In my experience with Facilitation Across Difference, I recounted my time in first

semester of freshman year when I facilitated a discussion on students’ experience with

education on the Civil Rights Movement from K-12. This was for a class titled The Modern Civil

Rights Movement, and the project was meant to support a Michigan House of Representatives

bill on improving the education curriculum of Michigan schools to combat misconceived notions

on racism in America. We held this discussion in a recording room in the Modern Languages

Building and we recorded it in the format of a podcast where each class member was a guest

on a regular podcast talking about the representative’s event we all attended and made videos

for describing our own experiences. I asked discussion questions to the group to understand

how the group felt about the event and especially what conclusions they had drawn after seeing

a large number of U of M students giving their own experiences.

Since all of the members of the podcast were interested in the topic we were discussing,

it was easy for everyone to share their own thoughts. We covered topics such as the quality of

the American education system given the wide range of good and bad responses given by the

student videos, in addition to what the next steps we should take as students and Americans.

I was surprised in the moment about how varied just our group’s experience was but

also was glad to have such a broad range of experience to draw on. This caused me to think

deeply on how good my primary education on the Civil Rights Movement truly was and how

much better it could have been. This sharing of the topic also made me think about how far the

American education system has to go when providing such an important baseline for children to

group up socially aware about the plight of many identities in the world and how those

seemingly far off topics in history have huge impacts today. My own identity as a white male put

me in an interesting spot in terms of this podcast because I needed to recognize how the image

of me claiming to have some kind of answer to this problem seems problematic. I needed to
swiftly adjust to realizing that just within the scope of my own group could not be the ones to

claim to have a solution to this large problem, when we didn’t have an equal enough

representation of identities in the room.

I found it challenging to make sure we didn’t make broad conclusions about people who

had a certain quality of primary school education because it isn’t necessarily their fault that their

parents didn’t choose or have the option to choose a high quality school system on the subject.

Additionally, without a wide enough range of identities making the podcast, it would be foolish to

try and determine what the end-all-be-all solution to the issue of not educating American

children adequately. From those challenges looking forward, it is much more possible to control

myself from trying to reach some end goal to solve a huge problem with these discussions,

which can seem daunting and alienating to some. Instead, such conversations would serve best

to get the listeners or participants in the conversation mentally started on the topic and think

about how they can actively inspire change in their own lives.

The experience didn’t have much of an effect on me in the moment, as I considered it

just another assignment to take care of in my busy schedule. As time gradually passed, I

thought about how the importance of many different viewpoints and experiences in these

important discussions are vital in making valuable conclusions about these topics. Taking what I

have learned, in the future I’ll be sure to always recognize the various identities present in the

conversation and making sure participants in the conversation realize that their viewpoints are

valued and are shared only to help educate others in that space in that given time. I want to

make sure each member of the discussion that I facilitate feels able to take the information

they’ve gained and apply it to other situations in their lives.