Training for Change. George Lakey, director; Daniel Hunter, program director.  Helping groups stand up for justice, peace, and the environment through strategic non-violence.

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Glossary of
direct education
terminology
sociogram: an exercise in which participants arrange their bodies to show something about themselves or to stimulate a new awareness. For example, participants are asked to range themselves along a line that shows how long they've been active with a particular cause. See also "spectrum."
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Home arrow Tools


Tools
Tools

Activist trainers use a large variety of exercises or activities -- we call them "tools" -- to support learning in workshops. We include here some which in our experience get reliable results based on our experiential approach.

Our training tool section is the most requested section of our website. So we are regularly adding new training tools that are field-tested in different cultures. Have a tool request or a tool you think we should add? Please contact us!

For even more tools check out our various training manuals, which include hundreds of additional training tools.

 
 Diversity / Anti-Oppression
 Strategy
 Team-building
 Nonviolent Action for Social Change
 Third-party Nonviolent Intervention
 Making Better Trainings
 Meeting and Dialogue Facilitation
 Other...
 
tools-diversity.jpg  Diversity / Anti-Oppression
 

Where your name comes from  
The simplest tool for cultural difference you'll ever lead!


Fishbowl, Panel and Speak-Outs: Three Listening Exercises  
Three related tools to help any group interact with its own margin. A good workshop provides opportunities for mainstream people to get new information about margins, in a way that goes below the surface and involves the emotional learning channel. The expectation is that, by highlighting the experience of a few margins in a dramatic way, participants will learn that they need to become pro-active in order to be fair with people on the margins. Similarly, the experience of powerfully speaking often increases the margins' self-confidence and clarity.


Diversity Welcome  
This opening tool has become a favorite at TFC. It's a great tool to warm-up a group and invite the diversity of the group to show up. (It's there anyways, why not name it?) We've found it works cross-culturally and helps to set a tone of invitiation and openness in a group.


More...
Tape on the Forehead
Step With Me
Culture Sharing: 3 strengths and 1 concern
Walking Across the Room
Power Shuffle
Mainstream/Margin
Diversity Interviews


tools-strategy.jpg  Strategy
 

Paper Plate Challenge  
Campaigns don't win all at once - they win through taking successful steps. Being able to break down the steps towards winning is a key skill for successful strategizing. This tool gives participants challenge and practice in setting stepping stones along the way and sequencing those to lead to a win.


Spectrum of Allies  
[example of spectrum of allies]This approach to strategizing serves bottom-up preferences in building social movements. In Starhawk's terms, it serves power-with rather than power-over, and is inherently democratic.


Strategy Game  
In this exercise participants are given a chance to consider strategic responses to a specific scenario. Subgroups take roles and challenge each other to come up with smart strategic choices.


More...
What is Strategy: blanket tool
From Tactics to Strategy
Macro-Strategy Tug of War
Strategy in an Hour!


tools-team.jpg  Team-building
 

Ankle Walk  
A simple group challenge: get across the room as one line together -- with a twist -- keep your ankles together. This adventure-based learning activity can surface group issues around leadership, decision-making, and group conflict.


I am the center...  
Whenever a new group forms people are always curious: Who else is in the room? This kinesthetic exercise allows peoples curiousity to show up and to learn about who is in the room. And, does it in a way that gets people working together.


Task and Maintenance: What makes groups work?  
This tool is a quick, easy tool that is effective at helping groups understand the different roles in making groups work: different leadership skills. Its based on a piece of feminist theory that understands different leadership skills: Task and Maintenance.


More...
Fishbowl: “Worst meeting ever…”
Team Types
Stepping Stones
Puzzle Squares


tools-nv.jpg  Nonviolent Action for Social Change
 

Elephant Game  
Movement activists are challenged to make team decisions under stressful situations. This simulation helps groups examine how to function cooperatively, how group decisions are made, how functions are distributed, and how to operate under stress.


Quick Decisions  
A classic nonviolent training tool: quick decisions. In one minute, groups are challenged to reach a decision of an action to take based on some situation. Great for action basic workshops, consensus training, and affinity group preparation.


Nonviolence Sociograms  
An updated version of the commonly used "nonviolence spectrums." Use this tool to help a group looks at its diversity of opinion on issues related to nonviolence along with see unexpected commonalities and similarities.


More...
Chair Power: Three types of power
Mattress Game (Pillars of Oppression Exercise)
Voice Barometer
Vision Gallery
Three Applications - Relay Race
Frameworks for Social Change
Street Speaking
Village Exercise


tools-thirdparty.jpg  Third-party Nonviolent Intervention
  Find more tools in our TPNI training manual: Opening Space for Democracy.

Accompaniment Role-Plays  
Looking for some role-play ideas for teaching accompaniment / unarmed bodyguards? Here are some ideas we collected for our training manual.


Enlisting Allies Tag Team  
What to do when confronted with a crowd ready to riot or an imminent police invasion? Well, if you're alone or only in a small group: get allies! In this exercise participants get to practice enlisting allies rapidly through quick glances and trying different techniques.


Confidence in the Face of Violence Series  
How to help participants handle their anxiety about entering a violent confrontation? This tool is designed to walk participants through a series of increasing challenges to help them gain confidence in working in violent settings, to stay more aware in the midst of physical conflict.


More...
Fishbowl Observation Challenge
Gummy Bear Exercise
Intelligence Collection Drill
Pantomime for Three Applications of Nonviolent Action
Peripheral Vision Milling
Presence Skills Arena
Spectrum of Peacework
Deterrence Relay Race


tools-wrench.jpg  Making Better Trainings
 

Step In: Step Out - using comfort zones  
Now a kinesthetic way of getting into the concept of comfort zones: step in and step out. This tool can be placed early in a workshop as a way of concretizing the concept of comfort zones -- as a bonus, this tool is a way to both talk about comfort zones and simultaneously builds the container as people actually step outside of their comfort zones through personal self-disclosure.


Water Glasses Exercise  
This activity we learned from Ouyporn Khuankeaw, a trainer in Thailand who most often works with village development workers, women leaders, monks and nuns, and NGO staff. She finds that popular education/experiential education is easier for participants to get the most out of if they understand that it is actually a different model from the prevailing teacher-centered model.


Maximize/Minimize Learning  
A favorite tool! Maximize/Minimize Learning is a powerful tool to help participants take responsibility for their own learning and identify personal strategies for them to make the most of the training. Given that people have been taught not to take ownership of their own learning, this tool helps people take that ownership back.


More...
Closed-eye Group Process
Dynamicas / Games
Closing Circles
Buddy System
Mingle
How to lead Roleplays
Parallel Lines


tools-dialogue.jpg  Meeting and Dialogue Facilitation
  The Activist Dialogue facilitated intergenerational dialogue across gaps in the activist community. Read TFC's manual on dialogue to learn what works when leading dialogue across huge gaps.

Meeting Facilitation: The No-Magic Method  
Back by popular demand, Berit Lakey's "No Magic Method": guidelines that will go a long way toward helping your group to meet both joyfully and productively.


tools-other.jpg  Other...
 

Sustaining Self-Care: a tool for personal awareness  
This design allows participants to reflect, in a natural and easy flow, about personal sustainability and self-care: it uses participants' experience to uncover new lessons and appreciate old ones. It's also a powerful tool for self-revelation about the relationship between depletion of energy and increase of energy.


Banner Making for Activists 101  
All the info activists need to create banners to identify themselves or convey a specific message.




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WORKSHOPS

Training for Change has led hundreds of workshops for over ten-thousand participants. We lead training of trainers to help groups and movements develop their own trainers; we offer anti-racism trainings, nonviolent strategy workshops, and more.So which workshop will most help you?

Read more about our workshops we offer publicly; or invite us to come to your group or organization!

 
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3241 Columbus Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55407

 


 
Training for Change     3241 Columbus Avenue, South Minneapolis, MN 55407 USA     peacelearn@igc.org     ph:612-827-7323