Fostering understanding Between People
What’s Dialogue?
It’s all about re-centering experience around discussion and acknowledging perhaps our most important goal: social bridging. Dialogue is a structured process for people to share life experience and truly listen to the experiences of others.
A key tenet of my work has been that - through dialogue - we can create a more just, equitable, and accepting world for ourselves and our descendants.
From my first exposure to models like those employed by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, I have been a champion for intentionally creating spaces for listening, learning, and visitor expression. The voices of the people who live today are just as important as - and often more important than - those of the dead.
Historians and the craft of history have active roles to play in the work of making our society better. Just as the “Museums Are Not Neutral” movement has advocated for museum spaces, the interpreters, historians, and other staff who work within these spaces are not neutral actors.
Below, you will find a variety of training materials and resources I developed alongside teams of skilled interpreters from across the nation during my time working for the National Park Service.
Helping Facilitators Grow
Changing what visitors experience in parks means changing what types of experiences interpreters offer in parks.. To do this, we created a keystone week-long course that helps interpreters build engaging, interactive, short, and vibrant visitor experiences centered on expression. This “Audience Centered Experience” curriculum has helped hundreds of interpreters shift visitor experience across the country.
Designing Curriculum That Scales
Making curriculum more accessible to wider audiences is always tough. We intentionally rethought when and where the “Audience Centered Experience” curriculum could be presented. A team of field-focused instructors explored ways to inject and embed the ACE ethic and curriculum in seasonal training - the orientation training that every interpreter get locally in their park each year. What resulted was the “Scalable Seasonal Interpretive Training Curriculum” - a set of lesson plans interpretive trainers can pick up and implement with little to no preparation.
Tackling Pressing Issues
A highlight of my work has been helping to create dialogue guides that allow front-line employees to confront controversial issues and difficult topics in deep, meaningful ways while remaining emotionally and physically safe.
A highlight of these development efforts was leading a diverse team in the creation of the “400 Years: Discussing Slavery, Freedom, & Race in America” discussion guide to help interpreters confront the legacies of slavery and racism in the world today.
Moving Beyond Interpretation to D&I
The tools of dialogue aren’t simply for creating visitor experience, they are also crucial for culture change and building organizations that are accepting and engaging. Developing a set of scalable discussion guides alongside a a broad group of Diversity and Inclusion professionals within the agency helped create a new framework for tackling stressful employee issues and current events.
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