Learning a Protocol to Use During Our Meeting
On early release Wednesdays, I gather with other individuals who are interested in Service Learning at HUHS. We often times use a protocol (I explained to the children a protocol is a process that allows discussion on a topic/issue with everyone being heard.). I brought the protocol to the children to discuss an issue at last week’s Thursday class meeting. Basically the order of the protocol goes like this:
- A question(s) is posed
- Time for writing a response is given
- Sharing without comment is done
- Facilitator gathers common themes or trends to what is said
- Facilitator shares his/her gathered thoughts
The idea is for newer or greater understanding to occur simply by listening to one another. The questions that was posed was this, “Why are people distracting other people?” and “Why were people making choices that didn’t follow our rules to live by?”
Everyone participated whether by reading what they wrote or by speaking when it came their turn. The common threads I heard were these:
- People don’t think they are distracting anyone.
- They think they are funny.
- People really think they are following the rules to live by.
- People make bad choices.
Ask your child about his/her opinion on this matter.
