Training for Change is a
non-profit training organization that has led hundreds
of workshops around the world to help groups stand up
for justice, peace and the environment through strategic
non-violence.
Training for Change uses a direct
education approach in its work with groups. As
described by Training for Change,
direct education is education that directly
confronts and challenges the current system of
injustice--including how people are taught.
Direct education goes beyond curriculm-based
experiential or popular education, which is often designed
to convey information to a group through participatory
exercises. Direct education adopts a group-centred approach
where the trainer designs and leads a workshop that helps
the group draw conclusions from its own expertise and
wisdom.
In December 2006, a group of education and communication
staff with the Canadian Union of Public Employees took part
in a "train the trainer" session led by George Lakey,
Executive Director of Training for Change. For a personal
account of the session, and an example of a direct
education experience, click here.
Elements of Training for Change's Direct Education Approach
(as described on Training for Change's web
site)
Emergent design
In our approach, facilitators learn how to plan the
beginning of the workshop and include diagnostic tools
within it, and then create the rest of the workshop in
light of the emerging needs and dynamics in the group,
staying loyal to the learning goals. In that way, the
facilitator stays open to what issues, challenges, and
growth edges the group presents. (Of course pre-designed
workshops can sometimes be highly effective, but emergent
design can make the most of the "teachable moments" which
arise.)
Workshop as laboratory
Experiential education is a four-step model: experience,
reflect, generalize, apply. Without application in the
workshop, the information is often not internalized, and
there is little difference back home. One way to design for
this challenge is to create the workshop as a lab in which
participants try new behaviors.
Difference/diversity as not only a content area, but a
theme running through the workshop
We believe an anti-oppression commitment shows up at every
level of facilitation (design, exercises used, etc).
Therefore, we are constantly paying attention to the
group's dynamics of its mainstream and margin, and stay
ready to support the group to go deeper.
Teachable moments on diversity often arise from unwitting
expression of stereotypes or sexist or other behaviors.
Because we are open to the group and use emergent design,
we use the teachable moments to the max. At a recent
Super-T the group worked for hours "peeling the onion"
after the facilitator observed that a growth edge for the
group was racism.
Different learning styles
Traditional education stresses reading, writing, and
lectures as the major modes of learning. We recognize
people learn in all sorts of different ways: visual,
auditory, through the body (kinesthetic), through heart
connection, and more. We therefore design for a diversity
of learning styles -- for example using Adventure Based
Learning exercises and other kinesthetic tools, instead of
relying only on auditory and visual learning channels.
Learning as risk taking
TFC trainers operate on the principle that deep learning is
change, and change requires risk, and the facilitator's job
is to invite risk and make it safe to risk. This not only
has design and facilitation implications (such as
intentional container-building), but also implies that the
facilitators themselves need to take risks, including the
risk of transparency to the participants.
There are many more characteristics of TFC's unique direct
education approach, especially when we move into the arena
of cross-cultural workshops, and how to teach diversity,
nonviolent action and strategy in nonjudgemental ways, but
this gives a taste of our work.