Someone asked me this question:  If a career as a facilitator is lifelong, when did you decide you wanted to become a facilitator?

When I started facilitating, there was no profession called facilitation.  I started out as a teacher. I had wanted to be a teacher ever since I taught my sister how to read when she was four years old and I was 6. My university education was focused on Education and Anthropology.

My first experience facilitating, although I didn’t call it that at the time, was when I was teaching music to black kids in an inner-city school in 1972.  I was 22 years old, a white farm girl, and it was my third year of teaching.  The students were ages 12-15, bigger than I was, and they did not want to be in school. Many couldn’t read in Grade 7 or 8, although they could copy off the blackboard.  I wanted to teach reading, but the education system assigned me to teach music. 

So, copying a colleague in another school, I did a life planning exercise with the students on the first day of class that asked them questions. I told them that this was a personal exercise, and they wouldn’t have to share anything except the answer to the last question. I asked them each to take a sheet of paper, write their name at the top, and how old they were.  Then I asked them to write how old they would be in 10 years, which for them was the age of an adult.  Then I asked, “What do you want to be or be doing when you are that age?”  I emphasized that this was what they wanted to be, not what someone else wanted them to be.  The answers ranged from beauty operator to professional football player. 

Then I asked them, “What are 10 things you need to do to get where you want to be in 10 years?”  I gave some examples and helped those who wanted help. Clearly passing Grade 8, which required passing a 6^th grade reading test, was one of the foundational things they needed to get to wherever they wanted to be.  

Then I asked “What are 10 things you need to do in the next year to get to where you want to be in 10 years?” Again, I gave examples if they wanted help.

The final question was “What do you need from my class, to get to where you want to be in 10 years?” This was the only question where they had to share their answers. I went around the class and each person had to say what they needed from my class. I wrote these on the blackboard, and had someone copy these down.

Then I took all these notes home (I had 7 classes of 30 kids every day) and looked for the patterns of what they wanted.  I merged that with what the curriculum said (which was luckily very vague), and what I knew they needed, which was to a) learn to read and b) to believe in themselves.

From this together we created a Black Music History class.  We started with African history and African music, then went through gospel, blues, jazz, and rock music. (At that point I did not know about Caribbean music, and hiphop and rap had not yet evolved, or I would have used those as well.) We listened to various songs, while looking at the lyrics. I played my guitar when appropriate, and we sang.

I taught them reading through the words of the songs, and to believe in themselves through learning their own history.  It was amazing, and all of us learned so much! I had very few discipline problems with the kids that year. They even brought written music for me to share with everyone.

My discovery from this experience was that asking people for their wisdom and really listening is a very powerful tool, and not only does it come up with powerful solutions, but the facilitator is learning from each encounter as well.  I also learned that connecting lessons with students’ life needs is very important for success, both in the classroom and for students personal goals.