Course Expectations, Purpose, and Guidelines  

This course is designed to bring about an inner-directed learning, with an emphasis as much on the search for personal truth as on acquired knowledge. It seeks to increase a sense of personal wholeness that may be hidden within. It attempts to provide experiences that can lead to a recognition of a collective wholeness, as well. Teaching and learning is primarily a communal act; its greatest lessons may lie in an understanding of connectedness. 

Though we have a carefully designed road map to follow (the syllabus), the outcome of the journey we will take together is never guaranteed. This set of guidelines is designed to facilitate the creation of a community of learners in which relationships, those between all of us, and the subject matter, too, are as important as the learning itself.

 I. What You Need to Know About This Course

1. The success of this course depends on our balanced contributions as active learners. This is not a sit-back-and-take-it-all-in course. Being an active learner will be hard work. 
2. Your role in gaining the most from the course that you can is being willing to invest something beyond your own comfort level into it. 
3. My primary role is that of a learning guide for our journey together; I have carefully designed an itinerary that will be most effective in helping us reach our destination. It is also my role try to create the best climate for this to happen in, so you can see and understand as much of what we encounter as possible.
4. The primary format of the course is small and large group discussions focusing on issues and ideas from the readings, and on personal experiences that reflect those topics. 
5. The most important general ground rule for the course is that each person is to be respected and supported. Each of us has an important story to tell, with a valuable perspective to add to the whole, and that we can each learn something from.
6. It is also essential that theories, research, and even one’s own personal experiences be seen as material for critical and reflective thinking. Nothing is true except everything that has been questioned, tested, and found to be personally true. 
7. In our frequent discussions, everyone is encouraged to speak from personal experience, and with one’s own voice. Everyone’s voice is valued and an essential part of the community of learners.
8. Grades are used to emphasize openness to and evidence of learning rather than exclusively as a judgment based on a mastery of information. They are also used to emphasize collaboration and cooperation rather than competition.

II. The Purposes of Discussion

This course is based primarily on a discussion format. Discussion is more than conversation, which is generally informal and unstructured. Discussion is more than dialogue, which is generally arguments evoking counter-arguments until a problem is resolved. Discussion is concerned generally with the development and understanding of knowledge. 

Discussion is both directed and open-ended. It is directed toward reciprocity, exchange, inquiry, cooperation, collaboration, and ultimately the deeper understanding of one’s own and others views, thoughts, feelings, and opinions. It is open-ended by encouraging democratic and full participation, and by being interactive. 

Discussion is a way of having everyone’s view heard, a way of recognizing that things are not always as simple as they may seem. It is an important way of telling our stories, those that carry meaning and significance for us. Good directed, interactive discussion reveals the diversity of opinions, and is an expression of collective knowledge and wisdom.

Generally, the purposes of discussion are: to help participants reach a more critically informed understanding of the topics under consideration; to enhance participants self-awareness and capacity for self-critique; to foster an appreciation among participants for the diversity of opinion that invariably emerges when viewpoints are exchanged openly and honestly; to help participants develop a sense of affiliation, empathy, and connection with others; and, to act as a catalyst to helping people take informed action in the world.

III. Ground Rules for Discussions

There are only three ground rules for carrying out discussionsto keep in mind while engaged in discussion; each will add to the overall effectiveness of the discussion.

1. Share the responsibility; follow everything that is going on in the discussion so you will know what needs doing or saying next, so you can participate when appropriate. Shared responsibility also means doing your part to contribute to a climate of trust, authenticity, and full participation.

2. Listen with attention; focus entirely on what is being said, don’t interrupt, be a witness to what is being said, without judging, and be willing to discover something about yourself in the stories and views of others. Listening from the heart is giving a “welcome” sign to the speaker.

3. Speak with intention; speak with care and thoughtfulness, contribute only that which has relevance, heart, and meaning to the topic of the moment. Story is the voice of our inner world; it carries our experience forward, and reveals our emotional involvement in the world. Speaking from the heart is sharing our real selves with others.  

By agreeing to follow these three simple ground rules, we can make our discussion circle a safe place for all, where both our authentic voices and our collective wisdom will emerge to the benefit of all.

IV. The Benefits of Discussion

When the purposes of discussion are understood, and the ground rules followed, there is the potential for much more learning to emerge from directed, interactive discussions:

1. It helps to explore a diversity of perspectives and possible interpretations.
2. It increases awareness of and acceptance for ambiguity or complexity.
3. It helps to recognize and investigate assumptions.
4. It encourages attentive, respectful listening.
5. It develops new appreciation for continuing differences.
6. It increases intellectual agility, and the ability to think on one’s feet.
7. It helps to become more connected to a topic.
8. It recognizes, respects, and values all voices and experiences.
9. It affirms equality, and the co-creation of knowledge.        
10. It contributes to the capacity for clear communication of ideas and meaning.
11. It develops habits of collaborative learning. 
12. It expands horizons, develops new interests, and increases empathy.
13. It helps in developing the skills of synthesis and integration.
14. It can promote understanding, and even lead to transformation or social change.

V. Tips For Success as a Life-Long Learner

• Have a beginner’s mind; learning is possible only if we don’t think we already know, this leaves us open for new discoveries, new opportunities for learning, and for learning from places and people we had not expected to learn from.

• Be self-reflective and self-monitoring; studies have found that successful learners are in a constant process of self-reflection. They review, reflect, and act on new understandings gained from their reflection.

• Take risks; be willing to take chances, try things you haven’t before, and most importantly, be willing to fail, this leads to important lessons as well.

• Learn to love the questions; as Rilke advised the young poet, “be patient toward all that is unresolved... try to love the questions themselves,” and as Gurdjieff taught, “stand before a question.” Even though the question you most want to pose has no foreseeable answer, ask it anyway, and stand in the tension of not knowing. The question itself could lead to more than we could have imagined. This is the essence of the learning process: “live everything!”

•  Show up available to learn; be willing to be vulnerable, value learning first, before the desire to accomplish great things.