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<TITLE>story: learning circles OST (long)</TITLE>
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Hi OSLIST,<BR>
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Another story to share, about a somewhat unusual OST event.<BR>
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In sharing this story, I invite feedback - in general (as always), but also in a few specific areas:<BR>
<UL><LI>First...well, I guess I have to admit it...I facilitated a <I>hybrid</I> event! (does my radar pick up virtual incoming rotten tomatoes?) I'll explain how and why below, and I'd love to hear from others: was this a good or a bad idea?
<LI>Second: Fewer topics were posted than either I or the sponsor expected. How come?
<LI>Third: Are there special considerations for an event around a "learning for learning's sake" type of theme?
<LI>Fourth: How might one do reports for a "learning for learning's sake" type of theme?
<LI>and Fifth: Do other facilitators feel it is sometimes appropriate to participate in discussion groups? If so, under what circumstances is this okay? <BR>
</UL><BR>
Up front, I want to express my gratitude to Alan Stewart, my favorite Professional Conversationalist, for his insights on this particular event. Particularly helpful was Alan's article called <I>Conversation as the Energiser of New Ways of Being and New Ways of Doing. </I>It's delicious. Here's the link:<BR>
(<FONT SIZE="2"><FONT FACE="Arial">Reworking Tomorrow. The Slim Book. 1998.) <BR>
<<FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><U>http://www.reworkingtomorrow.org/conversations/slim_book.html#energiser</U></FONT>> <BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF"><U>alan.stewart@flinders.edu.au<BR>
</U></FONT></FONT></FONT><BR>
The event was called a <I>Transformational Learning Festival. </I>The sponsor was the Learning Circles Program of the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement. It was held in a conference room at the university. 50 people attended. 9:30 to 4:00 pm, three 75-minute sessions, potluck lunch, no convergence. The theme: <I>Living on the Edge of New Growth: What Sort of Learning is Relevant in Our Lives Right Now?<BR>
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</I>Here is how it developed into a "hybrid" event. <BR>
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The Learning Circles Program has been developed by an amazing <I>Think Tank</I> of ten free-thinking elders in our community. For three years now, several Learning Circles have been held each season, around topics of interest to the <I>Think Tank</I> members. The Circles are "expert-free." They consist of twelve participants and a facilitator, and they run for five weeks, two hours each week. These Learning Circles developed out of <I>Study Circle</I> methodology, but have been simplified in a lovely way. The facilitators have one primary role: to begin with an idea or concept and craft it into questions that evoke stories from the participants' direct personal experience. So the central philosophy of these Learning Circles is, "Speak your truth, from your experience" -- and the facilitator artfully guides discussions back to this practice, as needed.<BR>
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The Think Tank approached me to ask: Could OST be used for a day-long celebration of spontaneous Learning Circles? I said, <I>Absolutely-I-can't-wait-when-can-we-start?</I> <BR>
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But when we considered the theme, I felt a bit in uncharted waters. The <I>Think Tank</I> wanted people to come and <I>do </I>Learning Circles. When I asked what a Learning Circle can be about, the answer was, "Anything that engages meaningfully with someone's life experience." That makes for a pretty broad theme. I really liked "Living on the Edge of New Growth" when we came up with it. Broad, indeed. Like the Tar River in flood. Swampy?<BR>
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In further discussions with the sponsor, I realized their investment in the subtle methodology of Learning Circles. They did not want groups to convene in open space to engage in the abstract debate of issues. When this happens, I was told, the magic is lost, and it's not really a Learning Circle. Which made sense to me.<BR>
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So, in the eleventh hour, I wrote a preamble to opening the space, which was intended to give the participants a sense of Learning Circle practice -- not to confine discussions or to be overly prescriptive, but to guide them into the special magic of storytelling, staying with questions, open listening. In case you're interested, I'll paste in this preamble at the end of this message.<BR>
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So that's how it was a hybrid event. After the sponsor's welcome, I spent ten minutes delivering this description of Learning Circle philosophy. Then I proceeded to open the space in my normal way. The rest of the event was a straight OST, as follows.<BR>
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Oh, one more "experiment." The day before the event, as I was mulling over the notion of a book of proceedings, I decided that inviting a report to be generated from each group was not a good fit. It seemed that, since the meat of the discussions would be personal stories, that reporting would be difficult and perhaps a bit invasive. Instead, I decided to invite each person to fill out a "personal reflection" page, to share highlights of their learning during the day, and that these pages would become our book of proceedings, along with a contact list. I spread these blank pages out on a table with black pens, and left it at that.<BR>
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When it was time to create the agenda, people moved very slowly and cautiously. When I opened the marketplace, there were eight topics on the wall. Two more were added during the ten minutes before the first session began.<BR>
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So, given my sense of this as an inspired and risk-taking group, I wondered why so few and so slow. Was the hybrid opening too long? Was the theme too muddy? Was the personal aspect of the theme scary for people? Or did the theme simply lack the fire of a burning issue?<BR>
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Yes, I know, <I>Whatever Happens...</I> And in truth, I was not anxious about the slow pace. I'm just curious and wanting to understand it.<BR>
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After this opening, the day unfolded in a lovely way. Four of the topics were posted for the first session, and people were evenly distributed. We were all in the same large room, and it was wonderful to hear the sound of thoughtful, ever-deepening conversations unfolding, punctuated with laughter.<BR>
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About half-way into the first session, after picking up all the coffee cups, I decided that in this case it would be okay for me to participate in the discussion groups. I bumblebeed on in to a group on <I>What our dreams mean in our lives.</I> <BR>
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I spent the whole day participating in groups, and they were absolutely marvelous. Each of the groups had a similar development, starting with stories close to the topic, then breaking through, based on fresh insights, to deeper and more personal levels. Even in one group with over thirty participants, I was amazed by the intimacy that developed. A great deal of the joy for me was the honor of being with so many people over sixty with such profound life experiences to share.<BR>
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There were several instances of deep learning due to diversity. One of the groups convened around the topic, "Building an Ideal Community." The convenor was interested in actually developing an intentional community, and was focused on the physical, built environment. But part-way through, a woman named Janice, of Cherokee and African-American heritage, raised the issue of what "community" means to the "old settlers" as compared to the "new settlers" of this region. The convenor shared that, as a transplant to the Southern Appalachians, she had not really considered the existing culture in her ideas about developing a community. From this respectful flashpoint the discussion went to remarkable depths of stories about culture and culture clash. <BR>
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Janice sought me out after the event. How I love that moment when I hear someone say, "I want to learn how to facilitate one of these things." She went home with my copy of <I>OST - A User's Guide</I> in her bag.<BR>
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If the closing circle is any indication, people left the festival with their appetites for learning well-satisfied, beyond their expectations. The "personal reflections" idea for a book of proceedings flopped; no one wanted to take the time to write anything, with such richness of conversation happening all around. However, I want to know how to make reports work for this type of event, since I love books-of-proceedings, and an OST event feels incomplete to me without one.<BR>
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This event has an exciting epilogue, too. When I debriefed with the <I>Think Tank </I>on the afternoon following the event<I>,</I> they spent a long time talking about the "old settlers/new settlers" issue that had arisen. And one of the members said, "You know, there's a part of me that leaves yesterday's event and asks, <I>So What?</I> If we do an Open Space again, and for that matter, with our Learning Circles -- How are we carrying our learning into engagement in our community?"<BR>
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Someone else offered that Learning Circles are a part of the Paolo Freire tradition, and that engagement with the community is a natural, powerful outgrowth of this kind of interaction.<BR>
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By the time our debrief was done, we had a draft on the flip-chart for a quarterly 1.5-day OST, between each seasonal cycle of Learning Circles, that would include a half-day convergence: <I>How will you carry your new learning and engage in your community?</I> I don't know if it will come to pass, but the thought of an ongoing infusion of empowered elders into the life of our city is a fine thought indeed.<BR>
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That's how it was, and that's how it is.<BR>
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Chris Weaver<BR>
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-- <BR>
S P R I N G B R A N C H<BR>
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Opening the Space for Inspired Collaboration<BR>
P.O. Box 8234 / Asheville, NC 28814 / USA<BR>
Phone: 828 225-0007 / Fax: 828 225-0303<BR>
http://www.springbranch.net / chris@springbranch.net<BR>
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F A C I L I T A T I O N<BR>
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BELOW: The notes for my "preamble" to the Learning Circles OST.<BR>
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<OL><LI><FONT SIZE="4"><FONT FACE="Palatino">MICROPHONE
<LI>THANKS: NCCCR staff. Carolyn. Think Tank.
<LI>Thanks to each of you for coming, even to an event with such an esoteric name. This morning I imagined a conversation between a teenage granddaugher and her grandpa. The granddaughter asks, SO WHERE ARE YOU GOING ALL DAY TOMORROW? He replies, TO A TRANSFORMATIONAL LEARNING FESTIVAL. pause. She replies, GRANDPA, YOU SHOULDNıT ASSOCIATE WITH THOSE KIND OF PEOPLE.
<LI>We chose the name simply to indicate that the learning we invite you into today is learning on the edges of what matters to each of you the most at this time in your lives.
<LI>I am going to walk once around this circle. As I do, I invite you to follow me with your eyes, and to look at the people gathered here. Consider the depth of life experience that is gathered in this room this morning. Consider also that this gathering today will happen only once - these people will never all be together in the same room again. Consider the depth of the learning opportunity we have over the next few hours.
<LI>Carolyn and I had a number of discussions to try to get at the essence of the kind of learning that takes place in the Learning Circles program. This type of learning is on the one hand familiar, deeply etched in the human experience. On the other hand, it is subtle, and runs against the ways we have been trained in our education in this society. We came up with four ways of participating today that I offer you now, not as prescriptive guidelines, but as a suggestive invitation.
<LI>The first way of participating is by LISTENING. Please know that your participation today will be entirely self-directed. You do not need to say anything today. You could move from group to group and listen all day long, and your contribution would be deep and profound. Our listening is the foundation of all that we will learn today. Being here at the university might tempt us into the academic training many of us share, which involves listening in order to analyze, form opinions, rebutt, critique, debate. But I invite you to let that kind of listening go. Today we will listen more in the way of a quilting group, gathered around a tapestry that we are creating together. And as anyone who has been in a quilting group knows, it is good to grow into comfort with silence. Listen for the layers of truth in one anotherıs stories, and feel the resonance with your own truth as the stories emerge.
<LI>The second way of participating is STORYTELLING from our personal direct experience. The learnings we will share today are at the edge of new growth where the life around us in the world engages with our own life as whole people. The meanings will travel easily across the categories of truth: emotional truth, intellectual truth, intuitive truth. And the most ancient and best way of sharing these truths is through our real stories. The door is open to your stories, when and if you choose to share them.
<LI>A third way we might engage today is through IDEAS and concepts. Many of our discussions will begin this way. There are ideas that serve as doorways into our lives, and as stairways between our stories. I invite you to articulate these ideas and patterns as they emerge, but not to tarry long in the world of the abstract. Let our concepts and ideas serve as doorways into new layers of experience.
<LI>And fourth, we have the realm of QUESTIONS. A man named John Ralston Saul once said, ³Answers are a way of avoiding questions.² A man named Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote, ³Have patience with all that is unsolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms or books written in a very foreign tongue.² In the Learning Circles program, strong questions become the center around which conversation dances. So articulate the big questions, stay with the questions, hold onto the questions, with patience.
<LI>So how will we enter these conversations? In a few minutes, I will explain the mechanics of that. I will be inviting those who choose to come forward to convene a discussion group about an idea that has strong personal meaning to you right now. But first, let me share a couple of example ideas, and describe the interplay between ideas, questions, stories, and listening.
<LI>There are people among us in this circle who have facilitated Learning Circles over the past few years. They have developed the wonderful skill of crafting questions that take us from an idea into storytelling. Letıs practice this artful turn for a moment, and see if our Think Tank members have had enough coffee yet.
<LI>Let us pretend that I am sitting in the circle. I realize that I have recently had powerful learning experiences having to do with cultural diversity. So I convene a discussion group around that topic: CULTURAL DIVERSITY. When my group meets, we might begin by turning this concept into a question that evokes stories from the group. Who in the circle can help me to turn CULTURAL DIVERSITY into a question?
<LI>Letıs say my topic is TAKING LEAPS OF FAITH. Who can turn that one around?
<LI>What if my topic is TRANSFORMING A FAMILY RELATIONSHIP?
<LI>You can see how these questions are so evocative and inviting, how they ground the abstract idea in the realm of stories from experience.
<LI>You do not have to be good at this to convene a discussion group. The other participants in your group will help you. Again, this is not meant to be prescriptive: let your discussions unfold freely, while keeping these practices in mind.
<LI>This event today is an experiment. It is a marriage between two fascinating practices: Learning Circles, and Open Space Technology. Everything I have said thus far has been an attempt to illuminate the philosophy of Learning Circles, which is new to me, and is a great gift I have received from Carolyn and the Transitions Think Tank. Have I done okay so far?
<LI>What I am going to do now is to introduce the process of Open Space Technology. So take a deep breath while I shift gears. (bell)
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