Last Thursday 18th April, I ran an intensive Train-the-Trainer session for staff and trainers of the Enterprise + Training Company. The staff and trainers deliver the Diploma of Management through businesses throughout NSW. The Diploma of Management is a nationally accredited qualification that contains two sustainability related units, particularly focussed on creating workplace policies and procedures to promote sustainability.
This gave me another opportunity to deliver aspects of my EcoPractice Suite. As I wasn’t sure of their prior knowledge, I began with a Greenstarters prezi then a series of Ecoplicity topics to help them get their heads into the issues of harmonising sustainability principles within business practices.
A session with me is never complete without covering an aspect of sustainability as culture, so I finished with an introduction to sustainability culture change in organisations.
One of my guiding principles when I am acting as an educator of other educators is to broaden the scope to a deeper level than the material they have to teach. This is the adage “a mind once expanded never returns to its original dimensions” put into practice.
So the group definitely got more than they bargained for. I hope they left the workshop with a new view of sustainability practice that will help them in their relationship with their students. And got more than I bargained for, too: the most intelligent question I’ve ever been asked at a workshop:nIn the context of working with people “what do you do when you don’t know the answer?”. I think this is such a good question, I’ll take this on as a blog topic a little later on. With the permission of the participants, I have attached some photos taken at the end of the day.
Cheers
Matthew Parnell