Respectful Listening: A Tool for Change
Scilla
Wahrhaftig
Short Description:
This workshop will explore respectful listening and dialogue as tools for understanding and bridge building in our everyday lives. Participants will conduct a listening project during the workshop in order to practice what they are learning and begin to use listening to impact change.
Long Description:
Participants will have a better understanding of the value of respectful listening and how to design, implement and record a Listening Project.
Using the curriculum developed by AFSC PA Program on Respectful Listening and Dialogue, participants will gain skills to listen deeply to others. Participants will learn how to use listening skills in their daily lives as tools for resolving conflicts and building bridges.
The group will gain an understanding of Listening Projects and explore how they can be used to implement social change. The American Friends Service Committee uses Listening Projects extensively to gain better understanding of issues of concern within a community around a particular topic. Using a carefully designed set of open ended questions and a set of demographics which define the community, trained listeners identify and listen to members of the community. The answers are recorded and compiled using direct quotes from the participants. By listening to a wide sample of the community, accessing as many different views as possible, listeners and the community grow in their understanding of the concern. The information can then be used to initiate discussions of solutions.
We will design and undertake a mini listening project, the subject to be chosen by workshop participants, with FGC attendees as listenees.
The workshop will begin with 15 to 20 minutes of silent worship and end with 15 to 20 minutes of worship sharing. During the first two workshop periods, we will work with the Respectful Listening and Dialogue curriculum. The curriculum uses role plays, hassle lines, listening exercises, discussion etc. In the following days we will learn about listening projects. The group will identify a theme and design appropriate, open-ended questions. The actual listening will be accomplished partly during the workshop and partly outside of the workshop.
The results of the listenings will be discussed and some of the most insightful quotes complied into a mini report. Finally we will discuss how the material could be used to bring further light to the concern.
There are no recommendations for advance work.
