PROCESS
PALAR PROCESS
Our community is guided by an easy-to-use process that offers transformative opportunities for those interested in taking climate action.
Participatory action learning and action research (PALAR) is an ideal methodology for teachers, scientists, students, researchers and community leaders to work together on ‘wicked’ problems like Climate Change. It creates space for experimentation, deep reflection, and meaningful positive change. It offers hope.
HOW IT WORKS
PALAR process is a collaborative approach to addressing real-world challenges. It challenges the traditional idea of knowledge being solely created by specialists or theorists (e.g. researchers giving teachers a resource pack to ‘cover’ climate in their classrooms).
Bring together a diverse group of people who care deeply about the issue you are interested in.
We put out a twitter call, looking for people interested in taking action in the area of sustainability and education. We emailed friends, colleagues and people we thought might be interested in working in this area.
Your community will co-create knowledge, support one another, and plan actions that will help achieve the shared vision so pay close attention to building relationships and developing trust.
We worked in welcoming messy spaces, shared food, and took time to get to know one another. We involved an expert facilitator to support our collective endeavour.
Next, you need to assess the existing practices around your area of interest? Are there opportunities for improvement? This phase helps you understand the challenges and opportunities for change.
We considered our vision, and tried to pinpoint what would help us get there and what obstacles we might encounter. We thought the connections we had a community and how those links might help us towards our goal. We took time to consider what were the root causes of our issues and if those might be addressed with what were trying o do.
Often there is not one singular solution to tackling a problem. Give space to explore different ideas and approaches. Make use of the diversity of thought within your community. Be brave and bold in your thinking.
We found ourselves splitting into groups that wanted to pursue 4 different ideas. This allowed us to brainstorm practical, actionable ideas that were realistic for our needs but which also allowed us to try new things.
This is where you put your ideas into practice. The key here is to take small steps that allow you to create meaningful, sustainable change.
We wanted to see if our ideas worked in the real world. We got permission from people to pilot our projects, we discussed timelines, and created resources to allow us to try put our ideas into practice.
Take time to listen to peoples’ perspectives on the issue you all care about. Go deep. Take time. The research questions you ask as a group will be richer as a result. See trials of your ideas as experiments that may work, may fail, or may fall somewhere in between. Have an open, inquisitive, and critical mindset. See learning as your goal.
While we were keen to ‘get going’ with ideas, we greatly appreciated the time to think and reflect before jumping to practical things. We focused on just a few topics we wish to explore through experiment. We knew they weren’t perfect but we were open to learning and improving upon them.
Celebrate the outcomes of the work you have done together as a collective achievement. There may be firm outcomes that translate in to new ways of thinking or doing. You may have created new knowledge. You may also inspire further work or wish to try things again in a different way
Some of the things we trialed worked really well and led to positive outcomes. Others took more circuitous routes. We found that people within the community showed great leadership on particular ideas they cared about deeply.