Disarming Arguments – Half Day Workshop

9.00 Welcome, housekeeping

9.05 Go round of names, where from and…

Hopes and expectations/why are you here? – write on flipchart for reviewing at the end of the day

9.10 Review of programme for the day and check against expectations- anything need to change?

9.15 Spectrum lines – give space to discuss

  1. How strongly do you feel for or against nuclear weapons?
  2. How long have you been active on this issue?
  3. How confident are you at speaking with those of opposing viewpoint?
  4. Prophets and reconcilers (after first section of introduction)

9.20 Introduction

  • Who has had a recent conversation about nuclear weapons?
  • Was it difficult?
  • What were some of the challenges?
  • Distinguish between conversations with friends vs. people you don’t know on the street vs. public figures etc – today will focus on conversations with people we know
  • 30 Read through script of a nuclear conversation
  • *** write up 2 (short) conversations: 1 with a prophet and 1 with a reconciler talking
  • Ask for positives and negatives about each conversation
  • Explain prophets and reconcilers

9.45

  1. Preparation – The first tip is to prepare! And the best preparation is knowing what to expect and having some ideas about how to respond. There are only 20 or so arguments in favour of nuclear weapons. Each one is covered in the book. They are many variations on these 20 themes, but there are in fact only a limited number of arguments, and just knowing what these are can help you to feel more confident about having a conversation on this topic.
  • Brainstorm the 20 arguments
  1. Opening – how to start a conversation when you both know you disagree and probably don’t want to talk about it? Bring a prop to share with them or bring up something that you both have seen or heard as a way in.

10.00

  1. Listening – review of active listening skills, including reflecting, paraphrasing, clarifying…
  2. Affirming – what can you affirm, even if it is their right to have an opinion on the subject?
    1. Hand-out sheets with pro-nuclear statements on them
    2. In pairs, read the statement to the other person, add as necessary to pad it out
    3. Other person then tries to find something they can affirm
    4. Swap after 5 minutes
    5. Share experiences with the whole group – write on flipchart what people affirmed, did everyone agree, could they think of other things to affirm?

10.30 – general discussion about listening and affirming and generally the ‘reconciler’ approach – and why that is important but can’t be the only thing we do because it doesn’t change anyone’s view, only opens them up to be more receptive to changing…

break

11.15

  1. Questioning – how to get people to question their own assumptions/beliefs or the information they’ve been given without it being confrontation/antagonistic and they shut down? forum theatre exercise
    1. Two groups, for and against (randomly selected but might be better if people choose where they are most comfortable) the first two in the middle were the other facilitators to get the ball rolling
    2. Started conversation based on earlier script, whenever anyone felt able, they tap shoulder of one or other and take their place, continuing the conversation where it left off
    3. Carried on until everyone who wanted to have a go got a chance to have a turn.
    4. Stopped halfway through to introduce Fact-checking –using mobile phones to find out what we can from Wikipedia or Siri or wherever, while we are still in a conversation – importance in real life of doing it together so it’s a joint exploration of the facts…
    5. De-brief – people found the exercise difficult but very helpful, brought out lots of anxieties and challenges

11.45 went back inside to discuss ‘feeding new information (and perspectives) into the shared pool of knowledge’ as a way of getting people to think – not saying they are wrong or confronting what they believe they know to be true, but adding new truths for them to think about/take in… Did roleplaying/game in groups of 3 – use 3 people (facilitators) to demonstrate it first, so people get it:

  1. Person one is the pro-nuclear person who just listens and then marks what they hear out of 10 in terms of how ‘convincing’ it felt to them
  2. Person two is the anti-nuclear person who has to make the pitch using one new fact that they are introducing into the conversation. They have to try to introduce that new fact in a way that is feeding and sharing rather than confrontational
  3. Person three is the ‘mini-Me’ who has the fact (I gave them the Nuclear FAQ and assigned each of these people one of the numbered paragraphs). They present the fact to person two as best they can so that person two understands it, but it is person two who must ‘translate’ the fact before presenting to person one.
  4. After 5 minutes they switched roles and after another 5 minutes they switched roles again so everyone had a chance to be each role
  5. We then de-briefed – how many scored 10 points? 9? 8? 7? None? Why? What was convincing? What were some of the facts? Did you find it easy/hard?

12.15 came back together for final session of reviewing the tips, handed out the Tips booklet, discussed challenges, what people learned, felt was useful, etc

12. 30 Reviewed the expectations from the beginning of the day and how people felt they had been met or not

12.45 Evaluation forms, finish by 1pm