As any instructor will tell you, one of the best things about teaching is learning from your students. It happens in some way, big or small, every time you get in front of people who are expecting to hear how to do it “right.”
Of course, there is no “right” a lot of the time. In my classes, for example, I instruct and inform, but I also facilitate discussions about the options, and the students decide what’s going to work for them.
This brings me to the recent Facilitation Skills Workshop class I taught. In this class, we learn about different facilitation techniques and then the students do the work; they actually facilitate each of the 12 sessions throughout the class.
Have you ever gazed at the stars and found it difficult to focus on a particular one? It’s initially a bit disconcerting. If you look away a small amount, the star seems to become visible. Look straight at it and the star begins to dim and even disappear. Scientists call this the “parallax effect.” I just call it frustrating (I’m an impatient star-gazer).
