AuthorDeborah and Christine will share their Mediation Musings and from time to time we will feature a Guest Muser. ArchivesCategories |
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Having taken several mediation courses in academe, I was eager to explore how, and what, practitioners actually taught on the same subject. My first impressions were positive: the Mediation Training Centre and it’s facilitators were a force to be reckoned with. The course opened with general introductions and those awkward exercises designed to let you get to know each other; it was the usual mundanities of classroom life with one notable exception: the energy of the facilitators. Deborah brought out her tambourine and asked permission to keep us on time. This took me aback—were the teachers asking permission from students? Yup. And the differences between the Mediation Training Centre and academic classrooms did not stop there… Sitting quietly aside the front of the classroom, Christine’s commanding presence needed little introduction. As the various facilitators spoke on mediation related topics ranging from listening to law, Christine would chime in with her pieces of wisdom—and sage at that. Well spoken and groomed, her confident energy matched Deborah’s enthusiastic engagement. We were all hooked. Five action-packed days later, the group of students was as cohesive as were the trainers, revelling in the depths of discussion triggered by the various concepts and scenarios put to us. The safe space that the trainers established on the first day endured to the end, allowing each of us to gain not only knowledge and insight, but friendships and a sense of progress that—on the first day—seemed daunting to attain given the volume of materials doled out to us in handouts and workbooks. Without a doubt, this was a thrilling plunge into the world of mediation practice that no aspiring mediator should be without.
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