In a nondescript business park in Stevensville, just a mile or so from the Bay Bridge, the Touchstones Discussion Project has occupied a small office suite for the last 5 years. It is hard to imagine that from this little outpost, Touchstones has reached thousands of children, business executives, politicians, and even prisoners with its unique programs aimed at creating new skills in communication and leadership.
Based in part on St. John’s College’s well-known seminar programs, Touchstones used that model and refashioned it to build skills in collaboration and teamwork. A quick look at the organizations and governments it has worked with during thirty years of operation is testimony to the extraordinary success this approach has had in this country and around the world. Those include such diverse clients as Cecil County Public Schools to the Kingdom of Jordan Ministry of Education.
The Spy caught up Howard Zeiderman, with one of the founders of Touchstones, a few weeks ago to talk about this very special nonprofit organization on Kent Island. Zeiderman, a product of St. John’s College and Princeton University, talks about his work with fellow St. John’s faculty members Geoffrey Comber and Nick Maistrellis in 1984, which formed the principles around Touchstones and the extraordinary success stories of its applications in all sorts of different settings.
For more information on Touchstones, please go here
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