• The conversations are an opportunity for students to discover new voices and to have meaningful conversations about what they have heard or read.
• We don’t evaluate the meetings. We want students to learn from each other and from examining the various topics and speakers on the Awakening web site.
• We want to encourage students to share their experiences and exchange ideas on what the prophetic voices are saying.
• The PowerPoint presentations are a way for sharing with others their interest in faith and social justice issues. We may need to edit these reports as necessary.
• It is best if the host can send out a list of questions beforehand to the participating students – to reflect on prior to the Zoom session.
• The host of each discussion will do a report on their conversation. A complete archive of past meetings can be found on our website’s Meetings Archive page. 

*Project Coordinators reserve the right to modify slides if they have inaccuracies or points that may cause misinterpretations. 

• Speak as much as possible from your own experience.
  • It could include the experience of learning something from the podcast or readings.
  • Participants are encouraged to not bring in external authorities to the discussion. It is more important to speak from your own experience to what you have heard or read.
• Everyone’s experience is valid. Even not having had a similar experience is valid.
• No one’s experience is wrong. That’s how they experienced it; that’s the way it is for them.
• It’s legitimate to ask questions about someone’s experience — for clarity, or to seek common links with your own experience. It is also legitimate to summarize, in your own words, what you hear someone else saying. Do not dispute the experience itself. You may offer alternate interpretations, but do not insist that your interpretation is more correct than theirs.
• Listen first. Later, think about how to respond.
• Refer to other sources (such as stories or reference texts) only as parallels to your own experience. Draw on others to illustrate your own thoughts, not as a substitute for them.
• Accept that anyone may tell you, at any time, that you have said enough.

Christopher Grafos was a high school teacher who had identified a gap in critical thinking skills that was holding bright students back and this inspired him to launch a program, and he subsequently founded a company BridgesEDU – to offer courses to Grades 11 & 12 students. Grafos comments: “They have come up through a high school system that encourages them to find the right answer, and not necessarily an answer that considers different points of view or shows depth of reflection”.  Even students on college campuses are expressing a deep hunger for wisdom, and are finding little to fulfill this yearning in their classes or elsewhere.” 

Anne Snyder – comments in her book ‘The Fabric of Character’
“We don’t live in a highly reflective society. Most of the time we’re rushing, seeking efficiency and results. But reflection is vital to our growth. When reflection is guided by deep listening, it situates a person in his or her broader context such that he or she can gain perspective, see blind spots that need to be corrected, and discern the right course of action. Reflection can be both a solitary discipline and a communal experience. Fruitful reflection yields action, and change. The goal is to send participants back to their daily lives inspired and equipped with both practical wisdom and a sense of strengthened purpose.” 

Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian and intellectual, once said that “the tragedy of man is that he/she can conceive self-perfection but cannot achieve it.”¹ Even though humans can envisage and conceptualize a perfect society, human existence appears to be a narrative of fallen kingdoms and empires.  (1)

“It’s only with the heart that one can see rightly — what is essential is invisible to the eyes.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)