So this is the agenda-in-progress for thew workshop misled youth and YELL is facilitating this saturday at the bookfair.We see this workshop as a way for everyone involved (including us) to share our struggles and successes as autonomous learners, and to discuss ways to support each other. Though we have limited time in this workshop, we aim to extend our conversation and collaboration beyond this session through future online and in person dialogue.We don't see ourselves as experts and we want to run the workshop with as little imposed control as possible.Thus we will all sit in a circle rather than having the facilitators stand in front. Also we have like 5 facilitators so power is more distributed. The way the "talking object" works is that we have something like a bean bag, which you have to be holding in order to speak. So this makes the conversation more organic because participants can toss the bean bag to anyone, rather than a facilitator deciding who speaks next.

Ok, so here is the agenda. We really wanna hear what you think! We're gonna practice it one more time on thursday before we do the real thing.

Learning from the Inside Out: Community-Based and Peer Education
Workshop Agenda

Set up – sit in circle, have “talking object” (bean bag), set up large paper

Part 1: Introduce the workshop, Introduce ourselves as organizations, individuals, and self-educators.
Talk briefly about current learning groups/projects. Explain the goal of the workshop (to enable participants to self-educate as groups and individuals). We will do this by thinking about and sharing our interests, curiosities, and aspirations, and talk about how we can work together to learn what and how we want. [10 min, Sarah Q facilitates, everyone introduces themselves, we’ll have a go-around if there’s time]

Part 2: What is self-education? Why is it important? What are obstacles to self-education?

What are alternative/creative ways to learn about subjects traditionally taught in a more formal/academic way? Is there someone in your community who you see as having a lot of knowledge, but who might not be seen as a teacher or mentor?
Why is the ability to gain skills and knowledge independently of institutional structures so vital for young people, activists, and anyone who wants to create their own life and world to live in?
What are obstacles to self-education? Lack of direction? The habit of viewing learning as work? Lack of resources, information, time, or support?
[20 min: participants will group up according to their interests and share their ideas, Brendan facilitates]

Part 3: What do you want to learn?

Are there subjects that you feel are not being covered in school, which you are interested in? How can you tell what’s important to know in your life? [5 min written brainstorm, 20 min sharing, Leanne and Sarah D. facilitate]

Part 4: How can we learn together? Where do we go from here?

What learning interests do we have in common? How would we go about pursuing these interests, as individuals and as a community? How can we make sure that everyone can contribute to the collective knowledge of a group, yet still learn and do things in their own way? How can a group be inclusive to people with all levels of skill and experience? What steps can we take to move towards building communities based on independent and collaborative learning? How can we keep our momentum going after this workshop? What do we want to focus on in the future? (follow up meetings, online, etc) [10 min group discussion – we will identify some of the most popular topics people are interested in, and talk about how we would go about learning more about this example topic] [10 min wrap up/coordination, Sarah Q facilitates]