By Erika Webster, Oklahoma, United States
My experience as a facilitator of the Urantia Book Internet School (UBIS) has been as enriching and rewarding to me as when I participated as a student. It has been a privilege and an honor to have the opportunity to serve in the dissemination and study of The Urantia Book within the Spanish-speaking community around the world. I am truly happy to see how in a few years the number of readers of The Urantia Book has grown.
I am also happy that UBIS has striven to meet the growing demand for teachers by recruiting readers like me to fill the role of facilitator. The leaders and the facilitators of UBIS have guided and instructed me from the beginning, with excellence and enthusiasm, in how to facilitate courses.
It does not take a scholar with a title to fill this role, but it does require cooperation, commitment, sensitivity, and sincerity. As facilitators, we work together to review, correct, and approve the courses before they are taken. At the same time, we encourage each other to give our best effort.
With the opportunity to serve comes great responsibility, which demands discipline. As a facilitator, you must commit to weeks of personal time. You must also conduct in-depth research to prepare reference and support materials for the better visualization and understanding of the subject being studied, and design it for different intellectual levels. A successful course is one in which all students will fully participate by presenting questions, sharing experiences, exchanging views, and working together during the participation periods.
Once you accept this role, you undertake to be a moderator between the participants, to help create an atmosphere where all can freely express themselves. You must encourage all students to interact, and you must foster their respect for one another, so that each one will feel free to express their thoughts without the fear of being judged.
There are challenges in facilitating a course using the medium of the Internet, where the main communication is only in writing. Without seeing faces and hearing voices, there may be some loss of expression and clarity of intent. On the other hand, a big advantage is that participants may take the course on their own schedule, without having to be present at the same time.
We facilitators sometimes face individual challenges in doing our best, but the team is very supportive. We help each other to prepare and fulfill the responsibility we assumed, and to continue offering this service. Above all, we help each other to see that in this work we are not merely aiming for a personal benefit but striving in a noble cause.