Skillful moderating is a key to any successful forum, and as community dialogues on the achievement gap come together around the nation, organizers are grappling with two critical questions: Who will moderate? And what kind of training should we provide?
Answers appear to be arising organically, based on how much experience organizers have with forums, existing community politics, and partners’ budgets and ambitions.
Building Civic Capacity
In Bridgeport, Connecticut, for example, where Marge Hiller’s Bridgeport Public
Education Fund has helped nurture community engagement for the past decade, teaching students and teachers to moderate is intrinsic to her philosophy and project.
“You can’t do anything top down anymore,” Hiller said. “It has to be something that comes from the people affected…One group we haven’t had enough information from is students.”