Here's how design, education and change go together, according to Emily Pilloton. Get local. Enough said!
Local design is most sustainable when it’s an educational process,
nurturing new sensibilities from the inside out, rather than from the
outside in.
...The work that is possible for a designer to do in a rural community is
completely different than what’s possible in any city or design firm.
Design as a means to overcome challenges is nonexistent, so the
possibilities to inspire change abound. But design is also misunderstood
and scoffed at as “fancy stuff for rich people.” That’s why we decided
to move to Bertie County permanently and create a design-build
high-school curriculum with Dr. Zullinger. We didn’t want to just be
“creative consultants.” We wanted to build something from within and
teach the young people of eastern North Carolina that design is first
and foremost a sensibility that allows individuals to solve problems in
different ways [my emphasis].
...Local design has an identity beyond a program’s branding because it has
an ownership by real people and it requires person-to-person
communication. Local design is wood and metal and eye contact and
handshakes.
A small, but powerful question, when you involve people in some self-reflection.
We are putting together a workshop for mental health service providers at the end of the month and part of the process during the workshop is to encourage and support participants to 'stay with their hearts' and not to too quickly seek out solutions to issues raised during the workshop.
It's tricky to ask people to reflect when they are not always open to, nor experienced in, reflective processes - some are more naturally adept at reflecting than others.
The art of reflection can be viewed as the art of noticing. You can notice things around you by looking, hearing, feeling, tasting, and so on. You can also notice things within: what are you feeling? resisting? holding some tension about? loving? dreaming about?
In all of my years of walking down the beach looking for seashells, I had never found a sharks tooth until the day someone taught me how to look for them. I remember the first one I found after that, and how easy it became to pick them out as I walked along. Within a few months and several trips to the beach, I literally had collected hundreds of sharks teeth. If a person can learn to see sharks teeth in the sand, then I believe we can guide ourselves to notice the many things in life that need not pass by like ships in the night (July 10, 2011).
How do you cultivate this process of noticing? Practice, practice, practice! Nothing is more habit-forming than practicing something regularly.
Throughout this project, I've come to rely on our team meetings and phone conversations as a way to stay with the process and its emergent nature, as it keeps me in a 'noticing mode'. It keeps me connected and open to ideas (or the echo of ideas, that is, before they fully form and come into view). I have also taken up my pen and paper journaling again, which has really added another dimension to my process of reflecting (and 'staying with the question' - whatever that has come to mean for me from time to time).
Often there's a crossover between reflection and feedback. While these two processes are useful together, there's a need to be careful not to mix them up. Feedback is more about returning information in a situation (think of feedback in a sound system, for example). I explain reflection further on in this post.
There's also parallels between reflecting and debriefing. Again, you need to be aware of when you are reflecting and when you are debriefing.
I like to think of debriefing as a time to download and outwardly express thoughts, feelings, concerns, experiences. How do you think that went? What did you notice about X's reaction? It was good you prompted me when..., and so on. There's an instructive sense to debriefing, as in gaining knowledge and understanding.
Reflecting tends to be more inward: what will I take away from this experience? How will I connect this to future activities? What does this mean for me in the bigger picture? How would I do things differently next time? What did I notice about me? There's a consequential sense to reflection, as in deepening understandings and follow-on actions.
The debrief unpacks to experience; the reflection connects it to the bigger picture.
This whole train of experiencing, and the meanings that I have thus far discovered in it, seem to have launched me on a process which is both fascinating and at times a little frightening. It seems to mean letting my experiences carry me on, in a direction which appears to be forward, toward goals that I can but dimly define, as I try to understand at least the current meaning of that experience. The sensation is that of floating with a complex stream of experience, with the fascinating possibility of trying to comprehend its ever-changing complexity. --Carl Rogers, 1952
I like this note from Rogers' essay. For me, it goes to the heart of what we experience and how we learn through our experiences (given experiential learning theories are most often based on Rogers' work). It also reminds me of one of the presentations from the ALARA conference held in Sydney last week, where Joy Murray, one of the presenters, talked about her use of Cybernetics to best describe her own experiences in the world. She made the point that we knit our use of theories and research to our direct lived experiences as a way to help us explain, or give some language to what we experience and how we make meaning of those experiences. We can only ever really account for our own experiences, others account for their own, in their own way, as they need to.
Joy was co-presenting with three community members with whom she had been working to develop a leadership program that was built on community needs and driven by community wishes (i.e. a community steering group was set up to "manage" the program itself). The project was a great example of supporting emergent community needs, developing empowered people and addressing issues at the local level.
As I've worked on this Aboriginal mental health service provision project over the last 8 months, I've come to focus more and more on my personal journey as a "researcher". I remember saying early on in the year (e.g. Brown's TED talk resonated strongly with me) that I expected to be changed in some way by working on the project. And as Rogers says, realising the "sensation ... of floating with a complex stream of experience, with the fascinating possibility of trying to comprehend its ever-changing complexity"!
We cannot ignore our experiences, most especially when we "research". Dave Hiles begins his 2001 essay, "Heuristic Inquiry and Transpersonal Research", with a quote from Braud and Anderson (1998, p.3):
Many of the most significant and exciting life events and extraordinary experiences - moments of clarity, illumination, and healing - have been systematically excluded from conventional research.
I have heard it said that to do research that is sustainable and transformative, the research must "own us". Bruce Douglass & Clark Moustakas (1985) call heuristic inquiry "the internal search to know".
And so I enter - more knowingly than ever before - a journey of heuristic inquiry.
Further reading
Smith, MK (1997, 2004) 'Carl Rogers and informal education', the encyclopaedia of informal education. [www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rogers.htm. Last update: May 29, 2012]
Rogers, C & Freiberg, HJ (1993) Freedom to Learn (3rd edn.), New York: Merrill
Joy co-published a book with the abovementioned community members, which captures their own experiences of the community leadership project:
Murray J, Rash J-L, Creaton R, Cooley P and McClelland D (2009), Views from the inside: Participant Perspectives on Community Leadership. CommonGround Publishing Pty Ltd., Victoria.
More about the book:
In so doing the book explores the relationship between: one person's theory; a community development program in practice; and real life experience. It does this not through a voice of authority commenting on people's lived experience and attempting to relate this to the theory, but by showing what the program meant to the project leader and what it meant to each of the four participants. It tries to demonstrate, but not explain, how these disparate meanings connected, or otherwise, with the theory that the project leader believed she was applying; and how in the end all knowledge is personal, built up over a life time and stitched together with the threads of our relationships in whatever environment we happen to inhabit.
Hiles, D (2001), Heuristic Inquiry and Transpersonal Research, paper presented to CCPE, London UK, October 2001. Available: http://psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/HIpaper.htm
Braud, W & Anderson, R (Eds) (1998) Transpersonal Research Methods for the Social Sciences: Honoring human experience. Sage
Douglass, B & Moustakas, C (1985), Heuristic inquiry: the internal search to know, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, SUMMER 1985, vol. 25, no. 3, 39-55
Moustakas, C (1990) Heuristic Research: Design, methodology and applications. Sage
I've begun curating a topic on Scoop.it called "Learning design and inquiry into teaching and learning".
The theme is: How do we learn? Teach? Design for learning? What makes learning memorable, sustainable and effective?
I'm particularly interested in learning design research in its many guises, along with commentary and critique around learning design issues and theories.
If you have suggestions and would like to share them, please do!
The Action Learning, Action Research Association (ALARA) annual conference is less than three weeks away. It will be held at the Sebel Hotel in Sydney over two days, 3rd and 4th of September, 2012.
This year's conference focuses on "Achieving Sustainable Outcomes through Dialogue and Engagement" and the presentations cover a wide range of topics.
I am presenting with my project colleagues, Dr Michael Wright and Tanya Jones, along with some of the community members with whom we've been working over the last 7 months. Our presentation will reflect the process through which we've engaged community members to talk more deeply about the issues they've faced to do with mental health service provision. We will set the scene for conference participants to experience a little of what we've attempted during the community group sessions and hope we will also learn from their participatory action research (PAR) experiences!
I've been an ALARA member now since 2005 and have found the Association to be incredibly supportive of its members. As always, conferences enable networking and (re)connections that help to both sustain the Association as well as AL and AR practitioners, and to share their work and experiences in (and of) the field.
Hope to see you there!
In addition, I recently watched this interview with Professor Taiaiake Alfred (Canada), who also talks about the need to rebuild culture in order for Aboriginal people to thrive. Both Alfred's interview and the panel discussion highlighted the ways in which colonisation has heavily impacted on the wellbeing of Aboriginal peoples.
What has recently emerged for me too across these and other discussions, is the idea of "virtuous cycles", where one good deed is reciprocated by another good deed (as opposed to a "vicious cycle" let's say). This notion also fits the cyclical action research model where one action informs subsequent actions, observations and reflections in an ongoing cycle of iterative development and inquiry, to bring about positive social change.
This is more than undertaking analysis and answering a question: it is, as the panel members described yesterday, a heartfelt response to a community's wishes for help and support in ways that help them to grow, feel empowered and develop stronger cultural links. There's a great personal commitment to undertaking research of this kind, as it impacts on the researchers' own communities and families. It's engaging our right brains to develop our whole self through community based participatory research. There's a symbiotic relationship between research and living, community and culture, and also between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, potentially, as we come to understand that our own quality of life is linked with that of others, as realised in Watson's quote:
If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. ~Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s.
I wished there were policymakers and government staff in the room yesterday who would have heard first hand the work these researchers are doing and how they were doing it. There's a strong focus on developing relationships both with communities and with government departments and service providers (particularly in the case of Dr Wright's project, on which I'm also working), and a heartfelt commitment to truly listen to the community's wishes and needs, as well as understanding the time it takes to grow such work (which is counter to the funded project habit of finishing up in one or two years, for example).
All the panel members are doing such great work and making a difference in their communities. If governments were this committed imagine how much could be achieved!
Professor Chandler used the phrase, "cultural wounds need cultural medicine", a number of times during the discussion which resonated strongly with those present. It says much about how non-Aboriginal culture needs to support more positive impressions of Aboriginal culture instead of the negative stereotypes and discrimination we are more familiar with today. Cheryl Kickett-Tucker mentioned this yesterday saying that such stereotyping supported misguided 'rites of passage' by Aboriginal youth reconfirming such stereotypes, as a way to confirm their Aboriginality - what a sad indictment on our society that it has come to this? Juli Coffin also confirmed the impact of stereotypes in her work and in fact both researchers have been working with kids to uncover aspects of school bullying and its links to racism and cultural identity. Coffin said that some Aboriginal kids they spoke to had no positive cultural experiences at school, yet it is essential to a child's wellbeing to develop positive cultural impressions in those vital early years. Interestingly too, there is no Aboriginal word (in the region Coffin works) for 'bullying' - it's a white man's word.
Aristotle said, "Hope is a waking dream'. By asking challenging questions and inquiring into why things are the way they are, yesterday's panel members, along with Professor Alfred and many, many likeminded others challenge non-Aboriginal people to "wake up" to the situation and be a part of a new era that sees us all participate in deconstructing the effects of colonisation, so that we all can become better people, in a culturally secure and just society.
Some further reading
Coffin, J (2007).Rising to the Challenge in Aboriginal Health by Creating Cultural Security, Aboriginal and Islander Health Worker Journal, Volume 31 Issue 3 (May/June 2007).
URL: www.solidkids.net.au/images/uploads/articles/rising-jcoffin.pdf
Guilfoyle, A, Coffin, J & Maginn, P (2008), Chapter 10 Make sure there is a shady tree: Participation and action research with Australian aboriginal communities. In Paul J. Maginn, Susan M. Thompson, Matthew Tonts (ed.) Qualitative Urban Analysis: An International Perspective (Studies in Qualitative Methodology, Volume 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.213-240.
Wright, M (2011). Research as intervention: Engaging silenced voices, Action Learning, Action Research Journal, Vol 17, No 2.
Abstract: http://journal.alara.net.au/index.php/alarj/article/view/5
Kickett-Tucker, C & Coffin, J (2011). Aboriginal self-concept and racial identity: Practical solutions for teachers. In N. Purdie, G. Milgate & H. R. Bell (Eds.), Two way teaching and learning (pp. 155-172). Camberwell, Victoria: Australian Council for Educational Research.
Chandler, M & Lalonde, C (2008). Cultural Continuity as a Protective Factor against Suicide in First Nations Youth. Horizons --A Special Issue on Aboriginal Youth, Hope or Heartbreak: Aboriginal Youth and Canada’s Future. 10 (1), 68-72.
URL: http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~chandlerlab/Chandler%20&%20Lalonde%20(2008).pdf
Chandler, M, Lalonde, C, Sokol, B & Hallett, D (2003). Personal persistence, identity development, and suicide: A study of native and non-native North American adolescents. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, Serial no. 273, 68 (2).
URL: http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~chandlerlab/Chandler,%20Lalonde,%20Sokol,%20&%20Hallett%20(2003).pdf
Professor Taiaiake Alfred: http://taiaiake.posterous.com/ [Lots of accessible work, publicly available.]
We've been talking about journeying as we develop the Framework which is key to our project (especially over that past month). Certainly the Journey Towards Reconciliation has been discussed a number of times in our sessions. Check out some of the Reconciliation stories here (in particular, check out this one).
One of the research team described the double helix (DNA) as a visual metaphor for journeying and going on a shared journey.
Doing a quick search on the web for 'journeying' has resulted in books, blogs, websites and news that centres on spirituality and spiritual journeying. There's an obvious connection with spirituality and undertaking a journey of the Self based on belief, healing and wellness. It is deeply reflective and personal, but also engages the individual with community in the sense of pilgrim, travel and arrival. There's a sense of adventure and pushing the boundaries whether physical or personal/spiritual - traveling across landscapes and time and space.
There's also some scholarly work on the research journey, in particular participatory action research. For example, the opening lines of this particular article about PAR by Carol Stuart (1998) read as follows:
This paper explores the ethical dilemmas involved in Participatory Action Research (PAR), an adventurous research process that creates meaningful change in the lives of those who are engaged in the research.
Closely related to journeying I think is storytelling. The telling of the journey, or indeed within the journey itself. The oral record of travel, of landscape and a point or points in time. A recognition of relationship to place and others through an emotional expression artfully told. An acknowledgement of our connection to others and to place, inextricably linked by the journeying experience; a shared learning and living. Robert Frost said it best: The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
The storm approached – and I approached the storm; we were destined to meet, when all of a sudden I became aware of a lifting of the dark clouds and a lightening of the far horizon. Amazingly the rain and wind’s path changed direction a little to the north and was moving past me, not towards me any more. At that point my own path into the wind was able to change and with the threat now past I could turn away from the sea and back into the sand-dunes. Here I raised the woollen muffler from my ears and as I did so a sound pulled my attention back to the shoreline; my Oystercatcher, my constant Companion, gave a shrill cry and flew away northwards out of sight.
There are many cultures on earth, each with rich traditions, customs and opportunities for storytelling. All these forms of storytelling are valuable. All are equal citizens in the diverse world of storytelling (National Storytelling Network).
It has occurred to me for some time now that stories are powerful tools to convey that which is often hard to describe, explain, or sell.
Along with stories, metaphors and analogies are equally powerful tools and the three often work together. As we draw ever closer to an ideal mental health service model, I wonder how we can best convey, indeed pitch, the model to the project stakeholders. Story as vision
Stories connect people to other people and to place, to the land and sea. Like the songlines of the Aborigines, stories map a place in a way beyond symbols and geography (Scott Edward Anderson).
How do we ensure the story holds up? Is the use of metaphor adequate? How do you keep the primary message clear? And what of multiple metaphors and analogies to tell the same story? We also need to come to some consensus on the shared story.
The model we are developing is taking shape much like an organism you could say, something that sits in cupped hands, lovingly held, like a flower unfolding. The layered petals add depth both to the metaphor and to the model - and so the analogy builds. Story as explanation
When people hear stories about people they can identify with, the people in the stories become role models and their peers are encouraged to behave the same way. Such stories tend to be repeated and their lessons are spread (Kim Harrison).
What does it take to tell a great story? I came across this essay, The Healing Potential of Metaphor in the Narrative (2001), when searching for relevant mental health projects. The metaphor of water is used here in the "tidal model", an analogy of the ocean and one sailing on a wellness journey. When confronted by pirates (i.e. a health crisis) one must find a way to recover...and so on it goes. Reading about this model got me thinking not only about the power of narrative approaches, but how one must commit entirely to such a process - there's nothing more distracting and drab as a half-baked story! Story as process
The most popular functional areas in which storytelling was used were envisioning and goalsetting, reframing a situation and building self esteem. A smaller number [of coaches] said that they used stories to help with such issues as problem solving, empowerment and achieving success. (Margaret Parkin).
How might story be best used in our research project? Stories can explain, captivate, mobilise and remind. What would our (research) story achieve for us? At this point it would necessarily explain and perhaps more importantly mobilise people into action to bring about much needed change in the provision of mental health services (particularly to Aboriginal people).
A whole range of stories would also help to support the model in explaining each of its components in relation to Aboriginal people and their experiences (good and bad) of mental health services. These types of stories are hard to ignore when they come from direct lived experience.
To date we have used story techniques in our group work, including the role play scenarios, in addition to "elevator stories" and yarning. All have produced tangible outcomes and promoted deep thinking. And, as we draw nearer to an outcome, story may serve us well as part of our consensus and "sign off" process.
In our previous sessions the role play process has served us very well. In our last session we moved away from role plays and went with a 3D mapping activity. What's this I hear you ask? It's basically a technique that sees participants map out their thinking using 3D objects and paraphernalia. I used a similar technique in a futures thinking workshop some time ago.
Just as role plays seem to "unlock" areas of the brain to respond in different and varied ways (as opposed to left brain rational thinking), so to 3D mapping gets the right brain working - our visual, creative side.
"The great pleasure and feeling in my right brain is more than my left brain can find the words to tell you." — Nobel Laureate Roger Sperry.
Our bodies often carry out actions and hold feelings and intuition in ways words cannot describe. Are you the type of person who cleans out your oven when you have something on your mind? I know I am! Our bodies "just know".
The session was hard work for all. I'm not sure we could have covered the territory we did in another way without taking a considerable amount of time, something we just do not have unfortunately. I took along some blocks and others made the most of objects around them. Some built a service model while others "performed" in their 3D context with much feeling. What a dynamic space it was! As with role plays, it takes a good deal of trust to expose oneself to this level of engagement and I'm so grateful that participants trusted the process we had invited them to engage in.
I came across some projects where 3D mapping was used to engage communities to define problems in their environment and develop community-based solutions. The Gaia Foundation is one such organisation who is working with communities using a participative 3D mapping (P3DM) process, and with multi-faceted and transformative outcomes.
The making of the 3D map is all part of a vital process of oral storytelling around the history and meanings of the landscape. It is through these stories that indigenous knowledge - often almost completely lost or forgotten - is given space to re-emerge. The knowledge and memory of the Elders suddenly becomes critical to the process, thus validating it's worth in the eyes of the young whilst reinvigorating confidence in the Elders. The whole journey is a unifying participatory experience for the community; everyone is at the table, every voice is heard and decisions are made together (Gaia Foundation, 2010).
3D mapping can help to expose the many layers within an issue, or "wicked problem", which, when told through story, provides immediate connection, relevance and intrinsic value. Story, action and engagement are powerful tools critical to bringing about change.
When asked to feedback about the participatory mapping process in the abovementioned Ethiopian project, one villager wrote this:
“The P3DM process enables the community to look at itself using the model as a mirror” [my emphasis].
It seems that reflection is also critical to the process of change. One sees the landscape through an alternate lens and in a way that is possibly less threatening than real life where community and cultural roles, conventions and politics can crowd out more reflective processes.
