worksheet
the Programme Spiral
Stages of a workshop
Source: Arnold, Rick, Bev Burke, e.a., Educating for a Change, Between The Lines, Toronto (1991)
developed further by Jan Haverkamp (2001 ­ 2003)
.
The ZHABA facilitators collective has published a range of worksheets that can help you with campaigning. These
sheets can be obtained from the Internet on http://www.zhaba.cz
The ZHABA facilitators collective is a group of NGO facilitators. It helps non-profit organisations to improve their
work. More information on http://www.zhaba.cz
 2003 Stichting ZHABA facilitators collective
(parts of) this worksheet may only be copied or used in other publications after previous written consent of the
Stichting ZHABA facilitators collective.
2 Source: Arnold, Rick, Bev Burke, e.a.,
Educating for a Change, Between The Lines, Toronto (1991)
1. getting started
When people arrive in a workshop, they not only have a workshop on their minds, but a lot
more. Everything that happened lately, the impressions of the travel, maybe impressions of a
new town, new people, meeting old acquaintances, their problems at home or in their
organisation - you name it. Furthermore most people from Central and Eastern Europe
visiting one of your workshops (and many from elsewhere as well) may have their first
experience with the methods and forms we use! Every participant carries her own set of
impressions and problems and experiences in her mind.
To be able to start to work, we will have to arrive.
During the phase of getting started:
* technical things can be arranged (sleeping places, food, rules of the
house, materials);
* facilitators and participants are introduced;
* we find out why people are there;
* the programme is introduced and discussed; when necessary the
background of the used methods is explained;
* we set the atmosphere for the rest of the workshop.
This all has to lead to an atmosphere in which we can start to work together.
2. experience of the participants
In our approach, we do not have one expert that tells us what reality is and how it should be
changed. There are a lot of reasons for this. We will discuss them in more detail in the next
chapter. But roughly we take as a basic premise that all participants are experts of some
kind.
We try to combine all the expertise in the group to get a synergetic effect. The phase of
exchanging experience from all the participants is therefore a very crucial one. Here we find
out, which strong points we have in our group (special expertise, experience from people
who are directly involved in the matter we want to address, access to information, access to
media or special key persons, contacts with authorities, etcetera), which skills (skills of
speech and expressing oneself, skills in organizing, artistic skills, all other skills), but also
which weaknesses. We try to find out what we together already know about the problems we
want to tackle. We try to build upon our common experiences from the past. We share our
emotions involved in the theme we work on.
3 Source: Arnold, Rick, Bev Burke, e.a.,
Educating for a Change, Between The Lines, Toronto (1991)
3. look for patterns
Our experiences will show a blanket of impressions. Putting our experiences together in itself
does not yield a synergetic effect. We have to compare them and somehow add them up.
We can look for similarities, for differences, explanations. We can list up all the actors
involved in the problem we want to address, the power lines involved. We can find out the
material backgrounds of these problems.
Important key-words here are:
* recognition: When we recognize certain experiences from others, the credibility of our
own experience grows. We may feel stronger and more certain.
* incompatibility: Some experiences at first glance are contradictory to ours. While
looking for patterns, we might find together astonishing explanations for that!
Notice that the internal democracy in the workshops does not primarily have an ideological
reason. On very practical grounds it appears that full democracy is necessary.
Also during this phase, it is of crucial importance, that everybody can have a voice. First of
all, looking from different sides to the cloud of experiences that the group brings together, will
yield very different views on patterns and explanations. But what is even more important, is
that finding out patterns is not an end in itself. It is a step towards finding a way, a strategy to
change unwanted developments. As a group of workshop participants we want to take part in
creating that change! Therefore the understanding of the situation has to be an
understanding by the group. If only a few 'leading persons' in the group take part in finding
patterns, it will be more difficult later on to include the others in working out ways to change
the situation. You could say, that we need a common ownership of the analysis.
Looking for patterns
Leťs take a closer look at Juro. He was one of the participants during one of my workshops. He
normally focused on his own experience. He failed to see, that around him there are people with
similar experiences, which can support him in his image and his judgement. He worked on traffic
issues and knew everything about a newly planned motorway.
During a round in which everybody explained how the motorway effected him or her, he was
astonished to hear that others had received similar information as he had, but from other sources!
These people around him also could give bits and pieces to gain better understanding why the
motorway was following a certain route. And in turn, Juro's own experience strengthened others in
their view. Juro found himself growing in a group of like-minded people!
But there was also another side of the medal. His experience, and that of these other people I talked
about, was very technical. There were also some other people who had a completely different
experience concerning this motorway. They did not know much about the technical backgrounds.
But they told about traffic politics. About investment policies from the European Union and the state.
When Juro's knowledge was put next to this knowledge - there seemed to be nothing to compare!
Until he understood that his experience fitted in this political perspective. For instance, the strange
behaviour of the road company - sometimes looking completely irrationally - made more sense.
He learned to focus his knowledge towards a strategy to actually stop the development of this new
motorway, instead of trying to change its course.
4 Source: Arnold, Rick, Bev Burke, e.a.,
Educating for a Change, Between The Lines, Toronto (1991)
4. add new information and theory
Outside our group of participants there always will be a lot more information and experiences
that might be valuable. In the conventional ways of education, this new information is mostly
the starting-point for learning. Here we introduce it later. If we take the "outside" theory and
information as a starting point, this will obscure our view on our own position. It will focus our
thinking (and working) on the priorities that are included in the new information and theory not
on the priorities that our experience, wants us to set; that are important to us. This is an
important notion: the own experience first has to set the priority for the direction in which we
want to work together; only then we need to look around for outside information and
experience to help us. Because:
* We want to address concrete problems and work to concrete changes. One of
the large complaints from many (possible) active people in the environmental
movement is: there is a lot of talking, but people don't do anything. The main
reason for that is, that most groups try to deal with abstract problems and
abstract sollutions. These abstract problems and solutions are often dictated
by (interesting, no doubt) information coming from outside. But to really be
able to make a change, we will need to address concrete problems. Our own
life, our own experience and the life and experience from the people in our
direct neighbourhood (the other participants in the workshop) are the strongest
vehicles to show us concrete issues, concrete problems, and suggest us
concrete changes. Books, theories, professors from outside cannot show us
why air pollution in our town is a problem. They can show us abstract statistics
(which will help us in our struggle for clean air!), but they only make sense to
us if they relate to our own experience: children with a weak health, people we
know with asthma, the fact that we are irritated by car-exhaust, etcetera.
* To push through the changes, we want to see, we need a large motivation. Or
call it a sense of responsibility. Only the feeling "this is my thing" will help us
through the difficult moments in the struggle for change. If the outside
information pushes us, it is very easy to wander off in years of fundamental
research around the problem - in creating all kinds of information structures
that don't change anything. But if it is our own problem, we will want to see
change.
* The strong feeling of responsibility is also one of the forces that keeps us alert
to be precise. The risks caused by mistakes in our strategy will hit us harder
when we deal indeed with our problem - our change, and not with someone
elses.
* Information and experiences will always be distorted. Official figures may have
been adapted to political realities, attitudes towards a company director may
be distorded on the basis of his corrupt reputation, scientific reports may only
show part of the problems involved, etcetera. Therefore it is important that we
judge the information from outside. When the information from outside comes
in the start of the workshop, it will be the judgement of only a few (the lecturer,
the expert, the facilitator, a few 'noisy' participants) that will set the position of
this information. To tackle problems with a group, however, requires high
quality criteria! When we can compare outside information and outside
experiences with our own (from the whole group), we adapt more strict criteria
than when only a few people set them - without a real possibility for the others
to judge these criteria.
[continued on next page]
5 Source: Arnold, Rick, Bev Burke, e.a.,
Educating for a Change, Between The Lines, Toronto (1991)
[4. add new information and theory, continued]
This together explains why the conventional educational methods have brought forward so
many very good experts, but so little people that indeed in practice are devoted to real,
tangible improvements of our society!
Short: To motivate (and educate) people best and most efficient in their own interest,
information and experience from outside are instrumental for working on their own priorities.
Still, information and experiences from outside are of very high value. They can help us
evaluate our own experiences, test the patterns we found, show new patterns and new
directions for action. They can give us new arguments and challenge our own. Therefore in
the workshop process, this input from outside is an important part. It can be in the form of
previously prepared written or electronic materials, of resource persons from outside - it can
also be in the form of a break in which participants start to collect information and bring it
back in the group. This information can be anything from newspaper interviews with
politicians, expert reports, a lecture from a scientists, an excursion to a factory.
On the basis of our own experience and group criteria, developed in the earlier parts of the
workshop, this outside input can find an optimal place in our learning and... in our strategy for
change.
5. practice skills, strategize and plan for action
At a certain moment in the workshop, we will move from the analysis to the actual action of
change.... and discover that we need certain skills for that. This can be "being able to talk to
parliamentarians", "write press-releases", "make a good looking report for politicians on the
threats for otters" to "how to react on police during a direct action" and many things more.
We will need to work out a strategy to make the changes we have devoted ourselves to and
we need to divide responsibilities and tasks - make arrangements for the future: the action.
ACTION!
The final outcome of any getting together is - of course - something that is DONE, something
that is HAPPENING. Ideal workshops work towards ACTION.
This action can be concrete work done by workshop participants after the workshop. It can
also be the end of the workshop itself...
.... and then - after some time, you probably want to reflect your experiences again, look for
patterns, add new information, strategize again and prepare for new action.... growing in
every round of the spiral....