STUDY GROUP OUTLINE
Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach: The Power of Dialogue
in Educating Adults
by Jane Vella, published by Jossey-Bass, Inc., Publishers, c 1994.
Chapter 4 - Safety: Creating a Safe Environment for Learning
- Ms. Vella describes a situation in which she and her partner, both women, were only "tolerated" (pg 55) by the church authorities in Tanzania. It wasn't until those leaders recognized that villagers had learned and were applying new information that their initial toleration was replaced by respect and interest in the village education project. Have you ever had a student whose initial reaction to you was one of distance and disinterest? If that student's reaction changed over a period of time do you know why it changed? Do you feel you have to "prove yourself to each new group of students?"
- In your teaching situation do you feel that the administrators are familiar with what you are doing in the classroom? Do you feel that curriculum planning for your classes is a collaborative activity (administrators + teachers + students)? (pg 56)
- "Mr. Makame was seen as the girls' friend.'" (pg 57) A close friendly relationship between the teacher and only one or two students can be perceived as favoritism by other students even if favoritism doesn't exist. In Ms. Vella's account, her entire educational project was endangered because of distrust and resentment. (pg 57) Has this ever happened in your class? What caused the perception of favoritism, and how did you handle the situation?
- Six aspects of effective adult learning and teaching are identified: political, problem- posing, part of a whole, participative, person-centered, and prepared. (pg 58-59) Which two would you select as most important to you at this point in your teaching career?
- Donald Oliver (pg 63) is quoted as identifying two different types of knowledge:
- "Technical knowledge refers to adaptive, publicly transferable information or skills;
- Ontological knowledge refers to a more diffuse apprehension of reality, in the nature of liturgical or artistic engagement. In this latter sense, we come to know with our whole body, as it participates in the creation of significant new occasions - occasions which move from imagination and intention to critical self-definition, to satisfaction and finally to perishing and new being. Give examples from your classroom of these two types of knowledge. In your opinion, is one better, more important, more effective for adults than the other?
- What does this Swahili proverb mean: "By losing the way one learns the way!" ?(pg 64)
