Unit 1 Facilitator Time

I facilitated the first unit out of five - the Agriculture Unit. I chose to do the first unit because I wasn't particularly interested in any one topic and I wanted to get the facilitating responsibilities out of the way and really immerse myself into the rest of the semester.

There were five people in my facilitation group - Eileen, Kati, Julie and Sara Weber. I was already pretty close friends with Eileen and Kati - we had bonded quite a lot through our senses of humor during orientation, but I wasn't too close with Julie and Sara.
Before we started facilitating, I had no idea what we were doing, what we were supposed to do and what the group wanted us to do. We were going in quite literally blind. Two out of the four program facilitators were going to help us through the unit and they started by holding a meeting for us so we could share our strengths and  weaknesses. While the meeting was relatively useful in terms of accurately defining my own strengths and weaknesses, I have to admit that I found out a lot more through my actual experiences of working with my fellow uFacs.

I'm afraid I'm kind of falling asleep right now and I'm about to go on my last unit trip (Unit 5) tomorrow - so I'm having trouble remembering everything right now.
Ultimately, I just wanted to note how different it is to be facilitating and then to be a regular group member. When you're facilitating, you have to make sure your fellow students in the group are getting the most of the unit and the exchanges during our homestays. Before we go into the villages, we read our reading packets with several different articles so we know the global and national context before going to the villages. We as facilitators plan for the reading discussions and the briefings and what roles we would play. We spent a good amount of time trying to come up with creative activities and deeply engaging questions so the group would be excited or passionate about the unit all on an equal level. Then, with each exchange, we talk to villagers, NGOs, government officials, and community leaders - all on different days, different times. With at least four exchanges per unit, you have to be sure that each exchange is unique in the information it offers - it shouldn't get repetitive or dull.
Being a facilitator didn't mean that we were big "leaders" of the group. We were there to learn just as much as the student group and we were constantly group members just as we were unit facilitators, so it wasn't as if we were to separate ourselves from the group. That's why the term is "facilitator" and not "leader" - I value the difference now that I've been in both roles before and now I realize that what I thought was previously a leadership role was probably more a facilitator role.
For example, being a choreographer for FlipDis FunkDat might be considered a leadership role but I see it more as a facilitator role - a role in which I learned just as much as my group did. I think a leader is slightly separated from his/her group - they are there to teach or lead based on what they already know and the leadership skills they possess. But facilitating involves more group skills - skills that involve conflict resolution, honesty, teamwork and self-analysis - and I learned more about facilitation through working with the group than before. My role was very dependent on how the group was feeling or what direction the group was supposed to take, while taking into my account my own learning. So perhaps what I'm trying to say is that facilitation is more dependent on the group than leading.
I'll have to flesh that out later.
Nevertheless, it was eye-opening - I thought I would get sick of the word facilitation, but I see that the word's usage is very intentional and accurate in describing exactly how students fit into the program....
Now I wonder...

what else am I going to facilitate and will I continue to know the difference between leadership and facilitation in the future?

Open Your Mind

I'm a little too lazy right now to want to be thinking about the deeper things so here is my second newsletter submission that has some of my deeper thoughts in a cohesive piece. 
This blog is definitely going to be all over the place - the previously intended chronological order is in shambles. But not to worry, it'll still make sense and it'll all still be blogged about!

            During the Unit 2 homestay trip to forest communities, I found myself worn out from the thorough and content-heavy exchanges we tackled throughout the day. Every time I came back to my host mother’s house in Toong Lui Lai village, however, I discovered there was always something more to talk about, always something more to discuss. Whether we were half distracted by Thai soaps playing in the background or mindlessly chewing on leftover kao niao (sticky rice) after an amazing dinner, my peers and I would end up talking about things like politics, cultural differences, group process and religion. Nights when I expected to simply settle down on a full stomach instead became discussion-filled evenings that opened up whole new perspectives to me. Because the 3 other students staying in the house and I had such varying experiences and opinions, we often struggled to understand each other’s views.  I consider myself a conservative and religious individual, so sharing my personal opinion on subjects like Christianity and Buddhism amongst my liberal, agnostic peers wasn’t always easy. I became very much more aware of the words I said and the words I heard. One commend a pper made struck me in particular:  “I don’t know if I’m being close-minded or if I just have strong values…” she mused.   

We often hear the words “open-minded” or “close-minded” to describe a person when it comes to sensitive topics of fundamental differences. With that, there exists pressure to appear open-minded so one does not seem stubborn or intolerant. But I often struggled with whether that also pressured us to give up or silence our own values for the sake of demonstrating that we could be flexible or accepting of everyone else’s values if ours weren’t good enough or in the minority.  Because many of the students on this program have ardent values, like eating vegetarian and supporting organic agriculture, there were many times when different perspectives certainly challenged us to question the foundational strength and validity of our beliefs.

So far, my interactions with the people in this program have led me to this conclusion: there is a fundamental difference between having a strong set of values and being “close-minded”. One should never have to compromise strong values in order to appear open-minded because strong values incorporate acknowledgment, awareness and understanding of other points of view. Developing a set of strong values through an understanding of multiple perspectives is only achieved by trial by fire.  The process of challenging and being challenged by others refines and reinforces our values; it doesn’t close our mind to all else. I’ve come to appreciate the program more by discovering the foundation behind the values of my peers and I possess a newfound respect for them and how they interact with the development of my own. Here’s to kao niao and late-night conversation. 

The Structure

Two months now and I've finally figured out how the program works enough to explain it.
Sorry I've been so MIA.

The program's certainly very different from any other study abroad program I've heard of. In my opinion, its focus is on contemplative/alternative education and activism. The first - contemplative education sounds kinda hinky, I know. Now that I think about it, it's hard to describe what exactly it might be. It's education combined with a constant sense of awareness, contemplation and perspective (says Wikipedia). For example, our group once had a reflection on education and what our definition of education was, whether we had ownership over our education, etc. It means constant reflection, discussion, evaluation and meditation - A LOT OF IT.
The second part is about active learning - taking action drawing from the things you learn or research. But it's not necessarily doing as you see fit but being interactive with those you get information from and making sure it's always in accordance with what they've said or suggested. Hence a class on Social Research Methods - I have yet to figure out what that exactly means.
The program themes that we always try to tie into are - human rights, anti-oppression, development, globalization, grassroots and community.

So with that in mind, there are 5 different units/subjects they're having us learn about. Units include a reading packet, discussions on readings, a briefing to prepare for exchanges with different people, homestays, a workshop to discuss what we've learned and Next Steps to decide what we want to do with the experiences we had. We've already completed the first two - Agriculture and Land. The next is a Collaborative Community Consultation - which basically means it's open to whatever we collaborate with the communities on. The next two are Water and Mining. For the Agriculture Unit, we learned about organic sustainable agriculture on a global and Thai context - basically the Thai government was pushing for a lot of herbicide and pesticide use but some villages are going organic and integrated. Which means their food was delicious.
For the Land Unit, we learned about national parks and land preservation in conflict with forest villages who had land taken away from the government. Long story short, the Thai government was unaware of villagers living in the forests they were attempting to preserve and the process of getting community land titles has been a struggle for the villagers. So in a lot of ways, we were seeing a lot of program theme connections - violations of human rights, communities involved in grassroots movements, etc.

Now for the roles: program facilitators, teachers (ajaans), process facilitators, and unit facilitators.
yay for facilitation. IT'S EVERYWHERE.
Program facilitators are the interns - past CIEE students who come back as part of the program and take part in how the student group participates. They're not necessarily in charge once the student group knows how the program structures work. We've got 4 female P'Facs this year - they've all already graduated from undergrad. They're awesome because they recognize much of our experiences and they get to live in their own house and drive motorcycles with an international license.
Teachers (ajaans) - We've got 3 Thai Ajaans - they're all awesome and adorable. Then we've got Ajaan Dave - the director of the program - he gives us lectures and cultural exercises on Thailand. He's awesome because he has a PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison (right where my family used to live) and because he's lived in Thailand long enough to be rather fluent and be a monk for some time. We've also got a translator, Aj. John, who's half Thai and half Filipino. He graduated from KKU, likes wearing green shirts and plays the electric guitar LIKE A BEAST. Along with that, we have a lot of other professors come in for guest lectures from other universities or NGOs.
Process Facilitators: These are fellow students - my peers. Because group process is such a huge thing (that's gonna be explained soon), five of the students in our group have this role to basically make sure we don't kill each other in discussions or create drama like its our own Glee show. They improve on facilitation and communication skills within the group. It was quite the process to decide who these people would be. So far they've held workshops on constructive feedback and accountability. They're awesome because they're fun, honest, patient and creative - so far,they've done great jobs being process facilitators and peers.
Unit Facilitators: Again, fellow students. Everyone who isn't a ProFac has to be a UFac for one unit at some point. UFacs have the academic responsibility during units - their job is to organize all the unit-relevant activities like the reading discussions, exchanges and workshops so the student group gets the most out of each unit and has a complete understanding of the issues and themes.
I was UFac for Unit 1 - advantage: getting it over with quickly before the assignments pile up. disadvantage: going in blind - no models or examples to draw from. That experience will be left for another blog post.

Hope this made a little more sense - it's quite the unique program. :)