In this section, Dr. Sastry looks back at the workshop and reflects on what could be improved.
Finding a Model for How to Present a Partner Organization with Ideas Rather Than a Conclusion
Students often want ot create a definitive conclusion—a bottom line of sorts. In retrospect, I could have provided a model to the students for sharing the range of ideas they developed throughout the workshop process with our partners at Sangath. More value could be delivered—both to the students and to the partners—if I had them track and list all the things they considered and rejected, explaining why. I think it would be useful to show the thought process, all those little trails they didn’t take, as well as the paths they decided to take.
"… it would be useful to show the thought process, all those little trails they didn’t take as well as the paths they decided to take."
This is not the kind of project where you can reach a nice, neat conclusion. Students often wanted to provide a linear slide deck: X happened, then Y, and my conclusion is Z. But here you can’t make conclusions because you don’t know enough about the landscape, the challenges in Goa or Bihar, to do that. Rather, the whole point is to array your ideas in front of the partner.
This time around, I fear that we ended up getting more out of the experience than Sangath did, except where we found a specific person to connect with in the organization. In those cases, the students unearthed some interesting ideas, and spurred some thought in the partners.
