We spent almost all day in our small seminar groups today. My group has 11 people in it including the facilitator and critical friend or co-facilitator. It’s a nice size group to comfortably get to know. Of the eleven of us, four are from Massachusetts, and there is one participant each from Maine, Ohio, California, Texas, Maryland, Tennessee, and New York. Only two of us are from west of the Mississippi. Two of us are from the South. All of us are white. I wonder if our seminar group is representative of the participants of the Winter Meeting as a whole.
This first day’s agenda was very constructivist—maybe too constructivist for some people’s comfort, but I appreciated having the chance to be flexible and be intentional about learning about each other. Besides our whole-group activities, we got to work closely with a partner for the introductory 3-2-1 activity and work closely in a triad to kind of sharpen up the questions we have about the work we brought.
Our group was very lucky to get private meeting space. We were originally assigned to the Spinnaker which is a large space shared by several groups. We got moved to a “parlor,” which is basically just a hotel room with a bed that folds up so tables can fit in the room. It’s cozy—and we still have a lovely view of the Charles River.
