Posted on April 2, 2012 by admin

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” Clifton Fadiman

First of all, let me be the first to say to all of the women reading this email- Happy International Women’s Day! According to Tricia, every country except the US celebrates it on March 8th. Each of my participants came up to shake my hand and congratulate me. Who knew?

Some of you have asked if I am taking a lot of pictures. The fact is, I am not out strolling- I am in a car at 7 or 7:30 a.m. for a drive that is anywhere from 30-60 minutes to get to the hotel when the training is sited. Then I am in a car at 5:30 or 6:30 p.m. to get back to our hotel. I tried to take pictures as we drove today and (1) got sea sick, (2) got a headache, and (3) got told by Ayo, our driver, that I should make sure no one saw me taking pictures or we would all be arrested. So I stopped.

When we got to the training room today, we found that all of the candy had been taken from the bowls. A bit later, we learned that the hotel staff actually sleep in that room! They had shown admirable restraint not taking the candy the first night.

We also lost the air conditioning for about an hour. Given that it was probably 100 F and 100% humidity outside, things got very very warm in a hurry. Just as we were going to move into another part of the hotel that had air conditioning, they fixed ours- and it was even better and cooler than it had been for the previous two days. Whew!

I am so thrilled by the participants. They are very astute and clearly have absorbed the accelerated learning concepts. They handed in their completed home practice assignment, which was to create a lesson plan avoiding the use of lecture- and they were masterful in their lesson design.

My one minor disappointment today was the fact that no one noticed I was wearing a pin in the shape of Africa and African earrings to match (which my mother brought back when she and Dad went to Africa). I felt very snazzy. Tricia suggested that perhaps they were so used to seeing this type of jewelry it didn’t register with them. Maybe.

On the way to the training hotel, we saw what must have been an entire family of 6 people on one scooter! I wish I’d been able to get a picture of that.

I also wish that I could get a few photos of the fishing boats on the water. In the morning, there is a mist or fog over the water- and the small boats are very graceful- similar to those you would see in photos of Japanese fishermen. Every now and then there is a boat with a square sail, but otherwise the boats are moved with long paddles from a standing position.

Additional random facts. The training hotel is using its back up generator to ensure that we don’t lose power, since the electricity goes on and off very frequently. It happened at my hotel this morning just when I was going to get dressed. It’s very hard to get dressed when you can’t see in front of you! But the power came on very quickly.

When it rains, as it did yesterday and today, there is a sudden downpour and you hear the thundering drops on the roof above you. It lasts for a few minutes and then stops. There are huge open culverts on the side of roads to take the water- or that’s what I assume.

Tricia informed me that the restaurant puts cream into the scrambled eggs- that’s why they taste funny and have an unusual texture.

when I get back to the hotel in the evening, the maid has turned down the bed, left a little reading light on and a chocodate on the pillow (a date stuffed with an almond and covered with chocolate). It is surprisingly tasty!

Yesterday, on the way back to the hotel, Ayo (our driver) explained that the sirens (more like buzzing beeps) we heard didn’t mean there was any difficulty- the police use their sirens to get through traffic to go home, not to fulfill any policing responsibility!

When I got back to the room this evening, the big floor lamp wouldn’t turn on and there wasn’t a bottle of water in the bathroom (to use for brushing teeth). I called and within 5 minutes got a return call telling me that both housekeeping and maintenance were on their way. They both came and remedied their respective situations for me within the next 5 minutes. Five minutes after that, I got a call to follow up and make sure that my needs had been met. What incredible customer service!

An embarrassing admission: when I conduct train the trainer programs in the States, I always tell participants how important it is to use examples that are relevant to their training audiences. Until I came here to Nigeria, I didn’t realize how difficult it is to even discover what might or might not be relevant. I used a pizza example to explain how to create learning goals and learning objectives- and although they do have pizza, the upper class of educated individuals do not recognize it as proper food.

I also provided what is supposed to be a meaningful sentence in an activity: “We go up north to see the autumn colors”- and that had no resonance for them. Then today I had to explain what bingo was. Luckily, they knew what a merry go round was.

I’m rethinking some of my training content for Jordan, based on this experience. I can’t imagine that they are familiar with those references either.

However, I must tell you that there are Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants all over the place…

May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #410: Training in Lagos, Day Two

Posted on March 26, 2012 by admin

“When you come to a fork in the road….take it” –Yogi Berra

At the beginning of the training on Day 2, I had a frank conversation with the group about the need to set strict time limits on activities so we could avoid a recurrence of the late day yesterday. They agreed and, to a great extent, complied.

They are so into the training- they take photos every time I show a cartoon on the Power Point, they stand next to me for pictures, every activity we do, someone is taking a picture. Since today focused on interactive learning activities, they had a lot to photograph.

Before I forget, they were each given a clear plastic letter-sized case that included a small notebook, a pencil, a square flat eraser, and a razor blade to use for sharpening the pencil. We need to clear off the pencil shavings from the tables after each training day.

I used a bingo-like game- and had to explain what bingo was. They had a blast. We also used tinker toys to create merry-go-rounds and they were very creative in their building- although I wouldn’t want to ride on any of them if they were life size!

It was very gratifying to review their home practice, which was to create the title, learning goals and learning objectives as the first part of a lesson plan. They all got it!! Later, in debriefing a case study about a trainer who lectured for 2 hours, it was great to hear their suggestions as to what the trainer did incorrectly and what many changes that trainer would need to make to set the learners up for success.

At one point, the three table groups worked to identify learning activities for a lesson on minimizing the risk of infectious diseases. One group knocked my socks off with their creativity. To introduce the concept of an infectious disease, they created a simple game- their participants, sitting at tables, were to pass around small pieces of paper. Several of those pieces of paper had a dot on it, signifying an infectious disease. Once everyone had their piece of paper, the individuals with the dots were to raise their hand- and then identify all of the people with whom they had come in contact. What an imaginative way to lead into a definition of infectious disease.

They took to heart the idea of meeting the needs of different learning styles. For example, to check participant comprehension of which diseases were infectious, they planned to state a disease and have the participants move to the right of the room if they thought it was infectious and to the left if they thought it wasn’t infectious.

Another group loved using pop ups to check for comprehension and built in a requirement for an action plan at the end. I am so impressed with how quickly they not only absorbed the idea of participatory learning but also immediately applied what they had learned in their lesson planning process. Yup, very gratifying.

Another nice thing about today is that I had much less trouble understanding folks when they spoke. Yesterday, there were times I simply had no idea what had been said. Today, my ability to comprehend their cadences (which are somewhat British and very lovely) increased geometrically. By the time I leave next Wednesday, I may even understand a good 90-95% of what is said!

Morning “tea” happens during one of the breaks in the morning and includes some pastry with meat. The afternoon tea break yesterday included what looked like plain cupcakes and round flat cakes. I tried one of the latter, which tasted somewhat like very very dry corn bread. Not my favorite (I’m a chocolate and nuts gal). Today, it looked like some kind of egg roll with what I imagine was very very hot dipping sauce. Lunch was better for me today because we ordered individually rather than having a buffet. I had chicken and chips (french fries) and cole slaw.

Interestingly enough, on our way to the training hotel a fellow passed by on a scooter with an enormous basket behind him on which were tied a pile of live very scrawny looking chickens! I’m wondering whether one of those provided my lunch. We also passed a statue of representatives of the three tribes (?) of Nigeria, each wearing native dress, holding up Nigeria.

Speaking of native dress, Tricia (my US contact who is here with me, thank goodness, and great company and help!) told me that Fridays are native dress days. I can’t wait to have an entire room full of folks in their native dress. Since they’ve been taking pictures of me every day, turn around will be fair play when I take photos of them!

In our next Tip, we’ll continue to discuss my Nigeria training experience.

May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #409: Travel to Foreign Lands

Posted on March 19, 2012 by admin

“LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.” Ambrose Bierce

I am having the adventure of a lifetime. Because of projects with USAID, I have just spent 11 days conducting training in Lagos, Nigeria and am now in Amman, Jordan for a month to review and design curriculum as well as conduct training.

The quote above is very apt because the intent of both of these projects is to improve training by moving it from trainer-centered to participant-centered. In other words, my mission is to convince trainers in these countries to stop lecturing and to start using participatory learning activities.

First Stop: Nigeria

I conducted a four day train the trainer program for 15 folks (only 2 women) who conduct training for US AID in Nigeria for the Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project This is a five-year global USAID-funded project mandated to increase the role of the private sector in the sustainable provision and use of quality family planning, HIV/AIDS, and other health information, products and services.

Among its core objectives, SHOPS works to improve the viability of private health sector businesses and increase access to financing for the private health sector in order to improve their capacity to deliver high-quality reproductive health and family planning services and products.

The objective of my scope of work was to help the SHOPS/Banyan Global staff in Nigeria to improve their capacity to deliver effective training programs and assist with the re-design and upgrade of the training curricula for the private health sector providers.

As they came into the room, the participants began to take pictures of the kites, the agenda map, training sayings I’d posted on the wall, and me! They loved the candy and music and moving around for activities. I discovered that they LOVE to debate- that means that a module that is typically 20 minutes was over an hour. We began at 9, had lunch from 1:15 to 2 pm. and didn’t end until 5:45 p.m.- a good 45 minutes over the scheduled ending time. This was due to the fact that, wanting to respect their process, I didn’t make them stop debating in their small groups. Just one example: it took them over 30 minutes of strenuous arguing just to decide on a title for the training program they were designing! Good grief!

They were all pleasant, bright professional people (all of the men in suits and ties) and are taking the training very seriously. There was a lot of chatter and laughter- and their energy seemed to increase as mine flagged. I still hadn’t caught up on my lack of sleep during the flights over (7 hours from Detroit to Amsterdam and 7 hours from Amsterdam to Lagos, during neither of which was I able to sleep).

I decided to replace some small group work with individual activities, because I absolutely refused to be on my feet conducting training for 8 hours again the next day. (My major surgery had been 5 weeks earlier, so I didn’t really have much stamina).

Lunch was not good for me. It was (understandably) native Nigerian food, which meant that it was all too spicy for me- with the exception of some rice and fish. Well, the fish was very spicy but I cut it up and mixed it with the rice, so it was tasty. Unfortunately, it was also full of small bones that were even more difficult to find in the rice… By the time we got back to the hotel after 7 p.m., I was starved.

Although exhausting, it was a very gratifying day to see these folks, all of whom are lecturers, embrace the idea of accelerated learning and participatory learning activities. The evaluations were all very positive, with the only concern being the length of the class. Two thought it was too long, one didn’t think it was long enough… I decided to discuss this with the group the next day, when I planned to lay down some ground rules.

I really missed the two count down timers I’ve always used on my Power Point. When I upgraded my Mac operating system, it no longer supported whatever system the timers used. I went on line before I got to bed to try to find even a basic free timer that would work on a Mac. I thought that projecting the remaining minutes would help keep them on track. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any that worked with my current operating system.

In our next Tip, we’ll continue to discuss my Nigeria training experience.

May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #408: One More Story and a Note of Thanks

Posted on January 23, 2012 by admin

“What is success in this world? I would say it consists of four simple things — to live a lot, to love a lot, to laugh a lot, and from it all, to learn a lot.” Richard J. Needham

This will be a very brief Tip, with one more story and a note of thanks.

Beth Tomlin, Departmental Training Specialist with TRICARE Division – Nordby, sent this wonderful story about the unexpected results of incomplete instructions:

“I have a funny anecdote to go along with this subject. Years ago, I worked at a summer day camp and the kids would go swimming almost every day. On the first day of swimming, I had the youngest girls in my group, mostly kindergarten and first grade kids. I told them to take off their clothes, put on their swimsuits and take a shower before going out on the pool deck. They were so excited and made quick work of getting ready.

When they came out on the pool deck I had to turn away from them so they wouldn’t see me laughing. All but two of the girls were still wearing their underwear under their swimsuits! I couldn’t blame them… they did exactly what I asked them to do. They took off their clothes, put on their swimsuits and took a shower. As they very noisily pointed out to me, I said absolutely nothing about removing their underwear! Sometimes I miss those days.”

Thank you, Beth!

Now, I need to amend the quote above by adding a fifth component of success in life: wonderful friends.

Thank you for your good wishes and support as I move through my current journey. Your messages have meant more to me than I can ever tell you- and since words are my business, that’s saying a great deal!

It may be a trite saying, but it is meant sincerely- thank you from the bottom of my heart! I count you among the many blessings in my life.

Stay warm if you are in a cold climate and cool if you are in a hot climate. Tips will resume in two or three weeks.

May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #407: Avoid Giving Unnecessary, Confusing or Incomplete Instructions!

Posted on January 18, 2012 by admin

“This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go.” Unknown Author

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a test that uses a magnetic field and pulses of radio wave energy to make pictures of organs and structures inside the body. My recent learning experience with having an MRI reinforced the importance of giving meaningful, clear and complete instructions.

1. Avoid Giving Unnecessary Instructions

My appointment instructions explicitly told me to wear pants without any metal attachments. Okay, that was no problem. All I had to do was wear pants with an elastic waist instead of a zipper. Unfortunately, I overlooked the second requirement until I had my snow boots, winter coat, scarf, hat and gloves on. Apparently, I was also supposed to wear pants without pockets.

This created some stress on my part. Who owns pants without pockets? I certainly don’t! Actually, what is the point of pants that have no pockets?

Once we got to the hospital, there was no problem. They handed me pajama bottoms to wear. I guess I was one in a long line of patients who were not pocketless pant owners!

This begs the question- why give those pants instructions at all? A good rule of thumb for hospitals, trainers and life itself is to avoid giving unnecessary instructions!

2. Avoid Giving Confusing Instructions

The instructions on the bottle of prescription sedatives indicated that two sedatives should be taken 30 minutes before the MRI and another two sedatives should be taken 30 minutes after the MRI.

Taking them beforehand made perfect sense. I am claustrophobic and the idea of lying completely enclosed for an hour gave me great concern, to say the least. The sedatives were intended to take the edge off and enable me to relax and stay still.

However, I couldn’t imagine why I would need to take two more sedatives after the MRI. Would there be post-traumatic stress from the MRI experience? Was this a clever intervention intended to distract me and minimize my ability to think clearly and ask anxious questions after the procedure?

Who knows? I still don’t know, because no one at the hospital could explain the need for post MRI sedation and I personally felt no need for it.

Let’s add confusing instructions to the list of things to avoid. Instructions should contribute to clarity rather than confusion.

3. Avoid Giving Incomplete Instructions

While some instructions are meaningless or simply confusing, some don’t go far enough.

If a patient takes a sedative, the hospital insists on having someone else drive a patient to and from the MRI. However, they say nothing about the length of time it will take before the patient can safely resume driving.

Because I asked the question, I learned that the sedatives I had taken would impair my mental capacity and motor coordination for 6-10 hours! Unfortunately, this information was not printed anywhere or volunteered by any medical personnel. If I hadn’t asked the question, I would never have known the answer.

I had errands to run that afternoon. I could easily have been a danger to myself or to others on the road if I had hopped into my car once I got back from the hospital. Luckily, since I knew that I was incapacitated, my driver kindly took me on those errands.

This seems like a significant oversight in the instructions department, don’t you think?

If anything deserves to be crystal clear, it should be medical instructions. However, in the hospital staff’s defense, it is probably so obvious to them that sedation takes a long time to wear off, they assume that anyone would know this. As a general rule, it is best to avoid making assumptions.

Life daily provides new lessons to learn. Lessons relating to health and safety can be anxiety-ridden and difficult enough without the added stress and frustration of poor instructions. First do no harm!

Even if you are not a health professional, regardless of the situation, when you give instructions, please make sure that they are necessary, clear and complete.

May your learning be sweet.

Deborah

Tip #406: Life Is What Happens

Posted on January 9, 2012 by admin

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” John Lennon

Happy New Year.

I know that I said that these Tips would recommence on January 16th. However, something came up. A not so funny thing happened to me on my way to planning my international travels. I was diagnosed with early uterine cancer.

In the space of a few days, my life and my focus were dramatically reframed. So now, instead of getting visas and packing for Jordan and Nigeria, I’m getting medical tests and preparing for surgery.

I’m also learning a lot- about myself, about my family, and about my friends.

First of all, I’ve learned that my body’s defensive response to devastating news is to get so sick that all that I can do is eat, read and sleep. That’s how I spent the holidays. Luckily, the Christmas tree is beautiful and my cats have been happy to keep my lap warm when I sit in my rocking chair to read.

Second, as I take practical steps- to cancel my trip, to plan for work absences, to create a back up strategy if my recovery takes longer than anticipated- I realize that I am operating on automatic pilot. My emotions must be packed away with my passport. The cancer is a reality, the operation is a necessity, and everything else seems to fade in significance.

Third, I am making sure to keep breathing. That sounds funny, I know. But a new friend insists that I keep breathing and focus on healing. Oh, and eat a lot of deep green leafy vegetables. I’m doing very well on two of those three imperatives.

My family has been wonderful. Three of my brothers and one sister-in-law have all offered to leave their busy lives to be with me. My mother has asked about what she can do, since she no longer travels. My cousins have sent love and light, keeping me in their prayers. My daughter has piloted me through the maze of the University of Wisconsin Hospital, getting me to all of the various tests and appointments. My son has given me reassuring hugs.

My friends have also rallied, sending best wishes and offers of help. Even people I have only recently started to work with and get to know have offered to drive me to appointments or to sit and talk over coffee.

There is also a strong and supportive virtual community of Hystersisters who share great advice based on their personal experiences. As a result, I know what to expect, how to plan and where to go when I need answers or moral support. Since it is a worldwide organization, there are loving women awake and available at the touch of a keyboard no matter the time of day or night.

I am so very lucky. Technological advances can make this surgery as minimally invasive as possible. I have a kind and very experienced doctor and medical team. I know that I am in good hands.

At this time when I could feel most alone, instead I am nestled in the warmth of loving wisdom and concern.

I don’t know what is in store for me. I don’t know why this health issue is happening right now. I’m not sure what I am supposed to learn from this. Perhaps that the spirit is incredibly strong and resilient? That love and tenderness surround us? That this lifelong loner is not now, has never really been, and will never be alone.

If we are all angels learning to be human, than this is a most human experience. An MRI on January 13th (a Friday) will reveal the extent of the cancer. Hopefully, we are catching it early before it has had time to spread. Regardless of the MRI findings, my surgery will be on January 26th. My children and my brother will be with me- and my family and friends will be on call.

They tell me that, if all goes well, the surgery will be conducted robotically and I’ll be able to go home the very next day. And if the cancer is localized, that surgery will be all that I need.

That is my hope and my prayer. Now I let go and let God.

Thank you for being part of my journey.

May your learning be sweet.

Deborah