Key Insights from George Lakey’s book, “Facilitating Group Learning”

Posted on December 17, 2010 | 1 comment

I recently finished reading George Lakey’s new book, Facilitating Group Learning: Strategies for Success with Diverse Adult Learners.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book because it provides a clear description and examples of what experiential education, or what Lakey calls direct education, is and entails.  Having been an experiential educator for several years now, Lakey and his colleagues at Training for Change, have become a real source of learning for me and my work.  Below are several key insights from the book:

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Civil Resistance and the Dynamics of Nonviolent Conflict

Posted on December 10, 2010 | Leave a comment

This week I finished facilitating ICNC’s  eight-week course, Civil Resistance and the Dynamics of Nonviolent, which is offered in partnership with the United States Institute of Peace.  This is the second iteration of this course – by far the most popular fall 2010 course offered through USIP’s academy – and we’ve made some significant improvements from last time.

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Interview with West Papuan Activist, Herman Wainggai

Posted on November 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

One of the best parts of my job is having the opportunity to meet amazing people who are on the front lines of nonviolent movements across the world.  Earlier this year, I started an online initiative interviewing nonviolent action takers in order to share the stories, experiences, and perspectives of these individuals and their movements so that the rest of the world may be made aware of their struggle.  In this interview I speak with Herman Wainggai, a leader in West Papua’s self-determination struggle.

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Gandhi-King Conference on Peacemaking

Posted on October 25, 2010 | Leave a comment

This past weekend, I attended the Gandhi-King Conference on Peacemaking in Memphis, TN.  This was the second time I have attended and presented at the conference and definitely plan on attending again next year.  The conference brings together a great group of educators, activists, and organizers interested in various topics related to peace, conflict resolution, community organizing, and social justice.  Download the full conference program here.  This year I had a lot more time to meet and learn from all the other amazing participants since I was there for the whole event, as opposed to three years ago, when I missed half the conference because I got lost and ended up roaming the streets of Memphis for five hours.

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The Digital Duel: Resistance and Repression in an Online World (Webinar)

Posted on October 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

This past Thursday I presented my very first webinar, The Digital Duel: Resistance and Repression in an Online World, which looked at the emerging role of digital tools, new media, and the Internet in waging nonviolent struggle across the world.  It also looked at how repressive regimes are also using these same tools to censor and clamp down on dissent and civic mobilization.

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Learn-Serve International Workshop

Posted on October 3, 2010 | Leave a comment

Learn-Serve students at the end of their weekend retreat

This weekend, three of my training colleagues and I went out to the For the Love of Children’s Outdoor Education Center in Harper’s Ferry, VA to facilitate a workshop on cross-cultural learning with students in the Learn-Serve International program.  Learn-Serve brings together high school students from all over the Washington, DC area to work in teams throughout the year, developing and implementing a social entrepreneurship project that addresses a need in their community.

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Honoring Colman McCarthy

Posted on October 2, 2010 | 1 comment

Me and Colman McCarthy at the El-Hibri Foundation

Last night, my wife, Alyson and I attended a peace education award ceremony honoring Colman McCarthy – one of the most dedicated and committed peace educators I have ever met.  The Ibrahim El-Hibri Foundation presents this award annually to a influential peace educator.  Past winners have been Dr. Mary Elizabeth King, Dr. Abdul Aziz Said, and Scott Kennedy.

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Peace and Diversity Day at Alice Deal Middle School

Posted on October 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Working with students during my presentation

Today, I gave a presentation on nonviolent civic action to 300 8th graders at Alice Deal Middle School in Washington, DC.  I was invited by one of the school’s teachers, Terrence Ngwa, who was also a participant in my peace education class during the summer of 2009.  This was really fun experience, not only because I got to catch up with Terrence, but I also got to meet a lot of amazing students at Alice Deal and some other presenters doing excellent work in the fields of peace, conflict resolution, human rights, and diversity training.

My presentation broke the students up into four different groups.  Students in each group were asked to partner up with the person next to them to talk about their understanding of different concepts related to nonviolent civic action.  The first group looked at “human rights,” the second group looked at “conflict,” the third group looked at “resistance,” and the fourth group looked at “power.”  After everyone was given at least 5 minutes to discuss, I asked a few of the students to come up to the front and present their definition/understanding of these concepts.  As they presented I wrote down their ideas on a piece of flip chart paper.

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International Day of Peace at Baltimore’s Friendship Academy

Posted on September 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

Friendship Academy students working on their peace mural

Today I spent the day at the Friendship Academy Charter School in Baltimore, MD, where the faculty and staff had organized a series of workshops in recognition of the International Day of Peace.

My colleague, Jake Fitzpatrick, and I facilitated a series of workshops for about 150 high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors (3 sessions of 40-50 students each).  Our workshop had students first think about some of their own experiences where they felt they contributed to creating a more peaceful environment – whether it be cooking dinner for a loved one, breaking up a fight in school, lobbying for a social justice cause, or stepping away from a potentially combative situation and taking a deep breath to prevent one’s anger from lashing out.  We then talked a bit about the history and mission of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict and how its an organization that actually educates and teaches people how to fight in order to stand up for one’s rights, resist oppression, and bring forth a more just and free society.

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Fall 2010 Semester Begins at American University

Posted on September 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

This fall semester, my dad and I will once again be teaching the course, Education for International Development. Each semester teaching this course (and this is our third), we are trying to find new ways to better engage the students with the subject, explore new teaching methods, and experiment with new online learning platforms.

In past semesters we have used the social networking service, Ning, which served our purposes pretty well, especially since it creates a Facebook type experience with which most students are familiar. However, Ning got rid of its free service, so we decided to use a different online platform to host our course discussions and materials and we chose wordpress.  Check out the class website to see how we set it up.

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Posted in Digital Strategy, Education/Training