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At the Brookfield Institute, we are committed to continuous learning. Each interaction affords the opportunity to develop and grow, as individuals and as a community. Recognizing the on-going evolution of our mutual understanding, we are dedicated to sharing new resources and insights with others.

Simple steps toward peace…30 ways to live peace everyday

How can we be peacemakers, each one of us, when the task around us seems so overwhelming? We can, each of us, take a one step… Click here for more.

The Task of Project Facilitation—the Boston Consensus Conference on Human Bio-Monitoring…

In the fall of 2006, Brookfield Institute founders joined colleague Leslie Kagan of Kagan Associates in facilitating Boston University’s Consensus Conference on Human Biomonitoring. As facilitators of this unique event, only the second to be conducted in the United States, their task was to transform a disparate collection of individuals into a productive and collaborative group that would be able to understand the basic science and the implications of human biomonitoring in order to make consensus-based recommendations on the application of this technology… Click here for more.

Adults as Learners: Creating Opportunities for Transformation (part 1)…

How do adults learn? What practices best support adult learning so that it becomes and opportunity for integration and transformation? How do the ones who convene and lead such learning experiences best set the scene so that, as Donald Oliver writes, occasions for learning, “move from imagination and intention to critical self-definition to satisfaction and finally to perishing and new being.” ?… Click here for more.

Spinning the Web of Life…

When they were searching through the foothills of the Andes mountains for the property to establish the Shalom Center, Elena Huegel and her brother visited a piece of land on the Duqueco River in south-central Chile. As we approached the sloping hills covered with trees, her heart began to race with excitement. She caught sight of the snowcapped volcanoes in the distance and the river gently winding its way through a valley patched by trees and open spaces. Could this be the perfect place for a camp, retreat center, and nature reserve?… Click here for more.

Articles

Simple steps toward peace… 30 ways to live peace everyday

Imagine for a moment a scene of peace--close your eyes and imagine it, describing it to yourself as fully as you can. Maybe you picture yourself dozing in the bottom of a rowboat on a calm and tranquil lake. Or perhaps you see yourself looking at a little baby sleeping in her crib, or a cat napping on a sun soaked window ledge. You may have pictured yourself in a landscape empty of people - but full of grain gently waving in a breeze or beside a stream in the woods with the water making music as it runs over and around stones lying in its course. Or perhaps you see people of all kinds, all colors, shapes and sizes, holding hands in a big circle singing, or working together side-by-side.

However you imagine peace to be, the fullest sense of peace incorporates all these things. Peace can only be achieved when we are all healed—as individuals, as communities, and as a planet.

But sometimes that feels just too overwhelming to accomplish. How can we be peacemakers, each one of us, when the task around us seems too overwhelming? We can, each of us, take a one step. We can take small steps toward our own healing, toward healing of the communities of which we are a part, and toward the healing of the earth. Beverly Prestwood-Taylor, Executive Director of the Brookfield Institute, a center dedicated to building peace through integrating the practices for becoming healthy persons, healthy communities and a sustainable earth, writes that here are simple ways to walk the path of living peace every day. Here are thirty ways to live peace everyday that she suggests:

Healing for the person in body, mind, spirit and emotions

1. Seek healing for past hurts. Seek reconciliation with your family members or anyone who has hurt you or whom you have hurt. Make this a regular, lifetime practice.

2. Eat foods that are unprocessed, locally grown and produced without chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

3. Be engaged in intentional nurturing of your spiritual life everyday.

4. Remember what it is like to play. Color, play with play dough, scamper with a dog, have a tea party for children, sponsor a potluck joke night where every one brings a dish to pass and their favorite joke.

5. Start a book group, writer’s group, art group. Or do something you never could do (like knit or paint or go bowling or play ultimate Frisbee or roller blade.)

6. De-clutter your time.

7. Cook a food you’ve never cooked before.

8. Explore alternative health practitioners and practices.

9. Let yourself be angry. Feel it, draw it, tell someone about it. Do something positive about it, if you can.

10. Avoid unnecessary chemicals, like harsh household cleaners, some make-up, flame retardants.

Healing for the community

11. Intentionally listen to those around you, at work, at home and in your social life.

12. Practice covenantal dialogue. Make it a habit.

13. Once a month, listen to someone with whom you disagree and work to understand their perspective.

14. When you have a conflict with another person, think about what YOU could do differently next time. Practice what you might say, then try it.

15. Invite your neighbors to a potluck at your house.

16. Choose a country and learn as much as you can about it. Pay attention to news articles on it. You can even have news about that country sent to your email.

17. Participate in the movement for debt relief from the world’s most heavily indebted countries.

18. When a friend or acquaintance stereotypes a person or country, don’t let it politely pass.

19. Participate in a local, political action in your own community.

20. Listen to music from another country. Learn about the musician.

Healing of the earth

21. Appreciate your natural surroundings. Take walks. Go on retreats in beautiful places.

22. When you buy something new, get rid of something. Reduce your number of belongings. Take time each month to decrease your possessions in some way.

23. Give gifts of yourself, your time, your talent or a donation to a charitable organization.

24. Stop drinking bottled water. Instead, put a water filter on your faucet; fill a water container in your refrigerator and carry a refillable bottle with you.

25. Go to Goodwill and find a piece of clothing in a color you’ve never worn. Wear it to work, or to church or synagogue or mass.

26. Of course, reduce, reuse, and recycle.

27. Go to a natural foods store and “window shop.” Spend $5 on something fun.

28. Consume only Fair Trade coffee, tea, chocolate and bananas.

29. Reduce your use of energy in every way you can. Carpool, take public transportation, walk, buy a car that gets low mileage, insulate, etc.

30. Plant a garden with native plants. Let part of your yard go wild.

These things aren’t overwhelming. They are small steps that each of us can imagine accomplishing. And small steps, one after another, will move us forward! So join me in the days ahead in moving toward peace every single day, one step at a time!

The Task of Project Facilitation—the Boston Consensus Conference on Human Bio-Monitoring

The task of the facilitators of the Boston Consensus Conference on Biomonitoring was to transform a disparate collection of individuals into a productive and collaborative group that would be able to understand the basic science and the implications of human biomonitoring in order to make consensus-based recommendations on the application of this technology. This transformation had to be accomplished within the three weekend framework of the program, with each weekend successfully building upon and enriching the prior weekend’s experiences. Throughout the program, we were able to draw on our own extensive experience in working with large and complex group process in order to address three primary goals of the project:

• Creating a sense of community and commitment to each other within the group;
• Bringing all the voices into the conversation and making sure each member of the group felt heard; and
• Assisting the group in sorting through and understanding the massive amount of information they received, and helping them accurately articulate their thoughts, concerns, and ultimately their recommendations.

Creating community and commitment to each other – From experience, we knew that the group’s ability to grapple with the multifaceted issues related to human biomonitoring would be helped or hindered by three aspects of their group process: (1) the degree to which they felt a sense of connection and commitment to each other; (2) their ability to respectfully listen to differing views, and (3) whether they felt a sense of ownership of the process.

We designed into our process several opportunities to create this sense of community. For example, we began our first weekend by inviting the panel to share something of themselves with each other, eliciting their stories and seeking shared interests among them. In particular, we asked panel members to share their favorite types of music. Music then became a theme for our time together. From jazz, to hip-hop, to classical and more, it was an integrating backdrop to each weekend, and more importantly, a means for learning more about each other and finding common ground.

We also intentionally set a tone of “community” for our time together by inviting panel members to consider what others have said about community and democratic process. For example, we shared quotes from sources such as Tom Atlee, Marge Piercy, and Scot Peck throughout the sessions, and gave participants time and opportunity to reflect on what they were reading or hearing. These quotes provided inspiration to the process and heightened panel members’ awareness that they were participating in something larger than themselves.

An essential aspect of our work with the group was to transfer ownership of “good process” to them early on – in other words, to encourage them to fully embrace the means by which they would interact with each other and make decisions. To this end, the group practiced the fundamental skills of deep listening, the ability to “put yourself in another’s shoes,” even if only for a minute or two, in order to hear not only the words that are spoken, but the meaning and feelings behind those words. Such deep listening also includes sharing what has been heard and learned, to affirm the other person and to confirm that they have been understood correctly.¹

After practicing deep listening skills, panel members were asked to identify for themselves the behaviors that would contribute to an environment conducive to this type of listening, as well as those behaviors that would undermine candid listening and speaking. Through small group discussion followed by large group sharing, the panel members crafted their own “Agreement for Working Together,” a set of ground rules that served to promote engaging in “good process” throughout all three weekends.

As importantly, the concept of consensus was explored as a priority before the panel members began to engage with the technical content of the Conference. At the outset, the group agreed on a simple process for communicating agreement and differences at key points in the discussions. This critical conversation and agreement allowed them to know in advance – and be comfortable with – how they would later work through differences and ultimately build consensus.²

Bringing all voices into the conversation — By its very nature, the panel members represented diversity in age, gender, ethnic background and socio-economic status. As facilitators, we had the important task of also recognizing group members’ differences in personality, ways of processing, and learning styles in order to help bring their voices into the conversations and make sure they would be heard.

Adults learn best when their whole person is engaged. With this in mind, we incorporated into each weekend a variety of ways to interact with each other and with those brought in to help inform the group, and to receive information from each other and from these outside experts. During each weekend, the process was paced so that we flowed from individual work to small group dialogue, from small group work to plenary session, and then back again to individual work, always as warranted by the topic and where we need to be in the process.

We paid careful attention not only to the intellectual processes of panel members, but also to their creative, physical and other senses.³ Incorporating time for intentional individual and shared reflection was essential, as this afforded the group real and rich opportunities to digest the material presented, learn from one another, and express themselves in a variety of ways. Panel members were given the opportunity to speak, write, draw, and even to sing! Their workspace was bright, colorful and fluid. Their progress at each step of the way was tracked visually in the flipcharts and storyboards decorating the room. In addition, we drafted a summary of each session to allow for further individual reflection and processing time between weekends.

We also incorporated techniques drawn from “Peacemaking Circles.” The circle process has its roots in ancient traditions of indigenous peoples and is now used in the contemporary processes of conflict transformation, consensus and dialogue. The members of a circle pass a symbolic “talking piece,” speak only if holding the talking piece, listen deeply to the one who is speaking, and give all voices the opportunity to be heard fully.

The power of circles comes from several basic assumptions about human beings, similar to the basic principles that are foundational to the Consensus Conference model—that we each seek connection to others, that we share core values that describe what good and healthy connections are, that it is not an easy process to speak openly, particularly in the face of open conflict, and that if safe space is created, our commonly shared core values, collective wisdom, and desire to connect will emerge.⁴

Summarizing and synthesizing—As is evidenced in this document, the panel members were presented with an overwhelming amount of material. For the most part, they had little technical background to assist in their understanding of the material. Even so, right from the very first weekend, the group began to generate a significant amount of information themselves, beginning the process of articulating their concerns, questions and emerging recommendations. Given the narrow framework of time we had in which to move the panel members through the Consensus Conference process, we were called upon to listen deeply and fully to the group’s interactions and communications, to identify themes and reflect them back to the group for confirmation, and to synthesize large amounts of information at the same time as the group members.

Several factors contributed to the facilitation team’s ability to provide these important functions. Working as a team of three facilitators meant that two of us could interact with the panel members, while the other member of our team assimilated the information being generated as the sessions progressed. We used storyboarding techniques to help the group synthesize and visually “process” large amounts of information quickly, both in real time during the sessions and again, at the beginning of sessions, to reflect the work of prior weekends. Meanwhile, we relied heavily on the BU project team to confirm in real time during working sessions the accuracy of the technical aspects of the issues being addressed.

Essential to the integrity of the process was our ability, throughout the three weekends and between each session, to present the content of the panel’s work to them, summarized, somewhat condensed, and with major themes highlighted. Reflecting back their thoughts, questions, concerns and evolving recommendations not only gave panel members the opportunity to confirm their work, but also afforded them the time to reflect more deeply on what they were learning and beginning to voice as individuals and as a group. Every document produced by us as the project progressed was confirmed or modified by the panel members. As a result, when the final consensus document emerged, it was fully owned and accurately expressed the words of the group. To paraphrase one group member, who said with a huge smile, “I heard myself and many of the things I’d said reflected in the words of our statement. That was a really good feeling.”

Adults as Learners: Creating Opportunities for Transformation (Part 1)

On Tuesday morning, the second day of the Building Abrahamic Partnerships II (BAP II) session at Hartford Seminary last July, the participants gathered in circumstances that were less than optimal for their learning. The weather was hot and humid, the central air conditioning of the Seminary’s large conference space was not working, the program’s facilitators hastily set up flip charts and resources, arranged tables and chairs, and placed a cloth and candle in the middle of the table in a conference room across the street in another building where some level of air conditioning would make the day’s experience bearable.

The quarters were cramped, but the introductory evening and the initial day of the program had been very positive and participants had all expressed high hopes and sincere desire to learn as much as possible from this second round of BAP.

Even though many of the group gathered had not met previously, it seemed as if simply being part of this program in the past had connected the group; that the relationships were already there in some way. Perhaps one could say that we shared a set of assumptions about each others’ intentions to listen, learn and dialogue together during this time. That is why each of us, Muslims, Jews and Christians, were there, after all. So, at the beginning of this second day of work together, we started the session--cramped and warm, but hopeful.

We opened with a time of spiritual devotion led by Abdullah Antepli. in which he invited all of us to draw a picture of any image of water that comes from our respective sacred texts or stories of faith. After sharing some of our crayon drawings, he led us in responsive reading of the words of an old hymn, “Shall We Gather by the River?” ⁵ As we spoke the refrain, the Christians who knew the melody quietly began to sing the tune. By the third or fourth verse, everyone in the room had learned the tune and we were all singing together. It was one of the most memorable, powerful moments of the entire BAP II experience for me—amazing to hear all the voices united and to feel that we could be comfortable and connected singing this old hymn together.

However, as it turned out, this second day was also one of the more challenging parts of our time together. The topic of non-violent communication was well presented, but several in the group seemed to resist embracing the concept. Toward the end of the day, our “agreement for working together,” behaviors we had committed to following in order to create an environment of respectful listening and dialogue, were also challenged. One or two among us expressed their feeling of being discounted and not heard in the group’s interactions during the day.

For a number of reasons, this day provided many opportunities for learning and transformation. It underscored the importance of creating both a physical and psychological environment conductive to learning. It also presented the opportunity for the group as a whole to move from what M. Scott Peck calls, “pseudo” community, to real community. ⁶ That is to say, members of the group had the courage to express their differences, at the risk of disturbing the here-to-for pleasant camaraderie we had been experiencing.

How do adults learn? What practices best support adult learning so that it becomes and opportunity for integration and transformation? How do the ones who convene and lead such learning experiences best set the scene so that, as Donald Oliver writes, occasions for learning, “move from imagination and intention to critical self-definition to satisfaction and finally to perishing and new being.” ⁷

Jane Vella has noted that throughout history, the wisdom and judgment of the aged has been be venerated, while youth have been recognized for the speed in which they can learn new skills. As they accumulate knowledge and experience, adults develop perspective and naturally integrate new learning within the context of its application and on-going use. ⁸ Learning in adulthood, then, more and more becomes a process of building and integrating a lifetime of previous learning.

But are there real differences in the ability of adults to learn in contrast to way that children and youth learn? “It was once thought that learning is for the young,” writes K. Patricia Cross. ⁹ Pedagogy, or the education of children, has traditionally been a process of the acquisition of knowledge rather than the application of knowledge. It has often taken the form of “authoritative,” instruction, directed almost solely by the teacher and with the assumption that knowledge is to be accumulated for later application. ¹⁰ Paulo Friere refers to this as a “banking” approach rather than a “dialogue” approach to learning and teaching. ¹¹ Michael Rosenberg describes this approach to teaching as a “domination system,” one that is based on a philosophy or theology that believes humans are essentially selfish and violent and need to be controlled. Such an approach is often motivated by reward and punishment. ¹²

“Andragogy” is the “art and science of helping adults to learn.” ¹³ Research has shown that, while there are some adults who continue throughout their lives to learn for the sake of learning and may be comfortable learning in a more authoritative manner as described above, most adults learn best when the following four factors are present: (1) they feel themselves respected, (2) when they participate directly in creating the learning experience, (3) when the new learning is related to and draws on their life experience, and (4) when they can immediately apply it and/or see its usefulness in solving a present problem. ¹⁴

It is true that some of our faculties such as vision and hearing may impact the speed at which we learn as we age, however, research does not suggest that our intelligence or ability to learn is compromised as adults. Rather, studies have shown that verbal skills actually improve in mid-life. The one practical impact that does seem to exist is the speed at which we learn, suggesting that the opportunity for learning as adults may be enhanced if the process is paced more slowly. ¹⁵

Peter Vaill, professor of human systems and director of the Ph.D., program at the School of Business and Public Management at George Washington University and educator of management professionals, defines learning as “changes a person makes in himself or herself that increase the know-why and/or the know-what and/or the know-how the person possesses with respect to a given subject.” In his view, it is a process rather than a state, and it occurs in both observable behavior as well as an inner condition (that is, attitudes, ideas and feelings.) ¹⁶

There is a difference, then, between learning that is technical and skill-based in nature and the kind of “ontological knowing” ¹⁷ described by Donald Oliver above. For learning to be truly transformational, it is this openness to a deeper or broader shift in understanding that is the goal.

Another way in which adult learners differ from young learners is the motivation that brings them to learning. In this regard, we can look to the various stages or phases of development for insight into one’s openness to gaining knowledge, both technical and ontological. One example of these developmental stages and their impact on learning is articulated by Jane Loevinger and describes a range of motivations from the earliest stages where education is seen as a “thing that one gets and then has,” to the later stages in which education is “seen as leading to creativity, self-fulfillment, and deeper values.” ¹⁸ Learning at these later developmental stages is an on-going process that is “mental, physical and spiritual, --is rewarding only if you learn to see things in a variety of ways and can have feelings for other people’s beliefs.” ¹⁹ Thus, it would appear that, in some ways, the potential for the transformational learning we seek is best found among adult learners.

Cross has succinctly summarized three theories as follows: the humanist assumes that there is a natural tendency for people to learn, a view which lends itself well to self-directed learning opportunities. A developmental approach to learning considers stages of the life cycle is reflected in intellectual and moral learning. Behaviorists focus on clear objectives, tasks and desired outcomes, a perspective well suited for skills training. ²⁰

Vella also discusses the importance of integrating the whole person, ideas (cognitive), feelings (affective), and actions (psychomotor), so that the bodies and brains of learners will be more deeply engaged. It would appear that teaching adults requires attention to all of these three perspectives to achieve transformational learning. Ideas, skills and attitudes are all at play and interconnected in this work.

Spinning the Web of Life

Delicate strands of dew, like a jeweled net, sparkle before me as I walk down the path of the forest at the Shalom Center in central Chile. A spider has been working all night, spinning and sending strands that connect a leaf here, a branch there, and a twig somewhere just out of sight overhead. The web spans across the path, and I choose to sit in the morning sun meditating on this natural tapestry rather than tear my way through the sticky masterpiece. It is the web that begins to weave together experiences, thoughts, and questions in my mind. I have always known, intuitively, that everything and everyone was connected in an intricate pattern, but in the past few years, as I have begun my personal and professional search for Shalom, the mysteries of the web of life have glistened in a new light.

Like the spider spinning a beautiful and complex weaving, the entire universe is connected through invisible threads of interdependence. I can imagine the Creator at the beginning of time delighting in balancing and counterbalancing galaxies, suns, planets, gases, minerals, microbes, plants, and animals. Every part of creation is formed in perfect synchrony with every other part; each unique and whole and yet an essential piece of something greater. Nature, with its spectacular sunsets, cascading waterfalls, rhythmic ocean waves, and newborn butterflies is the evidence of God’s unfolding dream of Shalom for all that was created.

I notice that the main part of the spider web is anchored with four principle strands stretching right and left, up and down. There are many other minor strands attached to the sturdy trees along the path that shape the web as it sways in the morning breeze. Life on our planet is also anchored to four basic foundations: air, water, soil, and sunlight, with many other elements shaping the interdependent pattern.

I take a moment to breath deeply. Every instant I am alive, I depend on the air swirling inside and outside my body. Yet, I take the air for granted assuming that since it has always been there, pure and transparent, it will continue to be there forever. How often am I truly conscious and grateful for the air I breath? The air is our vital thread to life.

Have you ever had a drink of cold water on a hot summer day and felt the coolness trickle down through your throat? From outer space, the blueness of our planet gives unmistakable evidence to the vast amount of water that makes up our terrestrial home. Our bodies have this essential element in common with the earth, for from the blood in our veins to the skins wrapped around us, we, too, are made up of water. Perhaps only those women who walk many miles every day to fill their clay urns with water truly understand the fact that this liquid which sustains our planet and all living things is a precious treasure.

There is a song titled “Dirt made my lunch.” Of all of the basic elements for life, soil is probably the most disdained and ignored by modern people. In our pavement covered cities and infatuation with antiseptics, we have attempted to distance ourselves as far as possible from dirt. I will never forget the first time a young boy, who from the clean and safe distance of his wheelchair had never been in contact with dirt, sat down in the organic garden during an environmental education program with his school. When he took the first clump of soil in his hands, he squealed with joy! He pulled weeds energetically getting dirt all over his clothes and even in his hair and eyebrows. The earth is not only our breadbasket, it is our home.

Nature teaches that us to look the evidence of God’s handiwork in the least likely places. As I look more closely at the spider web across the path, the shell of a dead fly caught in the sticky strands of the web and sucked dry by the spider, reminds me of a strange encounter with Shalom.

When we were searching through the foothills of the Andes mountains for the property to establish the Shalom Center, my brother and I visited a piece of land on the Duqueco River in south-central Chile. As we approached the sloping hills covered with trees, my heart began to race with excitement. I caught sight of the snowcapped volcanoes in the distance and the river gently winding its way through a valley patched by trees and open spaces. Could this be the perfect place for a camp, retreat center, and nature reserve?

The first thing we smelled, just inside the property gate, was a dead horse. Even from a distance, its rotting stench and disgusting appearance marred the awe-inspiring scenery. But as we walked past the carcass, I experienced an extraordinary shift in perspective. Suddenly I noticed that the forests on this land and on all the surrounding hillsides were not forests at all but pine tree plantations, exotic imports to Chile for timber production. The soil, as often happens under the stress of constant planting and clear cutting, was severely eroded. The acid from the pine needles had changed the composition of the soil and there were few bushes, plants, or flowers. The enormous patches of open areas were actually spaces denuded of all vegetation with left over trunks and branches piled high ready to be burned. The water in the river was muddied by the erosion of the soil, and there were dead fish and piles of garbage along its shores. It was the silence, however, that stopped my steps and made me turn slowly around. I could not hear any birds sing nor insects hum. Only the wind wept softly in the pine branches. The hills that seemed so pristine and splendid from a distance, up close became a virtual wasteland.

And the dead horse. . . I looked at it up close, too, as I walked by pinching my nose. The maggots and bugs were doing their work, and I could see some kind of bird, perhaps and Andean Condor but more likely a vulture, circling far overhead. Soon the carrion would completely decompose and become part of the nutrients in the soil to give new life. Nothing would be wasted, and nature would complete its efficient and enriching clean up work. What seemed from afar to be a picture perfect image, turned out to be the tragic forces of destruction at work. What seemed at first to be the putrid smell of decay, actually was the power of life, hope, and restoration in action. What may seem to be Shalom, turns out to be injustice masquerading as peace or untruth deceiving in the name of mercy. What may seem to be the desperate and irreparable stench of death, may actually be the healthy process of transformation giving birth to reconciliation, hope, harmony, and well-being.

The sun has almost dried the dew on the spider web, and the spider suddenly appears to repair a strand that has unraveled during the night. I decide it is time to continue on my hike, but not without first thanking the spider for the pause along the path and the opportunity for musings and reflections. The spider and the web have been like a teacher with a blackboard offering valuable clues in my search for Shalom. I am beginning to understand how Shalom is God’s delicate web of creation being spun anew with exquisite and surprising threads in the midst of the unraveling caused by careless humans bumbling along the path.