Civic Practice Means Shifting Power
I am exploring this question as I prepare my teaching materials for 2021: what is my role as the instructor in students’ learning experience? I have a role in teaching the material I have on offer, for example. And since I have chosen not to be a conventional instructor, as the sage on the stage or the expert in the room, I have another role to play: to be a guide, shepherd, or host. I am teaching both the material and how to use the material. I am teaching how to create the conditions for a community—or city—to be in conversation with itself.
Let me be clear--I am not abdicating my role as an instructor. I offer the expected concrete material for participants to explore. But when we meet face-to-face, whether in-person or online, I emphasize the expertise in the room that is well beyond my own. It is also a power shift, from me separate from the community (and over, as the instructor) to me within the community (power shared). We all learn, alone and together, what the content we explore means to us in our lives and work.
My objective is to cultivate the expertise of a community when we gather face-to-face. Sharing expertise takes practice for convenors and hosts, as well as participants. It involves:
making room for the diverse expertise we each possess (our work)
growing our skills in receiving and providing feedback in ways that allow new understanding
contributing to the physical world around us in ways that nourish our ecological home
As we cultivate community expertise, we balance self, others and the places we make for ourselves to live, work and play. To do this work out in the world, we have to practise this in our learning habitats.
Two patterns
When I work with community of any kind, while teaching a class or doing my city work, I consider the people assembled to be a community for the duration of our experience together. To cultivate the expertise of a community, I must ask myself: How much of me should I put in while hosting this community in conversation with itself?
I can take two different stances as the host, or guide, of our learning environment: host-attractor and the host-on-the-rim.
Left: host-attractor. Right: host-on-the-rim
I can put myself at the center of attention, or I can put myself on the rim, locating my expertise alongside the expertise of everyone. In the latter, I can recognize my unique contribution and support a richer learning experience for others. When I put myself at the center, I limit others’ experiences because I deny access to each other.
These two patterns of convening have different energetic patterns that shape our expectations about how people should participate. We are most familiar with the host-attractor pattern, where we rely on the host to have a clear sense of direction and set and enforce ground rules. In contrast, the host-on-the-rim pattern depends on participants’ leadership to a greater degree, and the experience can feel less familiar and linear—and uncomfortable. In the host-on-the-rim pattern, there is a higher degree of shared responsibility for the quality of our experience.
The roles of the host and participants are different in each of these patterns.
In the host-attractor pattern
The roles we play:
A fixed host that leads the process at all times
Participants engage actively in the learning experience with care for each other
The responsibilities we have:
The host lays the ground rules or agreements for a safe container for the community, help people show up well, remove participants as needed
Participants — discern if the community and agreements are a good fit (yes — show up well, no — remove oneself)
In the host-on-the-rim pattern
The roles we play:
Variable hosts that each lead the process from time to time
Participants engage actively in the learning experience and step in to host from time to time
The responsibilities we have:
Participants — establish a clear purpose for the group and the agreements about how to be together, take turns hosting each other, hold each other accountable to your agreements, notice if you fit
Rotating hosts — remind the group of purpose and agreements, host in ways that serve what the community needs, help make space for those that don’t quite fit
The challenge
As I prepare to teach again, I have to bring a bit of both patterns. I have an official role as the “authority” to deliver content and ensure the students’ experience is meaningful. At the same time, I will lean into the host-on-the-rim pattern and amplify the expertise each student brings. This pattern is vital if I wish to create the conditions for them to learn from each other as much as I expect them to learn from me (or more!).
As the students and I navigate this territory between the two patterns, our community may feel wobbly. We will need to talk about the patterns we wish to activate, the group’s experience, or a few, which can be frustrating or damaging.
The way through the challenge of navigating familiar (clear authority) and unfamiliar structures (shared authority) is to acknowledge the community’s power patterns. As any community should, we will talk through what we are experiencing and find our way through.
Watch for speaker-audience separation
A community in conversation with itself pays attention to the voices of many—simultaneously. A series of panel presentations or discussions is not a community in conversation with itself; it is a community of shared interest listening to many people. It is commonplace for a community of shared interest to not meet, let alone see each other or build relationships.
A community in conversation with itself activates the expertise of many. This community pays attention to all voices, not those selected for the community. This community listens at scale and activates collective discernment, and creates opportunities for interaction.
Here’s a principle I use to determine if a community is involved in the conversation: Is the community separate from the speakers?
We separate the speaker from the audience in any of these ways in both in-person and online events:
An organizer chooses who is allowed to speak
The front of the room designates the location of the speaker
A stage raises the speaker above the audience
A podium separates the speaker from the audience
A microphone and sound system amplifies the voice of the speaker
A screen magnifies the view of the speaker
A spotlight focuses our attention on the speaker
We minimize the collective learning experience of the audience in any of these ways, in both in-person and online events:
Sitting in the darkness
Invisibility: the audience has no information about itself or even the ability to see itself (i.e., a webinar where only panellists are visible)
Interaction limited to chatting (at a break or in the chat function of online platforms)
Asked for a few questions, if any
Limited or no access to a microphone or sound system
Absence of structure to facilitate connections between audience members
There are times when it is vital to put the expert on the stage. When we need to hear from our chief medical officers of health, a presentation followed by clarification questions makes perfect sense. The default mode should not be confused with the group having a conversation, where information and ideas flow in all directions. Presentations are not evil; we need to be more judicious about when we choose them as a means of communication.
Put community expertise at the center
A useful test: when we say we want to foster a sense of community at a given gathering, do we center an expert or few, or the community as a whole?
Assuming that the expertise in the room is in one or a few people disables and minimizes the resilience of a community. To foster community resilience, we must foster connections between people, not just our ideas. We must foster relationships between people, enable them to make connections with each other.
A civic practice that facilitates connections between people, not just their ideas, is hard work. We face a tension deep within each of us: we long for connection with other people but find comfort in deferring to others' expertise rather than in ourselves. In this deferral, we minimize our relationship with self, others and place.
We have to practise this while learning it: putting community and connection at the center, instead of our desire to feed the ego of expertise.
REFLECTION
In what ways do I feel comfort in being the expert, or in deferring to the expertise of others?
Where am I open to sharing expertise with others, and trusting the expertise of a broader community?