raffi, what a great story! what a privilege to have the opportunity to work with circle.
a number of your questions pulled at me to respond. for the moment, i will respond to these: . To those who do peace work, conflict resolution work, and work in sister fields: What other tools, training, (spiritual) practices have been helpful in making you a better facilitator and trainer? I recognize this is a big question. The more group work I do, the more I return to the question of the quality of my presence. Also, I see that I would like to develop further in how I design workshops (to learn how to design better). And to understand adult education principles better. 8. Anybody out there trained in processwork? Familiar with it? I'd be curious to learn what this kind of work has done for you and others. Your doubts about this kind of work would also interest me. raffi, i have been practicing leading "touchstones" discussion for four or five years. here in haiti, many open space practitioners are also touchstones discussion leaders. in fact, in haiti we call this process wonn refleksyon which translates to reflection circles. thus, on our website, we use reflection circle term instead of touchstones. to learn more about touchstones, go to: touchstones.org early on in our experiments with open space here in haiti (eight or nine years ago) we discovered that the traditional role of authority in haiti is so strong, that very frequently, the person who proposed the subject--thus, was in a position of authority because people came to "hear" him or her--would engage in a monologue for the entire time. we also discovered that people who engaged in these monologues would be frustrated afterwards with others because they refused to participate. yet some among the others would be frustrated because they didn't feel there was an opportunity for them to share. plus, people who were illiterate, street kids, children in servitude and others who are marginalized might not have the "presence" or confidence to ever propose a subject or ever say anything in a public setting. while i believe that continued opportunities in open space might allow a group to become adequately aware of what was happening and begin making necessary adjustments, i am too aware of limits in patience. if someone feels uncomfortable and does not see results inspite of efforts over and over again, s/he may cease to invest in continuing. we have found that touchstones discussions are perfect. it is an exercise intended to be done with a group perhaps once a week for 45 minutes to one and a half hours each session. over time, the group becomes highly skilled in group process; aware of who is talking and who is not, who is listening and who is not. people become better at getting their point across more quickly, thus not dominating time which does not allow others to share. identifying what is not clear to them and asking effective questions, etc. through this practice, a group develops habits which help its members to continue to evolve individually and collectively. and, people who are practiced in touchstones are in a good position to really make use of their time in open space meetings, in the sense that they might be able to see tangible results more quickly. i do need to add that i buy the argument that says, "if a group has time and space, just because they don't feel that they are moving forward (whatever that may mean), does not mean that they are not." again, because of habits and traditions, sometimes we lack patience and need to see changes more quickly. i also should add that a discussion leader with touchstones becomes very aware of his/her power. one who might observe a group that is evolved in touchstones discussions will not, during the majority of the time that the group is together, be able to determine who the discussion leader is. thank you for taking the time to share your rich experience and for inviting us to share our thoughts and experiences. john http://www.beyondborders.net/experiment.htm _________________________________________________________________ MSN Search, le moteur de recherche qui pense comme vous ! http://search.msn.fr/worldwide.asp * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
