Reflection on Reading Facilitation Course

To be honest, I was rather disappointed with this course.

The instructor was able to take the stage and catch everyone's attention. Although he was a very entertaining person, I felt that he lingered too long on his personal experiences and as a result focused more on 'the lessons of life' rather than how to facilitate a book club discussion.

The group discussion, however, was another story. We broke up into groups and were supposed to discuss a given story. The story was about how a man spent his life waiting to feel love. Even when his bride was bitten by a snake and died on the day of their wedding reception, he was disappointed that his first thought was how ruined his wedding would be. Even after going down to hell and rescuing his wife, he feels more and more distant from her.

To me, this was a very beautifully crafted story and the use of queer characters such as the sympathetic God of Hell greatly contributed to the irony of the situation. This was not to be said of the rest of the participants. The discussion was rather unfocused and shallow; within 5 minutes the rest of the group were discussing the latest games. Other groups missed the point, saying that ,"Perhaps the snake in the grass was not poisonous," or,"It's rubbish! How can a person go to hell and back?" A few groups caught on though, discussing the matter of choosing 'the right one' to marry.