1A.4
Maintaining Community:
How do we reconnect at the beginning of each meeting?

Asking participants to respond to a simple question at the "human" rather than "teacher" level is a fast way to reconnect at the beginning of each meeting. The rule, however, is that everyone must respond. This does not have to be a time consuming activity. (See facilitator note.)

If your learning community is large (more than five or six people), divide up and answer questions in small groups. Change the small groups each time the community meets so that everyone continues to get to know more colleagues at each meeting. It is not necessary that the community as a whole re-connect at each meeting, only that people come together at a personal level each time they meet.

The list below is a sample of the types of questions your learning community can use once it is established. You may want to pose two or three questions and allow people to answer their favorite. The facilitator notes include another activity for reconnecting called, If I Were a Song and a Dance. You may want to use these as examples and create your own activities for reconnecting.

1. What is your favorite art-making activity and why?
2. What is your most memorable art experience as an observer and why?
3. If you could have created any work of art (written a book, composed music, choreographed a dance, painted or sculpted a piece of visual art or designed a building) which one would it be and why?
4. What is your all-time favorite movie and why?
5. If you could talk to any person in history, what person would you choose and why?
6. What book or person has had the most impact on your thinking and why?
7. If you could go any place in the world or universe, where would you go and why?
8. How would you go about achieving world peace?
9. If you were president, what would be your first executive order?