Community Education Workshop

I went along to the session this morning that Nick ran all about community and education workshops. The only experience I've had of running workshops was the Oncology Ward sessions that I ran with Hannah for the Send & Receive brief. Although they went fairly well, I still felt fairly out of my comfort zone, so any heads up on how to run a workshop I thought would be a great benefit.
And as it turns out it was an amazing help! I really enjoyed this morning, I feel like it's been a bit of an eye opener and maybe helped nudge me a step towards a possible direction I could take following my degree.

Initial discussion was around 'learning', and what it means to learn...
a process of active engagement with experience, listening to people, gaining an understanding of something, a constant (sometimes unconscious) element - we're always learning in someway or another; not just in classroom environment but throughout day-to-day life, making sense of the world, deepening of skills/knowledge/understanding/ideas/feelings and awareness.
...Effective learning leads to change, development & increases a desire to learn more.

We then went over 2 other key terms that come about in education and society, and tried to understand what they actually mean, and ideas that can come about them;
Social Exclusion
Is what can happen when people or areas sugger problems, such as unemployment/poor skills/low income/poor housing/high crime environment/bad health/poverty/family breakdowns.

- 'normal' society ... inside or out of that?
- the 'margins' and the 'core' <-- how do you define them? (worth suggesting you can experience both at the same time)
Diversity
complex composition of society, made up of individuals/groups of multiple identities. Relating to ethnicity/faith/gender/sexual orientation/intellectual & physical ability/ health status/educational & social background.
---> Think of what can be meant by the term 'diverse audiences' - meaning different things in different contexts... The different barriers... could labelling people cause more of an issue? How do you establish priotities between different diverse groups? If we talk about 'barriers', is this causing or solving a problem?
Nick went through some case studies to outline these different ideas and also give us some starting points to branch out and start thinking about how different issues could effect a workshop in the future.

For the second half of the session, we talked through the key points of going about planning, delivering, 'celebrating' and evaluating a workshop.

Planning
* Know your audience - see them before you start, then the workshop becomes less of an issue of what you want to do, and more of what they've chosen to do; creates more motivation and hopefully more participation.
* Know what outcomes you want/what you want to achieve - experiences/process/final things for an exhibition?
* Make sure everyone involved knows what's going on, set their responsibilities.
* If meeting young people, and the workshop is at a new site, make sure you visit them on their own grounds first.
* Practicalities - down to the amount of plug sockets you need, be specific so you're not in trouble on the first day!
* Health & Safety - Risk Assessments - Legal Frameworks (incl. CRB checks, confidentiality, written permissions, ethics)
* Evaluations - plan early how & when this will be done; how you're going to document/collect evidence.

Delivery
* Introduction - be friendly, informal, icebreakers?, meet and greet, act as a role model (esp. if with children/young people) - join in and encourage!
* Behaviour - your behaviour & the groups' - set ground rules so there's a basic framework, think about your body language & the way you're talking and acting.
* Balance between process & product - people have to enjoy what they're doing!
* Constantly evaluate - everyone learns differently; you can adjust for different people to make them feel more comfortable
* Build in time to collect evidence
* Don't panic about absence - it's rarely a reflection on you

Celebration
* What you're working towards - the achievements... but also encouragement along the way - at the end of each session/week? Sharing each others' work, build in a time for this? (circle time!) recognise others' enjoyment/attitudes. Outline ethics - be honest if what your group are doing is actually helping you, it might encourage them more!
* Get a broader constituancy involved - parents/helpers/workers...
* Formal achievements - Arts Awards

Evaluation
* Use in various ways - share with relevant people -(this may mean type of evidence varies - needs to be planned!)
* Important for funding for future projects; to prove that this was a success and can be done again in the future.

Some useful links!
http://www.tate.org.uk/youngtate/

http://www.engage.org/home/index.aspx


So...... after the session, my plans now are to get in touch with people, see if I can organise some times I can go along to sessions and help out or even just shaddow some workers for a few days. I started browsing the Young Tate website, and through some Twitter followers also came across 'Frilly', an organisation based in the West Midlands, who deliver community art projects, training schemes and can help out artists to put their skills to the community projects around. I'll get in touch with them and see if there's anything over the Summer I could participate in....http://www.wearefrilly.com/

Also a family friend back home is a Youth Worker involved with a lot of the local community projects. When I was younger she always wanted me to come along to any sessions and join in, so I'll give her a shout and see if there's any chance I could help out on sessions or maybe even run some art workshops and gain some experience in working with different groups of young people.