Falling Up

On Saturday, I went to a Youth Peace Summit hosted by a local peace organization.  I wanted to observe their workshops- they offer conflict resolution training for youth in the area.  I got to observe one workshop called “Keeping the Peace” (and several others, but just one on CR directly).  It was interesting to watch.  The workshop was led partially by an adult but mostly by 2 teens facilitating.  I will say that I was very impressed with these two young teens, who had never led a workshop before.  It is also very hard to lead a workshop for your peers, but these two did a very good job and were very prepared.  Observing the presentation was very affirming for me, because I had a chance to SEE what the results were of someone else’s program planning.  In some cases, I wondered if the presenters (not just the 2 teens) had considered their audiences:  teens don’t ususally like to listen to lecture for an hour, noise from other workshops was distracting to them, etc.  I noticed some great workshop ideas on the flyer where the actual presentation was not nearly as organized or purposeful as I would have hoped.  And so on. Basically, I felt relieved and confident that I am putting the right amount of preparation and contemplation into my own workshops.  Not to knock these folks though- the summit was great!  It just makes me appreciate the value of my adult learning courses.  Just because you are a subject matter expert does not make you a good presenter or facilitator.  I am hoping to get more involved with this group in the future, and I mentioned to the director that I’d be interested in helping design and develop their training programs.   It would be worthwhile if I could be of assistance; this group is doing a LOT in our city.