Briefly describe the group with whom you led a discussion.

I led a discussion with a group of about 30 recent college graduates who are spending a year as interns in the public interest field. The group meets one morning per week. This was our first civic reflection discussion together.

Briefly describe the program you led.

As an opening exercise, I asked each participant to write down three selfish and three unselfish reasons why (s)he joined the public interest program. I told people they didn't need to share with the group. After a minute or two of writing, I asked two questions: 1) is anyone embarrassed by any of their reasons? and 2) did anyone have trouble discerning which reasons were selfish, vs. unselfish?

Two themes that I wanted to touch upon in Nowlan's poem were difference (how does "othering" affect our service?) and selfishness (how might selfishness affect our service?). I thought that these might resonate with participants, who had recently left the privilege, security and hope of their universities... and who now work with people from whom they may consider themselves quite different (or they may not).

For my closing exercise, I asked people to state two groups that they'd like to see "sitting on the floor, working together." This prompted some interesting responses: seniors and twentysomethings; tea party members and progressives; international development workers and local community members; parents of schoolchildren and their administrators.

How did it go?

This was my first discussion, and now I know that I need practice guiding people towards the themes that I was most interested in discussing. I had some difficulty relating disparate comments into a coherent discussion. One question that I think prompted a healthy discussion was, "Which had a greater benefit: the writer hugging the girl or Nowlan writing this poem?" I was interested in discussing shame, and asked "Does shame keep us from doing things we ought to?" One interesting response this elicited was that maybe the girl in the poem was fully aware of the awkward situation in which she put the writer. We then discussed how this would change our interpretation of the work, and the reasons why Nowlan left our understanding of this woman's intentions ambiguous.

What, if anything, would you do differently?

Most importantly, I would calm myself. I am even having trouble remembering much of what we discussed because I was in a hyper-anxious zone during the discussion. I think that my second and third discussions will run much better (and will be better for my mental health), but this first one daunted me. I will also clearly chart a course for the discussion. I had thought of many ideas and many themes that might result from our discussion, but I think I could have facilitated better with a clear idea of which comments I wanted to follow up on.

Another thing I would change is the seating. We sat in an oval in a narrow, long room, and the layout was not ideal. If I could lead this discussion again, I would have tried harder to arrange the group in a circle. I would have also left empty seats nearest the door for people who joined late. Some people had to walk through the circle to find a seat, which was a little disruptive.

Anything else?

I wasn't sure how the group would react to this discussion, but there's talk of doing these on a regular basis. Now that it's late in the year, I wish that I had led my first discussion with this group early on. Also, one discussion participant told me that he'd written a response to Nowlan's poem in his free time because he'd been stressed at work and the piece moved him.

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