The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice Manual

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who represent the opposing positions and constituencies. They bring an understanding of the issue, the history and the language that is essential. The design that is shared here directly reflects the input of such a group. The planning process is a genuine collaboration between the “process experts,” and the “issue experts” and stakeholders. Second, a point to insist upon is the need for beginning the dialogue by eliciting the personal experience and stories of the participants. The reasons for this approach have been discussed in Chapter Three. Beyond that, we asked our co-planners what they felt people needed to discuss, and what they needed to learn. Based on careful listening we designed dialogue questions reflecting this input and made suggestions drawing from our experience. The dialogue questions were not finalized until they had been fully discussed and agreed on in the planning group. Third, with regard to language, it is important to work towards terminology that the planning group feels is fair. In our experience this led to much mutual education within the planning group, and for us. Group members had to work with disagreements about terms even among gays and lesbians. In the end we made what we felt were responsible choices, explained the challenge to workshop participants, and asked them to accept our good faith in choosing the language we did. Fourth, creating the conditions for open, honest and respectful dialogue are particularly challenging when the dialogue topic is one that implicates the identity – not just the beliefs or positions– of some participants. In such a situation there is no possibility of “separating the people from the problem” – a common formulation in dispute resolution. We learned to carefully prepare facilitators and, at the urging of our planning partners, to stress compliance with ground rules. We imposed a “three strikes and you’re out” rule about violations of the ground rules. We urged all participants to take responsibility for speaking up if they felt the groundrules were being violated. We did not want people hiding their hurt and having it
undermine the genuineness of the dialogue. It is not that we needed such strenuous rules to manage the dialogue, which was not at all unruly. But we needed to go this distance to reassure prospective participants that this would be a “safe space” for dialogue for everyone. Fifth, when a dialogue takes place within a religious setting, the most obvious “common ground” is the shared faith of the participants. In a situation where there was hurt and anger over recent events on the part of everyone, it was plainly important to include in the workshop design a shared spiritual experience to open and close the day. The diverse planning group designed and shared in leading these. In evaluating the day, it was apparent that these experiences had significance for everyone present. It may be that even in some non-religious groups, there are strong shared traditions or meanings that can be called forth to good effect. The Appendices that follow are: 7.1 Workshop Plan and Facilitator Guidelines 7.2 Participant Schedule
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The Common Ground Network for Life
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Common Ground Concepts Appendix 1.1
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over abortion. The Network came int
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together out of a mutual commitment
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About the Authors Mary Jacksteit wa
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others are “wrong.” Debate tend
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other people with the same label, d
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etween people related to one anothe
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Appendix 1.1 THE COMMON GROUND DIAL
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• Dialogue questions, not “topi
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Appendix 1.3 The Search for Common
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CHAPTER TWO: GETTING STARTED People
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eferred interested people to the lo
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4. Offer and accept views without a
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CHAPTER THREE: PLANNING FOR DIALOGU
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Another type of workshop might have
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Dialogue Workshop. Based on experie
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hour training session for workshop
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First Small Group Dialogue After th
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may be particularly concerned that
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Appendix 3.1 WORKSHOP PLANNING MEET
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Appendix 3.2 Dialogue Workshop Mate
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9:00 am Check-in, Welcome, Large gr
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Appendix 3.4 Sample letter to small
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Appendix 3.6 COMMON GROUND DIALOGUE
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Session Time: 30 minutes.
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(5 meaning strongest agreement and
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COMPARISON OPINION SURVEY If you ar
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5 4 3 2 1 (5 meaning strongest agre
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Appendix 3.9 OPINION SURVEY RESULTS
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Appendix 3.10 Exploring Stereotypes
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COMMON GROUND WORKSHOP Evaluation Q
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language, insuring understanding be
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address another aspect of structuri
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also to: (1) find out how others fe
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The dialogue design presented in th
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f) Encouraging people to use "I" me
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12:15-1:00: LUNCH. This is not a "w
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[5 min] -Communicate care for the s
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someone has said earlier. It might
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Page 88 and 89: the Part A or Part B sheets. Partic
Page 90 and 91: 3) How can you not care that poor w
Page 92 and 93: 1) We [Feminists for Life] think we
Page 95 and 96: CHAPTER FIVE: “WHAT NEXT?” Freq
Page 97 and 98: dialogues: • Reducing the rate of
Page 99 and 100: direct involvement with teen pregna
Page 101 and 102: very happy to find a fresh and posi
Page 103: • Periodically sponsoring a day-l
Page 106 and 107: leaders in the nearby town of Amher
Page 108 and 109: • Working together to remove the
Page 110 and 111: Cohen and another group member to j
Page 112 and 113: Appendix 5.4 A Structured Community
Page 114 and 115: to the prevention of teen pregnancy
Page 116: Before starting, tell the group tha
Page 119 and 120: Structuring an email dialogue Organ
Page 121 and 122: it is important to stress the signi
Page 123 and 124: listserve and, possibly, the facili
Page 125 and 126: would be attending at their own exp
Page 127 and 128: impartial. To the extent possible,
Page 129 and 130: Engaging one's adversaries in a pos
Page 131 and 132: Appendix 6.1 On-Line Dialogue Dear
Page 133 and 134: Time frame. In order to give the gr
Page 135: CHAPTER SEVEN: ADAPTING THE DIALOGU
Page 139 and 140: Discussion in small groups follows
Page 141 and 142: Afternoon Small Group Session [This
Page 143: Appendix 7.1 A Day of Dialogue on G
Page 146 and 147: otherwise. Another problem is that
Page 148 and 149: Appendix 8.1 COMMON GROUND CONFEREN
Page 150 and 151: ealize," agrees Frederica Mathewes-
Page 154 and 155: CHAPTER NINE: RESOURCES There are c
Page 156: PO Box 203, 697 Pomfret St. Pomfret
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The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice Manual

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