prosocial power

POPULAR EDUCATION

11/12/2022

A colorful mural with muted reds, turquoise, and ochre yellow outside on a cinderblock wall depicts Rosa Parks and MLK, Jr in rocking chairs on either side of an open door leading to bread and roses, with protestors underneath. Picture

"Sin acción, no hay conocimiento / Without action, there is no knowledge."
Mural at The Highlander Research and Education Center

POPULAR EDUCATION:
How to facilitate meetings, classes & events
that build community and empower people to
speak up, lead, and take action

Expect to learn more than you teach. You may be surprised by how much participants already know. Make time at the beginning for people to express what they know about the topic and what they want to learn. The facilitator should not be the only person sharing knowledge! Create opportunities for people to learn more about themselves, and to learn from each other.

Circle up. When a facilitator stands in front, leaving rows of participants to look at the backs of each other’s heads, this conveys rigid organization and a hierarchy where the facilitator - no matter how well-meaning - wields power over participants. But when you arrange seating in a circle, you communicate that you’re willing to share power with them. The beauty of a circle is that everyone is situated at equal distance from the center. Sit in a different place at every meeting, and encourage participants to switch places too, so everyone can meet new people and see the room from different perspectives.

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity,

or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which [people] deal critically and creatively with reality, and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”

– Paulo Freire, Brazilian pioneer of educação popular. “Popular” comes from the root word populus, meaning people. Popular education is education by the people, for the people.

Plan for accessibility. Can you provide childcare, or at least welcome children? Can you find a location that doesn’t require participants to climb stairs? How will you have people share their pronouns? Can you provide closed captioning and translators, or ask bilingual volunteers to help bridge dialogue? Is your location accessible by public transit and near free parking? Can you offer a remote option? Do your activities involve reading and writing, and if so, how can you simplify text and create options for people who can’t read? Do you have a plan for welcoming disabled people and introverts who might need more breaks, or different modes of participation? Are you overwhelmed yet? Don’t worry - it’s not always possible to meet everyone’s needs. But it is necessary to think ahead about how you can make your space welcoming to as many people as possible. Always include notes in your invite about accessibility, and always ask people ahead of time if they have any other accessibility needs.

Honor all voices. Give everyone a chance to speak early on. Even with a huge group or limited time, you can do a “one word” opener, or invite people to turn and talk with a partner. Let people pass if they wish - participation is always voluntary. And remember that someone’s “voice” can show up in different ways – for example, via drawing, gestures or movement. You can also consider sharing a sentence stem to help people speak up. This can be a simple but powerful way to create a cohesive group narrative, or even create a group poem or spoken word performance. For example, you can give participants one phrase to repeat, filling it in with words to express their lived experiences, struggles, ideas or dreams (I believe... / We need…. / This is the year that...).

Get people moving. Movement and mingling build kinetic energy. This can expand people’s sense of possibility, ease anxiety, and make the power in the room feel more fluid and evenly distributed. Invite people to move around the room, find someone they don’t know, and discuss a question for 3-5 minutes. (Let them know when they’ve reached the halfway mark, to ensure that both people have time to speak). Then they can mingle more, meet someone else, and discuss another question.

Embrace complexity. When coming up with conversation starters, play with the tension between so-called “opposites.” For example, “What are you really good at – and what are your challenges?” “What do you need to receive today – and what do you have to offer?” “What is really hard about these times – and what opportunities you see?” Complex questions help people to move beyond small talk and think in the “gray areas” between absolutes, which opens their minds to more possibilities.

Don’t be afraid to play. Play rewires the brain and fuels innovation. It helps us to look at things in different ways, and connect with each other in ways we can’t accomplish through conversation alone. So take a risk and try that game! Think about how you can make the game more than an “icebreaker.” Can the game be an embodiment of values? A form of storytelling? A way to learn and practice new skills?

Don’t ignore differences – get curious about them. It may be true that humans have more in common than not. But it’s important to acknowledge that different people in the room have different viewpoints and needs based on whether they come from marginalized identities, privileged identities, or a mixture of both. Remind participants to “move up, move back” – consider speaking up more if they have been marginalized, and commit to listening and learning more if they come from a more privileged background.

"Differences must be not merely tolerated,
but seen as a fund of necessary polarities
between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic."
-Audre Lorde

Give people opportunities to communicate at different levels. Different people shine in different contexts. One-on-one connections are just as important as group conversations. Throughout the course of an event, aim to stimulate conversation among the whole group, in small groups, and in pairs.

Think beyond voting. Many of us have experiences with simple majority voting, wherein the majority chooses something, and we put that choice into place for the entire group. Voting can be a good thing, especially for quick, low-stakes decisions such as whether to start a break now or in 30 minutes. But for other decisions, consider ways you can adjust the process so that everyone in the room gets what they need. For example, you can break into committees that work on different things, instead of voting to have everyone work on the same thing. You can use ranked voting, wherein people indicate their first, second and third choice, to get more accurate data on group priorities. And you can practice consensus decision making, inviting the group to discuss each option in depth, listen to any objections that people may have with an option, and negotiate modifications until everyone is satisfied with the result.

“When the true leader leads, the people say, ‘we did it ourselves.’”
- Lao Tzu

Ask for help. Many of us have been taught to be independent and do everything on our own. But when you try to run everything yourself, you’re not just risking burnout – you’re also communicating that you hold more power than others. If possible, get a co-facilitator, and delegate as many tasks as you can. Ask participants what they’re good at, and how they like to be involved. People like to feel useful. When you invite people to speak up, make decisions, or volunteer with simple tasks, they feel more ownership. When people feel ownership, they keep coming back - and they invite friends.

Get out of the way! Prioritize peer learning. If you have specific information or a presentation to share, keep it short. You may find that, after people have talked and shared their wisdom, you will only need to share a portion of the presentation you had planned. Condense your talk to focus only on what people still really need or want to know. You might want to skip the presentation altogether and share information in other ways – for example, people can look at handouts or a website, or do a “gallery walk” looking at informational posters on the walls, and then discuss it in groups while you circulate the room so you can answer questions, or just listen in and enjoy the sense of community that you have created. As a popular educator, it’s your job to step back whenever possible, so you can foster a culture where people go on learning and connecting long after your time together is done.

“We are the leaders
we’ve been waiting for.”
- Grace Lee Boggs

Tips for Virtual Facilitation

Use breakout rooms. Breakout rooms are not hard to use, but the process can feel intimidating if it’s your first time. Find a few people to help you practice setting them up before the day of the event. Breakout rooms are where magic happens – where you can get out of the way and let participants get to know each other. Just as you’d circulate a room in-person, you can visit different breakout groups to check in on your participants.

Invite people back into their bodies. It isn’t easy to stare into a screen for hours. Incorporate movement activities, or give participants time to stretch. Try brief somatic exercises. These can be as simple as asking people to take a few deep breaths; to look around their space in all directions; or to notice one smell, sight, sound, and physical sensation from their surroundings. Even 30 seconds of mindful embodiment can make people feel more present, calm, and ready to integrate new learning. You can also make the experience more three-dimensional by asking people to show an object that is meaningful to them; having a scavenger hunt to look for things with specific qualities; or making something together using common objects.

Go easy on the slides. Slides are great for sharing important information, a short video, or powerful images to get your participants thinking and feeling. But when slides are up, you are taking up most of the space while everyone else shrinks to a tiny box on the bottom or the side. Slides can diminish the sense that you are all present together in a virtual circle. Use them as little as possible.

Encourage cameras on - don’t require it. Tell people that you love to see them, and that having cameras on helps the group to feel their presence. But don’t pressure people. Blank screens may feel discouraging if you’re nervous, but many people have caretaking duties, health challenges, and busy lives. Appreciate that they still made the effort to come and listen. You’ll want their camera off anyway if they’re walking the dog, or trying to soothe a screaming child. That said, others may feel nervous about anonymous people lurking in the space, especially if the topic you’re discussing is sensitive. Invite people with their cameras off to unmute and speak a few words, or type something in the chat, to assure the group that they are present and in the right place.

Bring the circle to the screen. As always, creating a circle and having your participants speak in a specific order fosters a sense of shared power and equality. But most web hosting apps display groups as a grid, and the order in which one person sees everyone on the screen will be completely different than the order someone else sees. For a quick fix, share your screen so that everyone sees people in the same order you do. Your “circle” can go left to right, top to bottom, or you can create a clockwise spiral wherein people on the edges speak first, then people in the middle. If you can’t or don’t want to share your screen this way, you can simply type all the participants’ names into the chat to determine the circle order for the day. Remember to let people pass if they need to - and check in with them again at the end of the circle to ask if they’d like another chance.

0 Comments

POPULAR EDUCATION

Welcome