March 28, 2011

This past Friday afternoon co-workers and I (John Engle) convened with about 25 teachers who participated in the 3-day early childhood development seminar that Haiti Partners held in collaboration with Acacia School in Petion-Ville, Leslie Falconer of Mother Goose Time and Fequiere Vilsaint of Educavision.

Frequently, we use Open Space method (video below) for a variety of meetings including following up after a training. With Open Space, you’re assured of two things:

• People will address the subjects that are important to them regarding the meeting’s theme.
• There will be greater engagement because participants take responsibility for their learning and work as opposed to having someone take responsibility for teaching and directing them.

We’re deeply grateful to Caroline Hudicourt of Acacia School and to Dominique Hudicourt of Tipatipa educational program for their involvement in this training and for the use of Acacia school for this training and other meetings. We’re also grateful to Leslie Falconer and Fequiere Vilsaint who did an extraordinary job of preparing materials for the training and helping participants to discover the method.