Teaching: honing the arts of facilitation and mediation

After traveling in Europe and North America, I began a career teaching high school mathematics in London. When I left teaching seven years later, I was head of the Math Department and a lecturer on "Effective Study Skills" at a leading independent high school in London.

I developed skills that helped me as a teacher and facilitator of learning—how to read subtle facial and bodily cues of understanding or confusion; how to reframe concepts to fit different audiences; the importance of explaining the intention behind all learning techniques and subject matter.

Since the students often had priorities which were in conflict with those of their parents and teachers, I gained great experience as an unofficial mediator, and as a participant in conflict. The communication skills I already had helped me to guide many of these conflicts to resolution. Nonetheless, I remained convinced that there was much more to learn about mediation, and knew this was a skill I wanted to continually improve.