The way I see it

The facilitation exercise was a little intimidating in so far as preparing for it. I like to prepare for everything precisely and this was not an exercise that you could plan every detail. The idea was to facilitate the groups’ learning of how to facilitate learning in a group. There was no way to know how long each activity would last. I was really glad to have my team mates with me because they felt alright with how things were going to turn out and they helped put me at ease.

In the textbook – The Skilled Facilitator Fieldbook, Roger Schwartz defines  a facilitator as a neutral third party who is a  process expert.  He also defines four facilitative roles which are facilitative consultant, facilitative coach, facilitative trainer and  facilitative leader.   The last four roles are probably the roles that most of us are going to find ourselves in since  as employees in our work places we are not going to be neutral facilitators. In our group we took the facilitative trainer role to complete our first activity because we had studied our chapters about the “Drama Triangle” and “Exploring your contributions to problems”. We felt we had become content experts and we could help the class gain skills that they could apply to real situations in their life. We also took the role of facilitative coaches by encouraging the class to reflect on their behavior and thinking in order to find out how they may be contributing to their own problems,  and through reflection how they can get out of undesirable  situations.

Our group really enjoyed this exercise and we were very happy to see that the class (through evaluations) felt that they learned important lessons about facilitating groups. Furthermore, our group operated really well in this exercise. We had finally become a real team. We used technology to share ideas, work on ideas and to keep in touch. We also met in person as needed and this satisfied all the members of the group. I really feel that our group has come along way from the time we formed as a group and went through the storming and the norming phases.

It was also gratifying to see that the other two groups obviously were doing very well as teams judging from the excellent facilitation exercises. Everyone seemed very confident and the activities that we were asked to participate in were very enjoyable. I learned a lot about facilitating groups while having fun! The video about Melanie and Matt was a great pick to illustrate how Melanie and Matt could have done a lot better by jointly deciding the purpose and process of their conversation when they had their previous performance appraisal. This would have helped avoid the awkward situation they found themselves in later. The Mosaics also facilitated our looking at ourselves and finding our voices. The activity really helped me to look at my life and see my highs and lows and appreciate where I am now because of all my past experiences.

All in all the facilitation exercise went much better than we all expected and I am pleased!

This topic is very interesting to me because I work in a place where we have two groups working together all the time. The library on the Monroe campus and the health sciences library on the MCV campus are one library (group). At the same time we are also two groups. We have to work together all the time and that brings up some interesting inter-group dynamics. We strive to have the same policies and practices at all times but sometimes it becomes challenging just because we serve populations that sometimes have different needs. As a result we have numerous group activities and meetings to promote cohesiveness of us all as a big group. Conflict is resolved through directing efforts toward the common goal so that there is no competition between the two libraries. For the most part, things work very well. I think this is largely due to the fact that we all want to make sure that we achieve our goal of serving our users in the best possible way.

In their presentation of inter-group dynamics, the group “Not in Mayberry Anymore” discussed the group dynamics of the interaction between men and women. It is unfortunate for me that I am in a profession that is dominated by women so I don’t get to interact as much with men professionally. However, last week, while trying to explain the procedure for printing in the library to a non-VCU user, I got a real taste of a “manly interruption”. The person did not have the patience to let me finish explaining to him what he needed to do. He interrupted me and said, “I just want to print something” and handed me a public library card. I tried to explain to him again that he needs to purchase a ram bucks card. At that point, he decided to disrespect me and turned to somebody else for help, which was fine with me at that point.

As I was thinking some more about this topic, I thought about the International group of Richmond that I belong to. Most of us are foreign born and we are supposed to be similar in some way.  However, I find that even in this group, there are other little teams within the big group and there are inter-group dynamics going on as well. We have the men and women dynamics, those who work and the retirees, those who have lived in America for a long time and those who are “fresh of the boat”. The group tries to meet everybody’s needs but there is always negotiations here and there to make sure everybody is fine.  We also compete in a healthy way with other organizations when it comes to some of our activities especially charitable events. This inter-group competition serves everybody well because we all end up exceeding our expectations.

I am so happy that we worked really well in our group. We just needed to go over the initial hump in order to build cohesiveness which has helped us very much. We were able to communicate much better and this makes it possible for us to accommodate everybody’s learning styles and preferences.

We were able to use everybody’s strengths. I really appreciate Molly’s artistry and Emily’s “let’s just do it” attitude. I have tried to tame my obsessiveness  and was totally relaxed during this second project.

Working in any kind of a group is not easy but at the same time it is definitely rewarding. You have to go through the storming and the norming stages before you can become a functional group. I feel that we indeed have successfully gone through the first stages and we are more cohesive than we were when we first started working together.

Picking  leadership as our topic of presentation was easy. We had just been grappling with the issue of assigning leadership to the different projects.  Unfortunately, we had a lecture on leadership on the same day and this made our assignment a little bit more complicated. We did not want to necessarily repeat the same things that we had heard in class. So we had to come up with an angle that was a little different. We decided to make a presentation that would in the end tie together some of the major aspects of leadership.

The presentation was well received by our classmates judging from the evaluations we received at the end. I feel that as a large group, the class is also becoming more cohesive which makes it easy to relate to each other and offer feedback. It is also clear that our classmates understood our message that historically researchers have taken different approaches to studying leadership in an effort to understand the factors that make effective leadership.  The central theme in all these approaches is “the situation”. We also tried to shed light on the differences among the leadership styles of directing, coaching, supporting and delegating and the situations that work best for each of them. Alas – many a workplace and governments do not pay attention to these pairings and efforts and money are put into projects that go nowhere.

It is true that living in the real world does not give us choices in how things are done sometimes. We all want decision making to be done democratically, but unfortunately this takes more time and in most situations we do not have that luxury. I was involved with a situation at work recently where I watched one person bulldoze everybody into agreeing with what she wanted to do. The rest of the group of six did not think that the issue “Mary” was talking about was that important and we did not need to change the way we do things. “Mary” was adamant no matter what the rest of the group said. She got louder and louder and made the meeting very unpleasant. We finally just let her have her way in order to finish the meeting so we could go do other things. We did let her know though that it really was her decision and we did not like it but we knew that she was not going to back down. We also let her know that if anything negative came out of instituting this new measure, she was going to be held responsible. We pretty much made her direct us and she became our dictator but it was the easy way out. This has happened before because it is “Mary’s” nature to do things this way. I am sure that one of these days if it is an issue that we are all invested in, we will come up with a way to deal with her in a more constructive way.

The weeks we worked on the group paper were very challenging. We  worked on the group paper for more hours than I would normally work on a paper I was submitting by myself. I really think this is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. To make it worse, I was dealing with a lot of personal issues at the time and so it was just not the best time for a challenge of this sort. I cringe to think we have two more group projects! This is so hard but we all need to do better from now on.

We did not work very well together on the paper. We all had different ideas and also worked at different paces.  In short things just did not jell. However there is really not one person to blame for this.  We all could have communicated  better. We were really just getting to know each other and how we work. I did not expect it to be smooth selling, just did not expect it to be that hard too! Worse, I don’t think a group paper is the best assignment for me, people have different writing styles and they work at different paces!

As they say, what does not kill you, only makes you stronger. I feel we are much stronger than we were before this experience. We are now a little bit more comfortable to talk about the “pink elephant”  in the room which will help us work even better. We needed this wake up call to grow.  I appreciate my group mates, I really do!

Our group finally came up with a name that was acceptable to all three of us! It is really interesting to see how we are slowly becoming a team. We all have different personalities and so tend to do things differently. At the same time, everybody is very willing to work together. We realize we have a task to finish and we will get it done. We finished the team charter and we will try very hard to go by it.

I have a feeling that working in a group will help me to curb some of my procrastinating tendencies. Since we have imposed deadlines on ourselves, we all have to deliver on the days we are supposed to deliver. I don’t want to be  the person who is going to let our group down. So I have been working on all my parts and will have everything ready by tomorrow. Who knows maybe this class will really teach me better “student” habits that will serve me well for the rest of my lengthy  student career!

This group is also going to help me become more lucid as well. We had extensive discussions on several group dynamics issues. I think I talked a lot more than I usually do, even though twice I found myself unable to finish a sentence because it was a thought that I was expressing for the first time and I simply run out words. I am alright with this though because later, I was able to put my thoughts in writing on the wiki!

Yesterday I watched an episode of “Matlock” and it was an episode called “Jury”. I normally would not watch Matlock, it was just by chance that when I turned on the tele this episode was playing. It  is because of the Twelve Angry Men that I sat through the episode. I was really glad to see that it was updated with a more modern population including a short skirt wearing female and an African American female. Also the immigrant was a Hispanic man. Other than that, everything was similar with Ben Matlock taking the part of Henry Fonda. They accomplished all the bickering and conflict resolution and all the good stuff in less than an hour! I was thoroughly entertained when the African American woman laid down on the table to get the “bigot” to try and lift her as dead weight! Also the socialization at the end was a lot more extensive with Ben Matlock getting an invitation for a beer and the two oldest men getting a kiss each from the short skirted woman!

Both the movie Twelve Angry Men and the Matlock episode really bring home the challenges of working in a group especially when people have different ideas of what is right and what is wrong. Additionally people bring all sorts of previous experiences that shape their outlook in life and it is very difficult to change those preconceived ideas. However when you have a good facilitator who helps you all work out your differences and bring you to some sort of a consensus, it is so worth it. My biggest problem is that, I may pull back a lot just because I am afraid of hurting people’s feelings plus I don’t want anybody punching me!  I am also  afraid that I will say something that I will regret forever. We have an African saying,  “wherever you go, remember to leave behind your feet and not your mouth because the mouth will follow you wherever you go.” In other words, anything you say, stays out there and cannot be undone! I was truly shocked by some of the things said during the jury deliberations in Twelve Angry Men as well as in Matlock’s The Jury (two of the men even came to blows). Even though things were resolved in the end, those hurtful things said could not be undone. Yes, they came to an understanding in the end and they accomplished their goal, but at what cost?

I know a situation like this will never occur in our class group work because we are not like those men. We are far more superior! We are women and we are strong communicators! However, I am hoping that this will be a good experience and good practice or both for real interactions in our real lives at work and maybe with family? Maybe I will come out of this class armed with new tools for conflict resolution during group work. I don’t want to continue to be limited with my fear of hurting people to the extent of being unable to voice my true opinion for the sake of harmony.  There is a balance somewhere that I hope to be able to achieve. I also hope to learn to be more open to dissenting ideas and not see them as  threats  but rather opportunities to hear different viewpoints which may change my perspective .

I thought it would be easy to pick a name for our group but it turned out to be tough. First we thought we could think of what we have in common and all three of us have moved and lived in many places so we thought we might name ourselves “travelers” or “globetrotters” but it all seemed like names that have been overused. I kept on saying that it really didn’t matter what we called ourselves, its how we run our group to accomplish the task at hand is what’s important. I then decided to stop insisting that my fellow group members compromise on what is important to them so I am now just staying back,  waiting for them to come up with a name that will satisfy them and I would just go with it.  I am not practicing social loafing in the group but I am just staying back and letting them pick a name which they like.  I know they are intelligent, well meaning people and I like them so I am going to trust them with the name picking.  So without trying too hard we have figured out part of the dynamics of our group and I know we will be alright.

I have learned so much more than I thought in this class.  I have been interested in Adult learning for a long time but never took a class that concentrated in it.   There are many opportunities to teach adults.  It really helps to know some of the theories of adult learning because they make you understand how we learn.  I especially liked learning about Pratt’s Teaching  perspectives and learning about my personal teaching  styles.  I found that Teaching Perspectives Inventory very helpful in my teaching as well as my own learning.  I really liked the group discussion on that and to see how widely dispersed we all were as a group.   As for the first paper on our teaching philosophy, I liked writing it and discovering myself in the process but I was tortured with the APA style!  Painful as it was, I learned a lot about writing and I continue to learn!

I really enjoyed  the group interactions in this class.  It was especially nice to have people ranging from the medical field to the business field.   These different back grounds brought different perspectives to different issues during discussions.   I especially liked the discussion on transformative learning.   It showed that people were really interested in what we were learning and it was gratifying to see people unabashedly offering their own perspectives and personal examples.  I found the class  a very safe place to express oneself.

I also enjoyed reading my blog buddies candid and thoughtful blogs.   I cannot thank them enough for their help in this journey of adult learning.  Reading other people’s experiences and thoughts validated me at times when I wasn’t very sure about myself.  I realized that some of my thoughts weren’t that strange after all.   It was also heartening that some of my experiences were not that different from my classmates even though I was born and raised in a different place.

I think we are supposed to run our ideas by our class mates to make sure we are heading into the right direction, right? We have learned so much, I had a hard time choosing a topic! I really thought about it this past weekend and I finally chose a topic and started working on my paper.  I am writing mine on Self -directed learning (SDL) as it applies to my workplace in the library. So I am starting with  Knowles theory of andragogy, then moving into Houle and Tough’s research and then honing onto the interactive models of Spears, Brockett and Garrison. In the library we are very much concerned with the application of SDL for life long learning endeavors. It is almost like swim or sink;-)

Conscientization is used interchangeably with critical consciousness in some of the literature.  Conscientization is a concept that in adult education deals with social change. The concept was developed by  Brazilian education theorist named Paulo Freire.   Learners gain a deep understanding of their world so that they recognize the different forces in their world that may be oppressive. This new understanding of their world is a catalyst for taking control of their life and removing the oppressive forces thereby moving into a more democratic direction. Conscientization can be an ongoing process.

One would think that in a library which is supposed to be a place of work crawling with liberalism you would see little oppression. However that is far from the truth. Administrators try very hard to make it a very welcoming place but despite their best efforts, things do not always work out well for everybody. There is a big division between those who are technically savvy and those who just get by. Those who are good with technology put a lot of pressure on the ones who aren’t so good and make life difficult for them. It is not like these people aren’t trying but it just takes them longer to learn new things plus they don’t have a lot of the gadgets available to them at home.  They also have other abilities that are just as important for the library so we still need them. These employees can start taking advantage of the free technology training that is provided by the University and all the other training provided by the library. This may help them learn the technology fast. They can also get together as a group and remind their oppressors about their other strengths.  It is just as important that they have better  libraries ‘ knowledge, people skills, and teaching skills. They can rise up and command more respect and stop the oppression. Conscientization will allow this  group to become part of the solution to the problem because they will become self determining subjects rather than objects of the oppressors.

In some workplaces people who are introverts are marginalized. Pressure is put on them to be more outgoing, attending and participating in activities that make them feel uncomfortable. If they do not, they are penalized. No effort is made to try and understand these people and accommodate their personalities. Being active in every activity is not all that is needed to be a good employee because different people have different strengths. In this case the whole workplace becomes an oppressive environment.

This is also apparent in the world of library academia where library faculty are forced to publish a certain number of journal articles and books (or book chapters) in order to attain tenure or just to keep their job. I am glad VCU is not like that. In some cases the publications can only be in certain journals. As librarians, they still have to work 40 -50 hours a week and can only pursue their publication endeavors outside of work.  At the same time they are supposed to perform volunteer service to their communities so they are well rounded. That is a lot of oppressive pressure. It will take a collective social consciousness to correct this. The powers that be in those universities are the oppressive entities because they do not provide time for the librarians to pursue publishing and service activities. It is great to publish and keep up with scholarly activities but it would work better for the librarians if they were given time at work to pursue those activities.