ProjectsISSS

Everyone is invited to our seventh annual morning Roundtable to take place daily Monday through Friday, August 6-10, from 8am to 9am. Join us every day, or whenever you like!

Our Roundtable purposes are to open a space for daily reflection on our ideals, that is, what we want to learn and create; to increase time for each of us to talk from our hearts and minds about what we are thinking, experiencing, and learning now; and to be listened to by the others in the group, enjoying and learning with each other in a new way. To make our purposes and format transparent, we will have the Roundtable guidelines on each chair for easy referral.

Our format is: We spend 5 minutes listening to short readings: e.g., the Roundtable guidelines; We then spend 55 minutes on individual reflections or learning reports, time distributed equally among all present (e.g. 27 people = about 2 minutes each). Our suggested topic for the first morning might be: “What situations and projects did you leave behind to come here, and what could happen here that would be valuable to you, here, or in your work or life back home?” Each day, a different topic will be suggested by a different volunteering facilitator of the day.

Folk wisdom and compelling research indicate that participants experience surprising benefits from this activity after about four sessions. Our experience with this format has resulted in the following theory: Just as we break the sound barrier when we travel faster than the speed of sound, we can break the communication barrier when we hear 25 authentic viewpoints in 50 minutes.

Looking forward to exploring this with you all!

Sue Gabriele, Roundtable Coordinator (sgabriele@gemslearning.com)
Yoshi Horiuchi, Assistant Roundtable Coordinator ISSS Japan