Given the happily busy nature of this spring and summer, content blogging has taken a backseat to simply working as of late. Starting next week, I'm happy to be welcoming a new working group from the United States Forest Service to Denver. To help this group, I again want to offer some practical tips for … Continue reading Where Do you Eat By DIA?
Following one of the most divisive and difficult elections in modern history, it feels like we're now left with a country that's more divided than ever. As a mediator and facilitator, I strive to keep my own ideological beliefs private and preserve an air of neutrality that will serve my diverse clients' needs. This is … Continue reading Difference, Dialogue, Discovery
Today, I'm really struck thinking about connection. This might be a bit rambling but let me try to explain. Last week I boldly did what few of my peers have braved to do...I went (basically) without an Internet connection for an entire week! We had just moved into our new house and our new Internet … Continue reading Volunteering to Connect
I met a teacher friend for lunch today and, as always, it got me to thinking a lot. We are both in a transition phase. My friend is retiring from a successful career as a teacher, coach, and principal while I find myself in between careers, homes, and more. Given these big shifts, we spent … Continue reading How much structure do we actually need?
Today was full of surprises and of small victories. I got to mediate with Kevin, my supervisor at N2N, for the first time this week. It was good to see his style of mediation and how the tools/tricks he uses differ from other N2N volunteers I have worked with previously. I was pretty sure our … Continue reading October 24- Small Victories
As an educator, I often had to keep in mind that I would probably not get to see the full impact of my work. Realistically, the impression I made on students may only become apparent years down the road and I may never hear about it. The past few years I've had multiple former students … Continue reading October 16, Planting Seeds of Connection
Last night we hosted a community workshop called "Communicating Through Conflict" with Neighbor to Neighbor. This is the workshop I have spent the vast majority of my time with N2N working on. It is a workshop that Kevin has taught in the past but which he has also wanted to revise for a while. It … Continue reading August 26- Reality Checks and Moving Up
Although this week was a frenzy of other activity, it was a down week in terms of N2N involvement. I didn't complete any hours this week for this internship. I am interested, however, now that I've completed training for Small Claims Court mediation for both Linn/Benton and Lane Counties how different they seem. The level … Continue reading May 30- “Down Time”
"I learned that people can easily forget that others are human." "Prisoner" from the Stanford prison experiment (1971)
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