For thousands of years, the island I live on has been called Nexwlélexwm. It has always been an important part of the Squamish Nation territory, and as it juts out out the moth of Howe Sound into the Strait of Georgia, it represents the edge of the world for Squamish people, beyond which are the relatives and strangers of the rest of the Nations of the Salish Sea and beyond. The southern shore of our island is called Ni7cháych Nexwlélexwm which means “the outer edge of Nexwlélexwm” and refers to that place where the dry cliffs and rocky points meet the sea. You can find a little more at the Squamish Atlas if you are interested in learning the historical names of places in this territory.
When I first came here in 2001 I read about the story of the how the deer were created here and last year in a conversation with two friends who are Squamish Nation councillors I heard that story again with a little teaching.
It goes like this. In Squamish history there is a period before memory in which everything was in flux and could change. This is called Sxwexwiyam. This was followed by a time of transformation to the land in it’s present state, called Xaay Xaays. In this time, four supernatural beings called Xaays travelled through out the territory fixing things in the form, changing people and animals into rocks and islands and creatures and in every place leaving a teaching. The territory is literally soaked in these stories and they provide guidance to the present day.
Upon arriving on Nexwlélexwm at a place called Kwemshenám, which is a reef that connects Finnesterre Island to Bowen Island in low tides, Xaays found a hunter. This hunter prided himself on being the fastest runner, the most accurate shot, just the very best hunter in the world. When the Transformers found him he was making a spearpoint and bragging about his abilities. He is said to have declared “I have heard there are people coming to change us and I aim to kill them.” Xaays were amused by his boasting and so they began to tease him and change him, by stretching out his legs and embedding two branches of Cceanspray in his head, and turning him into a deer. They chased him off and he WAS fast! But realizing that he would make good food for the people, they decided to slow him down by clapping his legs together and burying the spear point in his leg so that he could be caught and provide food for people. As he took off into the forest, his hoofs made a sound on the ground and so the place where this happened was named Kwemshenám, which means “stomping feet.”
My take on this story is that Xaays took a man who thought he was above everybody else and transformed him to become something that provides nourishment for all. When I see deer around on our island – and they are literally EVERYWHERE – I am always reminded of this story. I think often about how the best of what we have here should be shared with others to nourish them too. Many who have visited our island in workshops with us have heard this story and invitation to become changed by being here, and many people do have that experience.
When I was on the Economic Development Committee we engaged in a branding exercise for our municipal government and to my secret delight the primary icon that was chosen to represent our island community was the deer. I’d like to think that is stands for a community in which we can find ways to transform the smallness of our individual egos in service of nourishing the greater whole. Can we take what we have, as individuals, as families, and as a community, and share it? In a world and a region that is swelling with people who need more access to natural beauty, places of awe, and transformation for our individual and collective mental health, how can we best use what we have to help serve that need?
I think I’m definitely feeling like my work is online for the foreseeable future. While I do have some face-to-face sessions lined up for the fall and winter, most of what I am going to continue to do is host meetings and learning online.
Even though I have been doing that since probably 2004 or so when I first started using Skype I continue to learn about how to make online environments more interesting and, most importantly, more accessible. From time to time I put out a call to help me learn about people’s needs and experiences. Back in June I asked folks with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) how to help them participate at their best and I got lots of useful answers. I trust that the people who answered self-identified as folks with ADHD.
Here’s what I learned:
Preparation
Right off the top folks said that it helps to have lots of advance notice of what is going to happen in the meeting. Now, this is a hard one for me, because I tend to improvise a lot and respond to the direction the group is going in. That’s fine for me because I’m the one with agency and I can control how much bandwidth I have and choose the stop the work for a break when it feels good to me. But for folks that regulate their participation and attention through structure and preparation that can be a tiring ride and quickly erodes their ability to absorb material, and participate in discussion. To that end, I’ll be trying these strategies:
- At the outset, let participants know how the day will unfold, what the break times are and what the discussion questions are likely to be. This helps people to think through material and to prepare and how to measure out their attention and participation.
- Help ground the meeting in a strong purpose. Let people know why this work is relevant to them. That helps folks stay engaged in the session. This is good invitation practice.
In-meeting participation
Working online is very hard on the attention span for most people. It asks a lot of us to stay in one place, watching a grid on a flat video screen, engaging in activities that seem repetitive. If something is going on too long, it’s easy for attention to wander and the brain to start focusing on other things. Good facilitation in general should be avoiding these situations, but for folks with ADHD, specifically these strategies were offered.
- In the session, provide a mix of activities to generate and support thinking. This could include a few minutes of silent reflection at the outset of a conversation so participants can think about the question before responding or engaging in dialogue and exploration.
- Present material in smaller chunks and allow for some time to absorb and for participants to ask themselves “what is new here?” Longer presentations start to lose the viewer especially if the material is dense or full of new terms and concepts. I’m massively guilty of this and so going forward I’m going to try to present material in short, ogical, connected chunks that allows for integration.
- For learning exercises, provide activities that invite people to explore a concept and even provide a little challenge that allows for a safe-to-fail probe and a little dopamine reward. This little post from Nadia is one that inspired “the creative challenge” as a part of my facilitation practice.
- Don’t allow a few people to go down rabbit holes at the expense of everyone else’s learning. This can often happen in a plenary session, so I try to have people go into small groups to process some of the things they are hearing and learning.
- Sticking to commitments is important. If there is a break at 10:30, break at 10:30. I know already from years of working with folks with diabetes that scheduled meal times are essential and can’t be missed. This is true of folks with ADHD as well.
- Provide visual maps for the content that is being discussed. How does this link to other stuff we have been doing? My partner Caitlin is really good at doing this, and contextualizing our current learning in a larger landscape of what we are doing. It’s like those recaps that come before TV episodes…”previously on Star Trek…”
- Use tools like polls to engage people’s thoughts in plenary and then open the floor for comments based on that. Using tools like Menti gives people a chance to reflect and offer some text and so you can hear from everyone and not just the one or two who manage to get their voices heard.
What to do afterwards
As my friend Christie Diamond reminded me years ago, “the conversations starts long before the meeting begins and it ends long after the meeting is over.” To that end, it’s helpful to have a few plans for how to continue to participate after the meeting is done. For many people, the brian keeps sparking and having somewhere to contribute insights that come later is helpful. To that end it’s useful to let participants know what they can do afterwards with their insights. If there is a way to contribute, provide an email address and let them know how long that channel is open for. In our courses we use Kajabi as a learning platform that allows for discussion to take place in a forum at a later date. For programs like Complexity From the Inside Out which runs over nine weeks, these spaces are useful for asynchronous contributions.
So those are good strategies to use. I myself have never been diagnosed with ADHD, but when I look at symptoms I recognize many of the ways my brain works in those lists. Certainly the suggestions that my twitter correspondants provided would make MY own participation work better. I will leave you with a good short list from the UK National Health Service that provides some useful strategies for living with ADHD, many of which are simply good design principles for well delivered and accessible participatory events in general.
Thanks to all who contributed. What OTHER strategies should we add?
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