PHILOSOPHY OF FACILITATION

Philosophy of facilitation

Philosophy of facilitation

Introduction

Facilitation is the art of leadership in group communication. A facilitator is one who fulfills this leadership role. In online settings, these terms are often employed interchangeably with "moderating" and "moderator." (Anderson, T., L. Rourke, Garrison, D. R, Archer, W. 2001)

Thesis statement

As unschooling parents we often come across the terms facilitating and teaching. Teaching seems to have received a bum rap from the unschooling world, which is rather unfair.

Facilitation skills are essential for anyone who is seeking to lead others in a participatory process of discussion, learning and change. If such a process is to be owned by a community, it needs to be relevant and accessible to their culture and language. Any information shared should not only come from outside the community. It is now far more "unschooling correct" to say we facilitate our children's interest. Why is this of such importance? To find out, we would have to look at the meanings of each word and how they are taken in the unschooling context. (Anderson, T., L. Rourke, Garrison, D. R, Archer, W. 2001)

Comparasion facilitation and teaching

Explanation

Unschooling is interest based, or child led learning. Much talk is given to facilitating, or encouraging a child's interest. To encourage without pushing is an art, one that develops in unschooling parents over time. What your child might like to do and study this week might not be what she is interested in next week. Like most parents, we would very much like our children to excel at something, possibly to quell the doubts others might have about our educational methods. Skipping from interest to interest worries us, and it's a great temptation to push an interest long after the interest has waned. As unschooling parents, it is our responsibility to learn how to facilitate, not push. (Feenberg, A, 2000)

Teaching conjures up images of sitting at a desk, yawning with boredom, being force fed stuff that wouldn't be remembered past lunch time, let alone for a lifetime. It is the connotations of the word teaching that illicits a knee-jerk reaction from unschoolers. School type teaching is our only form of reference and, therefore, the word is tarnished in our minds. Teaching, as a word, has gotten a bad rap. Like it or not, we unschoolers are teaching our children all the time. Not only by our own behavior, but also by our own thoughts and feelings. Beyond just behavioral, we teach them plenty of practical things as well. How to tie their shoes, pour milk on cereal, make a bed and whip up a batch of brownies. Teaching our children is as natural as unschooling and should be treated as such. Facilitating means being a good resource for your child. Finding mentors that will nurture your child's interest without being too schoolish is tricky, but it can be done. My son loves science and I wanted to find a way to expose him to science without the boredom that can be so prevalant in science ...