PIDP 3260 The Skillful Teacher Ch. 2 Review

For this blog post (Week 3's assignment), we are required to comment on Stephen D Brookfield's The Skillful Teacher Ch. 2 - The Core Assumptions of Skillful Teaching

To be honest, I've just been reading this text in chunks, but ones not necessarily defined by the chapters. There's a lot of really useful and applicable information that has prompted "aha moments" for myself, as well as giving validation to others who have indicated areas of concern/struggles. This book so far has been quite good. I'm currently in the middle of Chapter 15.

Backtracking to Chapter 2, the author outlines and dives into the four core assumptions he holds about skillful teaching:

• Skillful teaching is whatever helps students learn
• Skillful teachers adopt a critically reflective stance towards their practice
• The most important knowledge that skillful teachers need to do good work is a constant awareness of how students are experiencing their learning and perceiving teachers' actions
• College students of any age should be treated as adults

I wholeheartedly agree with assumption #1. I've already used very basic and simple activities geared towards children on adults, and instead of the total scorn and refusal to participate in these activities, I've discovered that it's almost like the adults needed a "permission slip" to play from their instructor and will actually participate in the activities because they are fun. A good professor of mine once said that if I have to bribe people with participation marks, you're being a shitty teacher. I agree with that sentiment too - there can be joy and fun in learning. It's funny buying items for my program, as the purchasing department is VERY CURIOUS about what the heck I am doing in my class.

Assumption #2 is very important so that teaching doesn't become stale. I've seen this many times with older teachers/instructors in that they are going through the motions of their set lesson plans and courseware, and the classes are boring and lifeless. Often their references are out of date, links are dead and it misses connecting with the different generations/cultures that are now attending training. I'm working with a gentleman right now that is clearly struggling to stay relevant and to be seen as a voice of authority in his sessions, but when "updating" his courseware, it's exactly the same boring junk. There definitely is a need for professional development for teachers (heck, most professions in general). Funny though, in the K-12 education systems here, the teaching staff has HUGE amounts of absenteeism on Pro-D days, so much so that they have broken the Pro-D days into half days, to the dismay of all the parents who have to arrange for 1/2 day daycare, double the amount they used to do before when Pro-D days were full days.

Assumption #3 is hard. Really hard. Getting that feedback is crucial, but receiving it gracefully is definitely a skill. I've taken a lot of courses about giving/receiving feedback and it doesn't make it easier. It's always that 5% or less that is cruel/crappy, and it's that 5% that seems to stick out the most in your brain despite the fact that 95% is a very high A mark on the rest of your work.

Assumption #4 I think is a no-brainer. In fact, I would adjust it to say "treat students of any age as PEOPLE". With my experiences as a mom, observations of other parents, and the feedback from my own kids (and recollections of myself at their ages), I really have to say that people need to treat people like they are living, breathing people. There is a lot of talking down to younger people that is really unacceptable - they are people, training to be adults. One day, they WILL BE adults, and they will remember your treatment of them and may even repeat the same abuses on others. I've even encountered people that I am now working with that treated me "less than" or "a child", and they still attempt to treat me less than: dude, we are PEERS now. Respectful treatment of adults-in-training is incredibly important. This assumption is similar to how I feel about Malcolm Knowles' assumption of adult learners in that:

"adults need to know why they need to learn something"

- Malcolm Knowles'

This should, to me, apply to ALL learners, regardless of age.

References

Brookfield, S (2015) The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust and Responsiveness in the Classroom. Jossey-Bass.

Knowles, M. (1984). Andragogy in Action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Knowles, M. (1984). The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species (3rd Ed.). Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing.