by Author taximezzo

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Facilitate and Empower! A participant-centred approach

How helping others to explore their own ideas helped me as a musicleader

In our culture, there is a popular image of creativity as something of a mythical ability, shrouded in mystery, and only available, like the magical abilities in the world of Harry Potter, to a favoured few. It is often seen as something we are either born with or not, and if not, we are doomed to a life of only dreaming about accessing the creativity within, whilst looking on enviously at those who have managed to find a creative outlet.

 

From a young age we are sat in a classroom and told how things are going to be, what is the “right “ way to do things, the accepted way. We are told to sit down and be quiet, at an age when our natural urge is to question and explore. Facts and figured are “delivered” to us from above. Research into teachers’ attitudes indicates that teachers dislike personality traits associated with creativity, despite teachers reporting that they value working with creative children. Of course, that probably has more to do with budget cuts, and teachers consequently having to manage large groups of children at once, than the classroom teacher disliking creative, but harder to manage children.  Whatever the reason, the net effect of mainstream education is to dampen the natural creativity that we are all born with. (This is not my idea, I have to say, I’ve had a good read of “Out of Our Minds” by Sir Ken Robinson, it’s really good, take a look…)

A few years ago I took a course in design. Every so often we would discuss our progress with the tutors. One tutor tried to tell me that I wasn’t creative enough for this and wasn’t creative enough for that (I think he took a dislike to me). Had I been younger and more impressionable, that would have really upset me. Instead, I just realised that he didn’t understand the nature of creativity, and that it is grown and developed, not born. I realised that, even in a creative environment, some people only value one kind of creativity, or one kind of outcome (in his case, the kind that produced the sort of work he happened to like). It got me thinking about the nature of creativity, how it might differ between people and how best to give people a space in which their ideas are valued.

 

When I became a participatory artist, I was introduced to the concept of facilitation as opposed to delivery. The idea that I could help people bring their own ideas to fruition rather than having to have all the answers myself was a revelation. I used to worry that as a musicleader, I didn’t know all there was to know about music or workshop leading and would end up being exposed as a fraud. Learning about facilitation and how it worked took all the fear out of musicleading for me. It didn’t matter if I didn’t know something, the participants and I could explore it together! It didn’t matter if I was stuck for ideas, the participants would have plenty of their own! And their ideas were just as valid as mine. That is another fantastic thing about facilitation, it really does level the playing field between artist and participant. It is a win-win situation, the participant feels as though their creativity is valued, and the musicleader gets to explore and experience working with new ideas in a situation where there is mutual respect. Understanding about facilitation gave me the confidence to work with just about anyone, in just about any setting.

The facilitation process gives everyone a chance to learn from each other. I have found this particularly in classroom settings when running  songwriting activities. I remember one instance when I was working in a school, the teacher and I split the children into groups and gave them a subject to write a verse of a song about. The teacher was really supportive and enthusiastic, she hopped about asking “what do we do now?” I replied, “we do nothing, we just have a nice chat for a few minutes” and so we did. A few minutes later, we heard singing and saw frantic scribbling from all of the groups. So we left them to it for a while longer. When one of the groups looked as though they were stuck, we went over and gave them some help. Then we left them to it again. The teacher was really pleased with the work that all the groups produced with very little input from us, and to her surprise, the most creative and entertaining  verse of the lot was produced by the group that she thought would do the least. I hope that that teacher feels confident in her ability to running a similar activity in the future.

 

It took me some time to get my head around the idea that the less I have to do, the better I am doing my job.  I used to think that I had to be/look busy/come up with all the ideas in order to justify my fee. All that I found happing with that approach was that I got in the way! It was counter-intuitive to me at first, but I got better results by just stepping back. As a creative person, one of the challenges was allowing my ideas to take a backseat and let the participant’s  ideas shine through. It would be too easy to do it all myself, and less satisfying all round.  Through facilitation, participants gain ownership of the work and can feel independent and empowered. It is an approach that anyone can take when working with others and that everyone can gain from no matter what their level of experience or ability.