End of One

This week, we were all caught up with LAB being back in Ottawa for sessions and then heading off to Montebello for the graduation. It was interesting to watch how the Ottawa sessions took place - there was a mixture of lecture/workshop, dialogues, receptions and debriefs. I found out that the School's kitchen does really good lunches, and wondered how people keep from getting fat from all the breakfast muffins & pastries, and lunchtime desserts (haha, so it's a problem for all schools of government!).

My greatest lessons for the week didn't come from the instructional design or facilitation techniques. I learnt a lot, but two things stood out more for me. Firstly, I witnessed for myself how the School's design team responded to their circumstances and challenges with professionalism. Grace under fire. Suffice to say that they accommodated various preferences from the participants as well as programme partners, and they did their best with cheer and composure.

Secondly, the sharp contrast of working styles present within the cross-country programme team showed me that the School is committed to collaboration. What I saw in their responses to their partners was a genuine effort to honour and respect the ideas and feelings of others; working together with no intention other than to give participants the best possible learning experience. I respect them for their strength in putting aside personal pride for greater good.

They did an excellent job in closing Module 3 as well as the entire LAB programme, with a very well done graduation dinner and ceremony at Montebello. Chateau Montebello is the world's largest log cabin, built in 1930. It is somewhere between Ottawa and Montreal, and is famed for its good food and breathtaking views of the Ottawa River, rolling plains and fall colours. For the dinner, we were treated to traditional French Canadian music, food and dance. The School also arranged for a Towncrier to do the roll call for handing out the programme certificates, which was fun. The best part of the evening? Louise sang 4 songs for us - what a beautiful mellow voice she has! I loved it when she sang the French ballads.

We got back yesterday afternoon, and I met Patricia over supper at Chinatown, to close up this first assignment. Isn't it fast - I'm at the end of Part One now, and it's consolidation and reflection time. We had a good talk over supper, and Patricia remarked that I've been able to gain people's trust rather quickly over 2 weeks - that being the reason why I've been able to hear and see the good, bad and ugly. It's true - people have been very candid with me, and strangely enough, saying that it is comforting to have me around. I don't think I've done anything special. Perhaps it's just having someone who has no real stakes in the issue as a listening ear and sounding board.