There were 24 of them. Multiple of the lucky number three. Great!
The expected number was 28. Also multiple of a lucky number - seven.
Twelve of them were girls. That made 50%. Gender equality honoured. Wow!
The number of days we were to be together was three. Lucky number again – yeah!
All went well. Unity was our strength. Smile was our motto.
We agreed “It is better to light a candle than to curse the dark.”
We also agreed “In order to inspire team members, leaders themselves have to be inspired.”
The first day was MY DAY, with me doing a lot of talking. However, integrated in between was a deliberate attempt on my part to make the sessions highly interactive between them and me through the use of the questioning technique that I’m personally very fond of. There was slow interaction, but worth the encouragement and patience that I adamantly stuck to throughout. I was aware that giving up was easy for the facilitator, but I was convinced what really paid off was repetitive encouragement and extended patience particularly considering the young fun loving age group. (Doing this with experienced adults would be making fools of ourselves! They would feel stifled rather than encouraged.)
The second and third days were THEIR DAYS, with a lot of group work and presentations by them. There was great interaction among themselves! I understood better that young adults felt more at ease with their peer and the facilitator had to be tactful in creating a conducive environment.
By the end of the third day, it was EVERYBODY’S DAY. Everybody was actively engaged in something or the other. Nobody reminded me of the time to stop for the day. I myself didn’t realize that time had flown. Amazingly true! Everybody appeared to be enjoying the empowerment they had gained! What greater satisfaction for a facilitator?
The fourth morning – THE MORNING! The outcome from the workshop had to be presented to the CEO of the institute. I was at the institute the earliest despite being an externally hired facilitator. I guess I wanted to be there for them in the spirit of good leadership. Pleasantly surprising was the early arrival of the participants as well. They had been told it was ok for them to be there by 9:00 but most of them were there before 9:00. What greater happiness for the facilitator? It was an opportunity for them to prove to the CEO that they made a good ‘Student Government’ – that they had been rightly elected by the Student Body. So, how did it go? SUPERB! FANTABULOUS! Tears literally welled up in my eyes. It wasn’t a group of in-service people I had dealt with on those three tiresome days, but a group of first year college students! They hadn’t been taught subject matter from the college programmes, but rather ‘basic leadership skills’ with a focus on planning and proposal writing. Such a workshop can be stressful for a facilitator owing mainly to the age-related challenges associated with young adults, who think mostly of fun and are bored easily by work-related talks and activities. The trick – integrate fun activities as energizers in between. That’s what I did. I had a collection of songs/music of my daughter’s choice on CD that I used tactfully to keep the group energized. I also provided silent meditative moments first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening with the use of soothing music and recitation of mantras by experts on DVD, with the objective of starting off and ending off on a clear conscience and positive note. Would you believe me if I told you that the participants – the fun loving young adults - themselves reminded me of the meditative moment all three days? Yes, they did! I thought that was a lesson for us experienced adults to NOT take the young for granted or underestimate them.
Most pleasantly surprising for me on the fourth morning were the following:
• All of them had prepared well and most of them presented confidently and in good team spirit.
• One of the boys, who had been quiet and awkward most times, made a presentation! (I wasn’t aware he would. For me, that was the most touching moment given his sad history and his hesitation to mingle.)
• One of the girls, who was also the least participative during the workshop, made her presentation so clearly and fluently. (I was aware she would be doing the presentation, but I hadn’t known she could speak so well. I guess what hindered her from participating was her own guilty conscience of having violated certain rules. I think her group members made her feel guilty.)
• One other boy had made the effort to improve his presentation skill. (When he made presentations during the workshop, he tended to speak in incomplete sentences. I think he was aware he had the unique ability to speak with American accent, but what he probably wasn’t aware was that THAT wasn’t enough. I had provided him feedback and told him he could do much better and, yes, he did it! That was another touching moment for me.)
Most important of all, had the workshop outcome been achieved? Yes! The Student Government had semi-final draft proposals of student activities for this semester (Spring 2010) that the Student Assembly would be presented with and also a sample operational work plan of activities approved in principle that would be applied with the other activities once approved.
Nevertheless, I remain undeterred in my belief:
...that participation at workshops involves the head, heart and the hand simultaneously.
It's interesting. To have been able to make these students speak out is laudable. I hope they did it not because you had given them an ultimatum!
ReplyDeleteWhat was it all about and where? I admire the methodology. The methodology may have been crowned by the facilitator. So they spoke out.
Well, Dawa, it's indeed difficult for the person involved to prove to others why what went well went well. S/he can only rejoice in the success and share the joy with others. That's what I did here. I'm just thrilled, excited, and part of that must come from my teaching/training passion. Teachers/Facilitators ought to ensure learning has occurred, but some might choose to just teach/train without being bothered about whether the learners/trainees learnt anything. Some others might choose to teach/train meaningfully. I try not to be of the former type, for I’d be cheating on my own principles.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I was doing my Masters one of the course tutors (professor) had been very pleased with my work and gave me a recommendation letter for further studies. One of my male Bhutanese colleagues there, also for Masters, saw the letter and asked very sheepishly, "What did you do to get this?" His face was all screwed up. I don’t know if I would’ve done the same if he had got the letter, but when he did that to me I was very hurt and confused too.
Coming back to the specificity of your comment, Dawa, I'd like to add that if the ultimatum (whatever) made my participants do what they were supposed to do and that too so well, then that really was their motivation. So be it. Nothing wrong in that. However, I would still attribute part of it to my encouragement and patience because I really did have to try overly hard to make them speak. Their not speaking up or voicing their opinion is not their fault; it’s the way they were educated and brought up. They have been so used to being told what to say or do, what not to say or not to do, etc. They have been used to instructions/orders. In other words, spoon feeding is what they’ve been used to and they still expect that. Not their fault, though....
I deliberately left out some details about the workshop for readers to do some guess work. So, Dawa, would you like to guess what the workshop was all about and where? I have provided quite a lot of hints actually. All the best....(hope this won’t make you mad…hee hee)
And, thanks for admiring my methodology. I combined Bhutanese ingredients with international ingredients and most important of all, youthful ingredients. The whole trick is to make your methodology appropriate to the age group and socio cultural mindsets. The facilitator and participants have to feel connected to be open with one another. I was determined the workshop must be 'participative' with the outcome being drawn from the participants, not me, and the challenge for me was to create the kind of environment that would be conducive to that. “Taagley lo labda jo mitub"
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThere is not even one iota of sarcasm in my admiration for the methodology you have used, not so much because "sarcasm is the lowest form of wit" as it is because it's genuinely admirable.I do not doubt this methodology would work for me as someone who has had always been extremely reticent about answering questions verbally.
This particularly reminds me of my one-year development management course at the Royal Institute of Management. There, class participation is more important than examination or assignment.My refusal to open my mouth was injurious to my performance.It was to my detriment, and I was being dislodged consistently, but I perpetuated it. One lecturer found it too bad. One day he comes with a task, a topic, a case study on which I will have to make a presentation to the class three days later. I had no choice. Three days later he comes with a video camera, and everything was recorded. There are many other incidences in my academic life where my teachers had to squeeze out verbal answers from me with great difficulty and with ultimatum.
I sincerely admire your methodology.
Very bad in guesswork, I'll not guess.
You know what! I faced the same problem as you, even when in govt service. I would hardly have the courage to speak up at meetings and people thought I was useless. For this very same reason, I would like to encourage the youth of today to develop the ability to speak up. People discount you when you don't speak, not to say that all people who can speak are useful. There are people who talk a lot and actually do nothing at all. Such people are very good at being at the right place at the right time and claiming ownership over the cake, bakery and the baker.
ReplyDelete