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Brook's notes on Teaching in the Reclaiming Tradition

Teacher & Facilitator

Welcome to this section of my web site. Whether you're browsing for information about facilitation, or you're interested in some of the work that I've done, please take a look around and even drop me a note about what you see or perhaps what you'd like to see.

These pages are centered around my role as a teacher and facilitator. I've been doing this work in one way or another for more than 20 years. Indeed, I have facilitated workshops on many different subjects internationally, including clinics on the skills of facilitating. Check my classes page for the types of workshops that I'm currently offering.

Music for Change

For the past few years, I've been developing workshops that involve the use of music: voice, rhythm, movement, and dance as a vehicle for personal healing and change, as well as an act of devotion. I'm deeply indebted in this work to my friends (and teachers and also co-teachers) Jeffrey Alphonsus Mooney, Suzanne Sterling, and Morgaine from Spain for helping me to develop this material.

A Teaching Perspective

Creating empowering, particpatory workshops is an art. Practicing the art requires a shift in perspective on what teaching is and what role the teacher plays in the student's process. Further, like other arts, it's dependent upon practice and process.

The practice of empowered learning derives from the work of Paulo Freire, Movement for a New Society and was brought together into the Empowered Learning Model by the Northern California Preparers Collective in 1980-82, or so. Empowered Learning is the frame that I use to create workshops and to facilitate them. I presume the innate intelligence, the desire to learn and to grow of participants. And, I strive for our active participation in our growth process. You can read more in my notes on Teaching in the Reclaiming Tradition.

It is my belief that if I start a workshop believing that participants should attain certain goals or that they must master certain material, then, empowerment and true learning participation are already lost before the workshop has begun. That is not to say that we cannot share in each other's experience, that we have nothing to teach each other. Quite the reverse: rather than sitting at the feet of the Master, I prefer a model where we are all teaching each other, where the wisdom that lies with each particpant can be brought into the group. Further, if I've had a rich or rewarding experience with an exercise, though I don't know what another person may take from it, still, I have faith that it may have value for others. However, I try not to prejudice what that value might be. And even an exercise that does not work for someone may still contain valuable information in the experience.

Still, I cannot say that I've mastered the art of facilitation. I'm far from completed in my process or in the process. I continue to learn new things about myself, about the weaknesses and limits of my practice, and of course, new material from the co-teachers that I'm blessed to work with.