Blog 6 - Final Thoughts

If I was able to be a conversation circle leader next semester, there would definitely be some changes, especially regarding the overall organization of how the entire semester would go. In the beginning, it is extremely important to be much more structured with how the meetings will be run. I think this is dependent on many factors. First, before you can really begin having meaningful conversation, you need to have a strong base to grow from. Secondly, these students almost never know each other and are nervous and overwhelmed. They are depending on you to help them start conversation, to inform how the conversations will be running, and what they believe they will be taking away from it. This sounds kind of scary. However, I do believe that something I didn't quite understand in the beginning was how essential my leadership was in the first two or three meetings. It is also easier to structure the first few meetings as these meetings are probably when you can expect the highest amount of participation. It was difficult in later meetings to plan games or activities if only one person showed up.
I think another important thing would be to mix it up more. I tried to do something different every meeting and this way I could figure out what people enjoyed, what they didn't, what created conversation. A person may seem extremely shy, but once you start talking about something they may be interested in, you have a more vocal participant. So always mix it up and don't be afraid to take input from your conversation group. One of my participants went to the Kelsey Museum and didn't seem as enthused as the other members. However, in one of the exhibits, there was an explanation of the game mancala and he suddenly became interested in the activity. And the next week, I decided to teach mancala and other games I had often played during elementary school. And this went over well with the participants.
I've spent a lot of time with international students, though this was the first time I've ever had the experience of leading them. I've always been an equal, just another student. The experience of leading conversation circles made me much more aware of how the experiences of domestic students and international students are different, increasing my awareness of the everyday difficulties of the international student. For example, when discussing how different the USA and Korean education systems with one of my participants, I was able to more easily understand the underlying worries he felt as a student new to the University of Michigan. As a leader, participants often asked me about ways to get involved on campus, ways to talk to teachers about grades, ways to de-stress, ways to pass a difficult class. These sorts of issues were brought to me because I am a leader of this conversation circle, allowing me to comprehend, at least in part, the lives of international students on this campus. It was enlightening and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to become aware of these sorts of difficulties.

Blog 6

Looking back on the semester, my first experience as a conversation circle facilitator had its ups and downs, but was overall a success! I managed to keep the group solidified enough that we are planning to keep the circle going when we return from break. I think that the conversations went really well when the majority of the group showed up. Three weeks ago, I had the chance to talk with two of my participants about their families (prompted by a question about Thanksgiving). It was great to hear them open up about what they loved about their parents, as well as what they found frustrating.

That being said, attendance has been fairly rocky over the past couple of weeks. Only one participant (Ray) showed up for each of the last two sessions. While I was happy to have the opportunity to have another one-on-one session with my most-consistent participant, the conversations took on the tone of therapy sessions. We talked a lot about Ray’s final schedule (murderous as it was), and how her group project members seemingly sabotaged their own experiments. All of this information needed to get out and it seemed like the circle (or line in this case) could act as a release if nothing else. But towards the end of the second session, I did miss the back and forth sensation that came with better-attended sessions. I hope that the new semester will renew attendance as well.

I think the aspect of this experience that I am most grateful for (aside from getting to meet my participants) has been the constant rediscovery of the difficulties that come from taking classes in a non-native language. I think of my participants like Ray, who must struggle through English translations of non-English philosophy texts. I wish there was a way to allow her to read the Korean version of Wittgenstein, for instance. Or I think of Martin, who must listen to economy lectures in another language. Is it not possible to translate these lectures and make them available on C-Tools? I believe that the University must start making changes to the academic setting in order to allow for greater ESL student participation. 

Blog Post #6

How strange that it's already been an entire semester! I can still very clearly recall the pre-meeting jitters of my first Chat Cafe. I was unsure what to expect, then, but I have a good grasp on how I feel now; in a small, but significant way, the Chat Cafes have allowed me to engage with the international community on campus, and have shaped my views on multiculturalism, and the experience of living and studying abroad. And, perhaps most importantly, I have had the singular pleasure of getting to know two wonderful students!

I've been reflecting on the fundamentals of my Chat Cafe experience, and how I might be able to improve. Time and available credits allowing, I would very much like to continue facilitating meetings next semester, and there's a lot that can be gleaned from this first experience that I'd like to keep in mind for next time. For instance, as we met weekly at Espresso Royale, I had trouble at our first meeting figuring out who was there for the Chat Cafe -- in the future I might pick a not quite so public place for an initial meeting, or I might make explicit where I'll be and what color shirt I'll be wearing beforehand, just to eliminate confusion. These kinds of organizational and logistic pitfalls will be easier to avoid now that I'm aware of them. Attendance is an issue that falls somewhat outside the realm of my control, but I've been thinking that maybe Sweetland could ask students to answer a few very brief short answer questions before placement into groups, so as to create a sense of a structured, formal program. Because the Chat Cafe system is meant to be casual, I would never want to enforce attendance, but if students felt like they were part of an offical, "formal-ish" Sweetland initiative, understood their commitment, and were prepared to follow through on the onset, perhaps that could have deterred them from skipping so often.

Regardless of the attendance issues, which we've discussed at length during class times, I've been very happy with the overall vibe of the weekly meet-ups. I've been very lucky that two members of my group have attended consistently and have demonstrated both interest and engagement in the Chat Cafes. Prior to this semester, my understanding of the international community was very much constrained to my own experience, and I often committed the mistake of homogenizing the backgrounds of multicultural students I wasn't familiar with. However, meeting Paige and Natalia, and really getting to know the both of them, has opened my eyes to the very real individuality and variability present in the international community.

Blog Post 6: Reflections on the Semester

It's hard for me to believe that we've just about finished our conversation circles for the semester. During my conversation circle on Monday I was thinking a lot about the way our group dynamic has changed since September. All of the girls in my group are still gregarious, still talkative, and still make an effort to be there - this was one of the things I was most thankful for in September and continue to be thankful for during our conversations each week. Yet something about our group dynamic has shifted as we've gotten to know each other: Our group dynamic has brought us more together as a group. This happened almost imperceptibly, I think; I can't remember a specific moment when I realized that we were a group, each equal members in our conversation and peers in our time spent together. This was not something that I was expecting to happen; I worried at the beginning of the semester that I would play the role of the facilitator for the entire semester rather than a participant. But on Monday I really realized how we all genuinely cared about each other, how we were comfortable joking and laughing together because we had become friends.

As I write this it seems kind of cheesy, but it feels like the good kind of cheesy. The kind of cheesy that makes you feel good and warm and like you've done something worthwhile.

This has been a wonderful experience for me, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to at the beginning of the semester. Rather than being a burden in my schedule, my conversation circles, and our class discussions, have become a way for me to de-stress and a way to continue my learning in a really concrete way. I've learned so much about how people interact with one another, about my own biases and stereotypes, and ultimately how I can make this campus environment more welcoming to International students. What's most exciting to me about this is that it directly relates to my interest in social justice and the work that I do on this campus to make it a more integrative community. I've learned about where each of these students is coming from; I've learned about their families, their struggles, their likes and dislikes, and with each session my understanding of my own privilege and my own place on campus is broadened. I leave sessions satisfied, which, if you had asked me in September, was not something I was expecting to feel at the beginning of this experience. Though unexpected, this satisfaction with my work has allowed me to get more out of it, to be more invested, and ultimately to build more lasting relationships with the members in my group.

When I asked whether or not my participants would want to do this again next semester, they all said that they would want to stick together as a group so that we could continue to have our weekly meetings. This was amazing to hear, and I look forward to all of our future conversations.