where it is mandatory, such as a TRs Course.
Twinning on practical courses and practical actions has never been canceled by me and was never intended to be canceled. However, a line in a BPL (BPL 18 Oct 76RD Rev. 10.9. 78 Urgent, Important, Successful Training Lineup) which stated: "Requirements of twin training or checkouts for Academy are canceled" caused twinning to be dropped out even on practical drills in some areas and threw a confusion into the scene in other areas. The above BPL has now been canceled with a vengeance and is replaced by HCO PL 25 Sept 79 I Urgent, Important, Successful Training Lineup.
And this bulletin restores twinning to its rightful place in training as the vital tool that it is.
One reason twinning is so vital is that it brings those people who have sunk back into their First Dynamic up out of their First Dynamic and onto the Third. It gives the student a terminal to work with. It puts students into communication, into doingness and participation. One doesn't learn by being a spectator. Twinning not only gets students extroverted but also gets them to take some responsibility for their fellow man. These are factors that are sadly lacking in modern permissive education.
With twinning we are cutting right across modern "permissive" teaching.
The modern tendency is to just let everybody do as they please and put their attention on whatever they please. This is the "think" of the day, and it is in in most basic school systems and has spread as well into many different fields.
Probably someone somewhere thought it would be much quicker and easier and require much less confront to just let a student sit there permissively, with his attention wandering around in the total significance of it all and then claim he had passed the subject when he had never gone near it.
It is a symptom of people who can't confront not to make anyone else confront.
We don't buy this. It is totally batty. The creeping disease of permissiveness, nonconfront and spectatorism is simply a part of "the beautiful world of irresponsible slop. " It has no place in Scientology training.
Real twinning, enforced, effectively pulls the student right up out of the vague permissiveness of modern think and lands him with some responsibility right from the start. With that he can be honestly trained.
A person being trained is mainly working on an inflow basis. Day after day it is inflow, inflow, inflow. This tends to put him at effect.
In twinning, the person can balance his inflow with outflow. This keeps him from going totally into effect. It puts some cause into the scene.
A person, when he is expected to apply knowledge or skills, must, of course, be at cause. When he is trained totally at effect, he can get into what is called a "stuck flow" phenomenon whereby he can't outflow the subject. Yet, if he is ever going to apply it, he is going to have to outflow it.
Twinning has the virtue of balancing inflow and outflow. It will be found that when the person comes to apply the tech, he is already able to outflow if he was trained using twinning.
It is not necessary to twin students on admin courses, nor, as a general rule, on tech theory courses. You ensure the student is applying study tech and is not going past misunderstood words and you let him get on with it.
Practical and practical courses are another matter.
Twinning is mandatory on those courses where the essence of the course is to train the student in the practical application of the data. This would include the TRs Course, any Upper Indoc and Objectives Course, a specialized E-Meter Drills Course and courses of a similar nature.
Even though such courses also include theory, the final objective of such a course is a person trained and drilled in the doingness involved and twinning is absolutely essential for this purpose.
Thus, on such a course, twins are assigned at the beginning of the course and they remain assigned through to the completion of that course. We call it "assigning twins in concrete. " One does not musical chair twins, once assigned, nor allow them to drift from one twin to another.
The whole essence of twinning is to get two students to work together, to assist each other and take responsibility for getting each other successfully through the course.
On certain courses containing both theory and practical, such as Academy Levels, you would not necessarily twin students on the theory section of the course. You would, however, definitely and mandatorily twin them on the practical sections.
For example, twinning is a must on E-Meter Drills, or such actions as assessment drilling, drilling of special rundown procedures where this is called for, Learning Drills, Obnosis Drills and other practical applications.
One always twins students where Method 9 Word Clearing is to be done between the students themselves and not by a Word Clearer.
Similarly, Method 8 Word Clearing is twinned, on exactly the same turn-about basis as described in Method 9. (Ref: HCOB 30.1. 73RB, Method 9 Word Clearing The Right Way)
An example of turn-about on Method 8 would be: First twin clears word "a. " Second twin then clears word "a" AND word "b. " First twin then clears word "b" AND word "c," etc. You do two actions consecutively every time.
Twins may also be assigned to get each other through other methods of Word Clearing in this way.
Henceforth, on courses such as the Primary Rundown, where Word Clearing is the essence of the course, twinning is mandatory.
Wherever twins are assigned, whether for an entire course or for practical sections of a course, the rules of twinning apply.
The Supervisor is responsible for assigning twins.
He should take care to team up students of comparable case level and training and abilities inasmuch as possible. In this way both twins make the best progress. Twinning a very fast student with a slow student should be avoided, if possible, as it can be frustrating and upsetting to both students. This must never be used as an excuse NOT to twin students. However, ideally, one matches them up according to their capabilities and twinning goes smoothly and produces best results when this is done.
In some rare instances it may be necessary to reassign twins who have been incorrectly paired. But it should not be necessary if care was taken in teaming them up correctly to begin with.
Otherwise, once assigned, twins work together through to successful completion of the course or activity.
The rule of twinning is that it is done on a "turn-about" basis.
"Turn-about" is done as follows:
One student coaches his twin through a drill or a section of a drill. They then turn-about and the second twin does the same drill or section of that drill PLUS the next drill or next section of the drill. They then turn-about again, with the first student doing the drill his twin has just done PLUS the one following.
The same system applies in Method 9 or Method 8 Word Clearing. One twin clears a word or M9s a paragraph or section of the text. They turn-about and the second twin clears the word or M9s the paragraph or section plus the following one. They turn-about again, with the first twin now clearing or M9ing the word or section his twin just cleared plus the one following.
Turn-about is applied as well to starrate checkouts where these are called for. It may be done by checking out an entire bulletin on one's twin before the turn-about is done. Or, where a very long text is to be starrated, the turn-about can be done after each section.
With the turn-about system one person is not constantly leading and misunderstoods are kept picked up between twins. The twins keep apace with each other, we don't get unbalanced flows and both are kept progressing.
A twin is responsible for seeing that the student with whom he is twinned knows and can apply the material he has studied.
Twins must be made aware of this responsibility at the onset of the course.
The twin word clears his fellow student. He listens to his sentences and sees that they are correct and fit the definition of the word being cleared. He makes sure his twin understands the materials. If the student doesn't know them cold, the twin helps the student find his misunderstood words and gets him through any difficulties.
Twins do practical drills together. They coach each other to wins and certainty in applying the materials hundred percent correctly.
If a student flunks a Supervisor checkout on materials he's been passed on by his twin, both students get a flunk. The twin must have a misunderstood himself if he missed the other student's goof.
Morale depends on production.
Production, in training, is the evidence of the demonstration of competence.
Morale is up when competence is demonstrated.
Morale is up when production is up.
Morale isn't necessarily built by being "nice. " Twinning actions are carried out with good ARC, but being "nice" is not enough.
A student getting a good stiff coaching session from his twin and passing — or getting a good, stiff checkout and passing, feels great. He has really accomplished something. He knows that he knows the data or drill.
A student who gets poor or nonstandard coaching or checkouts feels and knows that he has been cheated. If his twin is just being "nice" he doesn't win and doesn't appreciate the checkout. His morale will be down.
One keeps his twin's morale and production high. One gives him tough standard coaching sessions so he becomes competent. One gives him tough standard checkouts so he knows he has demonstrated his competence in the materials. It is always done with good ARC.
It must be real to student and Supervisor alike that twinning is not a namby-pamby, brush-off activity.
One is responsible for getting his twin through the course. If one twin goes to Review, the other goes to Review. If one twin goes to Ethics, the other goes to Ethics. If one twin should blow, the other twin must go and get him. One is responsible for getting his twin through the course.
There have been cases in the past where one twin worked like mad to get the other twin through an extensive section right at the end of the course. The other twin then simply went off and would not do the same so the first student could also finish the course.
It is now firm policy that where such an instance occurs, the student who abandoned his twin just because he himself was finished may not be certified and may not be given a course completion until he has completed his twin.
Twins are responsible for getting each other through the course.
It is the Supervisor's responsibility to enforce twinning per the points in this bulletin.
He assigns twins, pairing them according to their capabilities.
He ensures twinning is being done by the book, on a turn-about basis, with both twins making progress.
He makes sure twins are wearing their hats as twins and taking responsibility for getting each other through, exactly as laid out in course materials.
A "double flunk" is given when a student flunks a Supervisor checkout on materials his twin has passed him on. "Double flunk" means the student and his twin are both flunked in such a case, as, if the twin has missed the student's goof, he must have misunderstoods of his own.
The Supervisor maintains high tech standards by adhering firmly to this system and when he must double flunk he makes sure both twins get handled on the goof.
A situation can occur where a student and his twin get into a "games condition," one with the other. This gives a no-progress, problem situation. The students who are twinned are not both working toward the same goal but one is in opposition to the other in some way. This gives no progress, no wins, no production, no demonstration of competence being permitted and low morale.
It is the responsibility of the Supervisor as well as the twinned students to not permit such a situation to occur. With any failure of a twin to be a twin and assume that responsibility, the Supervisor gets the student checked out on this bulletin and any other applicable course material and ensures the student is fully handled.
To keep the course morale high, Supervisors must insist on production and on the demonstration of competence on all materials by the student and his twin.
In a case where a student gets sent to Review or Ethics, the Supervisor must uphold the rule that his twin always gets sent as well. He ensures that any blown student is recovered by his twin. In all such cases the Supervisor keeps track of his students and ensures they're handled and gotten back on course rapidly.
A Supervisor who understands the why of twinning and sees it is carried out standardly is going to produce causative, responsible graduates who can apply what they have learned.
All students should be made aware, from the beginning of training, that the answers to their questions are in their course materials or other source references.
The issues on verbal tech, HCOB 9 Feb 79 How To Defeat verbal Tech and HCOB 15 Feb 79 Verbal Tech Penalties, should be well-known in the course room.
Even so, students, particularly when they are new, sometimes get into an exchange of verbal data or opinion while they are twinning. A Supervisor must be on the alert for this and step in to handle at once when he observes it happening. He uses study tech to straighten the scene out and always refers the students to the above mentioned HCOBs on verbal tech.
Twinned students, of course, bear a responsibility for not spreading verbal tech, neither between themselves nor to anyone else, for that matter. A twin always refers his fellow student to source materials.
The main twinning bugs which could arise are those which were encountered earlier on the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course. One twin would get sent to Ethics or Cramming or Review and the other one then had no twin. Thus, twinning could get to be a little bit unpopular and could block somebody from finishing the course unless these factors are handled.
The remedy for this sort of thing is to send both twins to Ethics, both twins to Cramming, both twins to Review and if anybody blows, send his twin after him. In other words, we don't buy the idea that everybody is totally irresponsible for everybody else in this wonderful First Dynamic world. This is not a mere expediency. It takes only a good, straight look at the purpose and WHY of twinning to recognize the value of this system. Those who do recognize its value will enforce and maintain it.
There is another situation which could act as a bug in twinning. What happens when one twin actually does disappear from the scene totally, in spite of checkouts and crammings and ethics? What do you do with the remaining twin? Unhandled, it can stop a course for a student, so handled it must be and with no time wasted. You don't let the odd twin rattle around on his own for very long.
If he's not too far advanced into the course he can be twinned with an oncoming student. (A well-run course room will always have new students enrolling.) Every effort is then made to get the newcomer caught up with his twin as rapidly as possible.
But what of the more advanced student who loses a twin? If there's absolutely no other single terminal to team him up with, there is still a solution far preferable to having him continue on his own. You match him up with a set of twins of comparable ability and advancement to his and you turn that twinship into a trio. Once formed, you run that trio as tightly as you would any twinship. The turn-about system would then need to be adjusted to a "round robin. " (Example: A coaches B. B coaches C, C coaches A.) And it would then reverse. This is more easily seen if it is diagrammed:
A coaches B on the 1st action (drill, definition, etc.) _______________ B
B coaches C on the 1st action_______________________ C
C coaches A on the 1st action_______________________ A
And then it reverses.
B _______________________ C coaches B on the 2nd action
A _______________________ B coaches A on the 2nd action
C _______________________ A coaches C on the 2nd action
And now it reverses back.
A coaches B on the 3rd action _______________________ B
B coaches C on the 3rd action _______________________ C
C coaches A on the 3rd action_______________________ A
And now it would reverse back again (C coaches B. etc.) and so on through the drill, definition or M9 section.
All the rules of twinning then apply to these three. You "assign the trio in concrete" and you ensure they keep advancing. Again, the point here is that we operate on the Third Dynamic where one does take some responsibility for his fellow man.
When a bogged student cannot be handled in the course room with standard Word Clearing and Study Tech and he is sent to Cramming, Review or, where indicated, to Ethics, his twin is also always sent.
The idea is not only to keep the twins together and taking responsibility for each other but to also correct and repair both of them as needed.
In other words, one twin doesn't simply sit there and observe the other twin being handled. The twin of a bogged student will also require handling in Review, Ethics, or Cramming himself. If a student has ended up on Review lines, it must be assumed that the twin has goofed as a twin and has misunderstoods on the course materials. This must be sorted out and resolved by the Dir Review when the twins route through Review.
The Dir Review determines, by interview, what the trouble is and how it should be resolved. This is done on an individual basis for each twin.
For example, the bogged student may need Word Clearing or a Word Clearing Correction List and his twin may need to restudy this twinning bulletin or other course materials.
In Ethics, for example, a student may be involved in some sort of out-ethics situation, such as continually being late for course. In any ethics situation one would look for the possibility of mutual rudiments between twins. Whether or not mutual ruds exist, the twin would always be given some handling in regard to his responsibility in the situation.
In the above example, the Ethics Officer might handle the student with an amends project. He would then go over with the twin the matter of his responsibility and what steps he could take to ensure the student gets to course on time. The twin would then get the student through his amends, get through his own handling, whatever its nature and the two of them would then go back to course.
The twin sees the student through his review, cramming or ethics cycle and, whenever possible, is used to help the student get through it. He also receives appropriate handling himself.
The rule is: When one student becomes bogged, his twin is always sent with him to cramming, review or ethics.
In the rare case where a student is going to require extensive handling in Review or Ethics, such as case handling or suspension from course where such would be truly warranted, the Dir Review or Ethics Officer may send the other twin back to course to be retwinned with another student.
The Supervisor always checks up on any students who have been routed off course temporarily. He must keep himself informed as to their whereabouts and progress on correction lines and see that they are returned to course corrected, as rapidly as possible. He does not allow any student or twin to simply drop off his lines with an incomplete course, unhandled or unaccounted for. Any twin has the responsibility of getting himself and his fellow student back onto the course as well.
Once students get the idea that their own progress on a course depends utterly on the quality of their twinning you will start to see some quite magical results. They're now out of the irresponsibility of it all and operating on the Third Dynamic.
It simply takes standard supervision plus real twinning.
That is the winning combination.
So enforce twinning.
It will show up in F/Ning students and high and genuine course completions, which any Supervisor, any org. any graduate can be proud of.
And I will be proud of you, too.