Megaworkshop

Introduction
Commonground, September 18-29, 1992, Spring.  Twelve nonviolence educators
worked our way through an intensive, demanding, rewarding "Mega-Agenda" to
hone and develop our teaching and learning skills.

Facilitator Glen says every exercise in a workshop ought simultaneously
accomplish two or three things, in different realms of perception.  Much
attention was paid to identifying (naming) and integrating the physical,
emotional, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of what we do.

There can be no better testimony to this process than the extent of group
solidarity and personal empowerment which emerged for participants in this
workshop.  The concluding ceremony and celebration made clear to us a renewed
energy and sense of direction for our practise of nonviolence and nonviolence
education.

Special mention must be made of the Commonground Co-operative.  The
facilities and process they offered were a concrete (rammed earth)
manifestation of a vision we can all share.... a comfortable, simple,
appropriate way to live in community and harmony with our planet.  Good
people and good process make an unbeatable combination.

Pragmatics

Group-Building
Our workshop started with introductions, sharing, commitments, needs, and
ceremony.  This was the exclusive business of our first Friday evening.  It
continued as an overt aspect through the next day, and remained as an
integrated presence throughout.  It helped us build trust in each other, and
in the extent of our shared feelings and experience.

Each day started with a sharing/energy ritual around a candle, goddess, and
assorted sacred objects collected and contributed by participants. Here we
could invoke the energies of our planet, its peoples, what has gone before,
and what is yet to be.  We could, and did, send energy to people and places
in need.  Over the course of the workshop, these rituals deepened in their
presence and power.

Every person has a right to their spiritual beliefs.  Many people on our
planet today are caught by materialism, and have no spiritual beliefs.  In
teaching others, and particularly in introductory workshops, the extent of
spiritual sharing and exploration must be matched to participants' needs and
willingness.  However we all agreed spirituality is an essential component of
bringing a nonviolent future into being.

Content
We spent considerable time looking at four 'areas' of nonviolence - Power,
Conflict, Conceptions of nonviolence, Strategy and tactics.

We looked at these in detail, both to improve our own understanding, and to
explore and practise ways of teaching.  Robert provided some wonderful
conceptual frameworks, and Glen gave many useful insights on the
teaching/learning experience.

We developed and honed a series of exercises addressing each of these areas.
Some were tried and true, like small-group reading and sharing of case
studies.  Others were delivered whole by Robert, Glen, or other participants,
like the needs/conflict session.  Yet others were adapted/presented/developed
in workshop time, like small-group body sculpture to build "power over" and
"power with" models, or the 300-year time line intro to strategy/tactics, or
"the Big Picture".

We learned lots of new games.

Near the end of our workshop, we designed a framework for our optimal
Introductory Workshop.  Practically, we felt two days was the maximum time we
could expect people to commit to a basic intro. Everything takes time, so we
hived off whole sections of nonviolence to 'follow-up' or 'advanced'
workshops for those who were interested.

Group Process, for instance, was relegated to the 'deep structures' of an
intro workshop, with only a few basics such as reflective listening and "I
statements" being raised at the beginning as tools of learning and exchange. 
More concentrated work on consensus, task-sharing, leadership, rotation,
maintenance, were left to future opportunity.

We also found time to discuss and organise a general framework for 'planning'
or 'clarity' workshops for group who want to examine, evaluate, and improve
their aims, goals, tactics, organisation and direction.

Margaret is still tapping on the Commonground Apple, getting all our
exercises, agendas, and 'lessons we learned' into a useful form for
distribution.  This will be a valuable resource for all of us.

Process
We reached agreement on some broad principles of teaching nonviolence.

First, start with the real-life experience and feelings of those doing the
workshop.  This engages them at a fundamental level of being, and opens them
up to a deep learning experience.  If teaching is done on a purely
intellectual basis, it will turn off some participants, and disadvantage
others.

By way of illustration, we started our session on conflict by asking for
individual reflection, followed by small-group discussion of "What things do
you need in order to be fully human?".  Using this pattern, we progressed to
an understanding of conflict as needs-based, and obstacles to resolution as
both personal and structural.

This led us naturally into the section on strategy and tactics, and it kept
us engaged at all levels.  Question and exercises to de-stress the body, and
open up the feeling and spirit realms were sprinkled throughout each session.

Second, when 'bad' or 'scary' feelings emerge, they must be addressed.  In a
world as wounded as ours, fear, anger, shame, powerlessness, and despair,
will be present in most of the people, and all of the groups we deal with. 
By opening up the feeling realm for teaching, we also open it up for these to
emerge.  When they do, they must be acknowledged and dealt with.

This doesn't mean they have to be "solved" or "made better".  After all,
someone who's been carrying fear, shame, and anger for twenty years because
they were abused as a child will not be able to "solve" those feelings in a
two-day workshop, even if that's all there was to do.  They will know that,
yet these feelings may surface in a discussion on patriarchy, assault,
ruthless opponents, or other topics in a nonviolence workshop.

We learned that it is often enough to acknowledge the feeling, its depth and
validity, and ask for it to be named.  When named, it may be appropriate for
the person to put it aside and work with it themselves later, or give it some
group attention through role-play/socio-drama.

We had enough time in our workshop, and a facilitator skilled enough to deal
with many of our own feelings when they emerged.  By way of illustration, it
became clear how many deep unresolved issues there are for nonviolence
activists who attended the AIDEX actions earlier this year.  Frustration,
fear, anger, and powerlessness were still carried by many in our group,
blocking energy.

While we were able to do some work with this in our group, we learned the
valuable general lesson about needing to debrief effectively after actions,
particularly after stressful and/or 'failed' actions.  Melbourne-based
activists intend to conduct an AIDEX debriefing soon.  Better late than
never.

Third, we must offer frameworks of understanding in which people can place
their experience and existing knowledge.  This is the formal presentation of
nonviolence theory and content.  It comes after people have been engaged, yet
we must be clear in ourselves about what we know and teach.  We must
acknowledge our own limits openly, and be willing to learn from others. 
Workshop participants bring their own wisdom with them.

Techniques
Two general techniques deserve special mention - reflective listening and
performance.

Much of the role-play/socio-drama work we did centred around our worst
workshop experiences.  Many of these contained wounded and/or despairing
individuals.  Some were dominators and disrupters.  Some were ego-driven
unhappy children in adult bodies.

Reflective listening (heart listening) was an effective tool of first resort
for each of these 'problem' people.  Reflective listening is trying to fully
understand what another is saying.  Not judging or reacting, just trying to
hear, to get into the skin of, the other's point of view.  Then repeating it
back to check if you have heard correctly.

The use of reflective listening was powerful in all instances.  People often
calm down just knowing they have been heard.  It lets them clarify their own
thoughts/feelings, and provides a basis for negotiation/agreement.

Performance of all kinds was a feature of the workshop.  It started with some
body-sculpture exercises and singing on the first Friday evening, and
continued into role-play, socio-drama, playback theatre, and improvisational
theatre.  Using the body, either still or in motion to convey thoughts and
feelings is a rich, textured means of both self-exploration and
communication.  It frees energy and intuition, and makes deep connections.

On the night before the workshop ended, we gave each other, and everyone at
Commonground four pieces of performance that kept everyone laughing and happy
for the duration.  We were all wonderful.

Leadership
The nature of leadership came up on occasion, and we examined some of our
common "oobly-gooblies" about it.  We agreed in the end that leadership was
neither fascist, nor tied up in rescuing people or situations.

Notions of leadership have been corrupted by so many centuries (millennia) of
"power over" and institutional authority.  In nonviolence we recognise the
better alternative reality of "power with", which is based on personal power,
or "power within".  In teaching nonviolence we stress the need for everyone
to develop their power within on a basis of truth, love, and cooperation.

In "power with" groups, leadership will change according to circumstance,
experience, intuition, knowledge, clarity, luck.  Everyone has a right to an
opinion, but distinguishing between opinions according to the circumstance is
the task of both individual and group.  It is the source of wisdom.

Power with leadership is being clear about ourselves, our abilities, motives,
and limits.  Trusting ourselves we may speak and act as we feel appropriate. 
Acknowledging others' right to do the same, and listening to them. 
Remembering the aphorism "none of us is as smart as all of us".  Leadership
will rotate.

In workshops, we need not value all opinions equally so much as their open
expression.  Judgment of issues may be asked for and offered.  We should not
be afraid to show our knowledge and experience.  Indeed, as educators, we
should demonstrate them as clearly as possible.

Being clear about our limits, we must also be clear about our own energies
and interests when confronted with difficult situations or requests for help.
Many nonviolence activists are literally trying to save the world.  This
makes us natural rescuers of people in trouble.  We often try to rescue
impossible situations, and burn out in the attempt.

It is always inappropriate to rescue people, particularly if we haven't been
asked. For instance, people do not grow strong being rescued from situations
they could deal with themselves.  Nor do they grow wise being protected from
the consequence of their own actions.  Or learn if we mouth empty encouraging
platitudes instead of our real opinions and feeling.  We must trust in
others' ability to deal with honest, constructive criticism, just as we trust
in our own.

We are also allowed to value our own time and ask for process agreements as a
part of any workshop or action that we participate in.  People who won't make
agreements are often unable to work co-operatively, and are destructive to
group process.  We do not have to work with them, nor they with us.  Free
choice is essential to nonviolence.

What we can do is practise nonviolence as well as we can, and develop our own
power and abilities.  Encourage others to empower themselves.  Be willing to
work co-operatively in community and areas of need.  Be willing to teach and
share.  Demonstrate by example.  Be open to change.

Decision about the Future
We concluded our workshop with discussions about the future.

We agreed to abandon the term "nonviolence training" in favour of nonviolence
education or nonviolence teaching.  We felt it not only reflected a better
sense of the value of what we do, it also recognises that people learn
actively for themselves, and are not the mere passive recipients of wisdom
from elsewhere.

We agreed to be flexible in our naming of workshops, making them relevant and
attractive to the intended participants.  They should be a realistic
reflection of the content, and should include nonviolence in the title or
sub-title.

We agreed to extend our links with activist organisations, linking education
with real issues and practice, but with a realistic timetable of what can be
achieved.  (Rescuing impossible situations is off the agenda, as is working
with people who won't make agreements).  All participants were taking their
new insights, knowledge and skills back to local activist groups, or out to
international organisations.

Many of us agreed to participate/continue in the national phone link-up, and
to create a section of it for nonviolence education.  One of us at least
feels the telephone an instrument of Satan.

Participants from Melbourne agreed to maintain, refine, and extend their
local network of facilitators.  Identifying areas of competence and interest,
sharing available resources, and referring requests for assistance across the
network as appropriate.

Conclusion
This was a ten day workshop, with a one day weekend in the middle.  We came
away with great energy and feeling.  For this there are many people to thank;
the residents and people of Commonground, the wonderful cooks who fed us
nectar for the duration, Glen, Margaret, and Robert for their teaching and
organisation, the Quakers and Lance Reichstein Foundation for funding.

This was a ten day workshop, and there's lots I didn't get to say.  This
article is my own work.  The workshop was a wonderful experience for us all:
Glen, Margaret, Sue, Kay, Mark, Robert, Bryan, Kevin, Helen, Isabel, Patsy,
Paul.
Bryan Law