World Cafe Community

Alex Bretas

I was having a Skype conversation the other day with David Isaacs, co-founder of the World Cafe, and a young World Café host named Alex Bretas Vasconcelos from Sao Pablo, Brazil.  

Alex had called us together to talk about an educational initiative he's just finished crowd-sourcing funds for called "Education Outside the Box" (check out his video - it has English subtitles - and scroll down to hear a video message of support from Juanita Brown, co-founder of the World Café).

During our conversation, Alex started talking about his experience as a participant in one of the first Hosting World Café: The Fundamentals courses we hosted at Fielding. It was exciting to me to hear how strong its impact had been on him. Here's an excerpt from what he said:

 

After giving permission for me to pull out this piece of our conversation, he asked me if I wanted him to write something about his experience, so of course I said yes. Here's what he wrote:

It was a wonderful time taking the World Cafe Signature Learning Program, since it was both a challenge and an opportunity to me to get in touch with people from all around the world and practice my English. Beyond that, I was deeply curious to take a better look at the World Cafe, and at that time I was beginning my personal journey of discovery when it comes to host conversations that matter.

It was also an opportunity for me to read Juanita Brown's dissertation, a masterpiece which is always coming back at me in diverse forms. Now, I have a deeper knowledge about hosting practices both in a theoretical-reflexive level and in a experiential level, and the Signature Learning Program was co-responsible for that.

Peer-Learning

The World Cafe Hosting: The Fundamentals course we're hosting next month through the Institute of Social Innovation at Fielding Graduate University is offered in a peer-learning format.

"...What the @#!* does that mean?!" you may ask.

Well ... let's start with what peer learning ISN'T, at least in this case.  
Peer learning isn't being left to your own devices without guidance or attention. My co-presenter Bo Gyllenpalm and I will be paying close attention to your learning process, and we'll be there to respond to your questions and offer help at crucial times.

Peer learning isn't about an unstructured environment. This course has been carefully designed as an immersion into the World Cafe method, and the principles that give the method its form. Deepening your understanding of these principles will give you the solid ground you need to design, host, and harvest World Café events in any sector, and help you evolve your hosting practice no matter what your level of experience.

Peer learning doesn't use the standard one-to-many model of education, although you will have access to all the written and multi-media resources you need, as well as engagement with some of the most experienced and innovative World Cafe hosts in the world.

There will be weekly assignments and expectations, but within that structure you are the one that determines the pace, and ultimately the depth, of your learning.

But peer learning isn't just student-led learning; it's an interactive, participatory process that relies on real engagement. You have a lot of responsibility in this course - for your own learning, yes, but even more importantly, for the level of your engagement with others. In this course, your peers are your most powerful allies; the depth of your engagement with them will determine the depth of both their learning and yours.

Make no mistake - this course will ask a lot of you. It's not something you can skate through and watch a video later to catch up on. It is a robust, professional-level learning experience at a premier graduate learning university. You will come out of it with academic and professional credit, and a foundation for your World Café hosting practice that you simply could not get otherwise, even after years of practice on your own. Why? Well one reason is because you have a circle of quality peers to learn with and from.

There are research studies and significant statistics to back this up, but on one level peer learning is just common sense. If you think about, it's the way we as human beings have always learned - from and with each other. And it's one of the World Café's basic premises that together we know more than any one of us alone could possibly know.

The fact that we all learn and grow through the networks of meaningful conversation that make up our lives and work is the foundation of Conversational Leadership. And it's key to many of the principles that inform not only World Cafe hosting practice, but all participatory engagement. In other words, it's a great muscle to build and keep well-exercised.

Peer-learning is not just a one-way street, either. Bo and I both learn a LOT from participants every time we offer this course - about the course and what will make it better (this will be the 5th one we’ve offered so you KNOW it’s going to be great :-), but also about our own hosting practice and what makes us better, more effective World Café hosts.

So come join us - we look forward to learning with you! (The 2014 course starts September 28th, and the early-bird registration discount ends September 8th)

Comments from 2013 Hosting Fundamentals Courses

Here's what graduates of the 2013 course are saying about the World Cafe Hosting Fundamentals course at Fielding:

"I am a French facilitator based in Paris.  As I was about to start my own little company, I took Amy and Bo's class between February and April of 2013.  At the end of April, a facilitator that had trained me before called me up and asked "Is your World Café training over yet?"  She had a major client who was ready for a series of World Cafés with 100+ people each, the dates were changed and it turned out that she wouldn't be available.  Because I had been trained by Amy and Bo, I was the person my trainer chose to call, which provided me with my very first paid assignment as a freelance facilitator!  I teamed up with a consultant and with a fantastic graphic facilitator and I hosted several sessions for that client.  Our sponsor couldn't believe the level of energy that was in the room!  At the end of the first World Café, a participant came to me and said "I can see it now: I'm not alone"!

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"I'm loving this programme, and find it really helpful in getting me to think more about what I'm doing. I can't remember anything I've done in years that has been so practical and 'right on'. Thank you!"

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It was such a powerful session, just like the whole course. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to be part of this class and I think it helped me keep centered and positive in a very challenging time in my work life.

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