Poster for the event
A lot of the ideas came from reading this text: Being safe from what and safe for whom? A critical discussion of the conceptual metaphor of ‘safe space’ byKarin K. Flensner & Marie Von der Lippe, you can find the article here.
Opening Activities:
– Physical actions/stretching
Stand in a circle 1 person chooses a stretch and we all follow. These can also include vocal and breathing exercises!
– Position Mapping
Stand around an object in a circle. Choose 1 topic (e.g. gender) and people position themselves close to the object or far from it according to:
- Experience/knowledge of this topic.
- Comfort in discussing the topic in a group.
- Desire to discuss the topic in a group
– Dog and Cat
Point to 3 places in the room and label 1 Cat, 1 Dog and 1 Don’t care!
Ask people to stand in the place for which animal they prefer.
Then ask who is willing to explain their answer?
– Listening Exercises
1. In pairs: Describe to each other the kind of holiday you want to have without mentioning a destination. When the first person has finished describing this the other person has to then suggest a destination.
2. In pairs: Describe a positive memory to the other person. The facilitator secretly tells the other person to be silent and count every time a question comes into their head. When everyone is finished ask the people:
Was it comfortable or easier to talk when the there person was silent? How many questions did the other person think of? Was it difficult not to interrupt? Then as the questions!
These activities have a number of uses and reasons. The primary one is that they bring the group together and create a relaxed environment, especially the stretching at the beginning which can also be used in the middle of sessions when energy is getting low etc. How we interact with one another and our behaviour in a Learning Space is important and therefore each activity had a specific goal.
Position Mapping allows the group to express themselves without words and demonstrates how comfortable each other are with certain topics.
Dog and Cat question is quite cliche but its also an easy first question for the group to begin to express themselves verbally. Another important element is to give a reason for our choice. This is to emphasise this element of discussions which aids understanding even if individuals disagree. Always giving explanations is another method that distances opinions from the individual lessening the possibility of personal attack.
The listening exercises are self-evident in their reasoning, but I believe listening is really underrated and perhaps even taking breaks in the middle of discussions to do listening exercises (or any activity) can re-focus participants in discussions and become more aware of others and not just their own opinions/ideas.
‘Discussions’
1. Ask the group to think Individually about a prejudice they have/had and a situation where someone has challenged you on this. Ask yourself, Were you defensive?
For this exercise we didn’t share our thoughts… Its an exercise to begin a behaviour of personal reflection.
2. Split the group into smaller groups (3 or 4 people per group)
Ask the group to discuss: What is a positive learning space?
What is needed to achieve this? How can you achieve this?
After discussion present to the other group your ideas and write the points so everyone can see.
Notes from the workshop
3. Individually think: What makes you feel safe and/or comfortable to express yourself?
What is needed? What are the characteristics?
Who is there?
Where is it/are they?
Then in a different configuration of the groups share with each other these characteristics.
After this smaller group discussion present to the other group your ideas and write the points so everyone can see.
Notes from the workshop
4. Place the lists side by side and discuss: Are there differences between the two lists?
Notes from the workshop
Pre-planning Activity
The whole group (or if it is big, smaller groups) is given a situation.
e.g. A public school in Athens, Gymnasium (age 15). You are using the whole lesson to discuss the topic Immigration.
Ask the group to write down practical things they as ‘facilitators’ of the discussion can do to prepare for the Learning Space.
During this activity specific points can be elaborated upon, specific ideas pushed further and planned or opposing views can be discussed. The point is to think about an actual situation, but more importantly to think about the participants and how different social backgrounds can influence discussion. In this way the activity is important because you can change the location of learning environment (school, forest, work place, assembly etc.) and change the theme/topic (immigration, racism, gender, environment etc.) to explore different issues and different ways to prepare and deal with them.
The main elements of this activity to think about and discuss:
- The facilitators idea of safety may be different to participants’*
- The outside world is not ‘the same’ as a learning space (although all issues are still transferred)
- Discussion vs Safety
- To illustrate this I read out these quotes from the above article:
…it is not possible for teachers to be sure that what they perceive as a safe classroom is experienced as safe for all the students.
…the experience of safety is closely related to power relations and identity issues…Arao and Clemens are critical towards the defined ground rules of safe space as they tend to conflate safety and comfort.
Notes from the workshop
Thoughts about this activity when we did it:
Firstly we ran out of time during this activity and we didn’t get the chance to explore fully the ideas that came up. Personally I would have liked to discuss further the importance of participants’ background, experience of the world and their influences. This is a fundamental element to breaking down hierarchy in learning and is often most challenged during controversial conversations and where the facilitator chooses to position themselves. This is perhaps a topic that can cover an entire other workshop.
However, what was clear was that during workshop there was a general feeling that Learning Spaces should be Safe Spaces, or at least try to be, and yet when we came to this final activity and we pre-empted the possibility of controversial opinions and offence as well as taking into consideration background of participants it was clear that maintaining a safe space would be difficult. These ideas were expressed when we talked about the differences between safe spaces and learning spaces but having a concrete situation in which it is clear that not all participants enter the space with a similar perspective or from a similar place grounded the conversation and used examples. This discussion could continue much further but for me the below are important elements that need expanding for ourselves:
– Awareness of participants (background, social, influence) and pre-judgements we make.
– Awareness of our selves as facilitators (background, social, influence).
– Power of facilitator for instigating themes/topics. How does this power relate to our power within society and comfort in discussing difficult topics?
– Tools and activities to lay the ground for positive environments within Learning Spaces.
– Tools and activities for reflecting and highlighting behaviour and communication within Learning Spaces.