Sunday, November 26, 2006

The Map Is Not The Territory

The late Catholic priest and psychotherapist Anthony de Mello in his book The Song of the Bird recalls a story of an explorer who returns to his people, who are eager to know about the Amazon. There is no way he can convey in words his experience of the beauties and dangers of his journey, so he urges them to go and find out for themselves. To guide them he draws a map of the river. The people eagerly study the map and become experts on all the information contained within the map. They eventually come to believe they know everything about the river.

We would do well to remind our students that what they learn in the classroom is merely the map. The best way to do this is to give them the opportunity to experience the territory for themselves. Experiential exercises, internships, service projects are some of the ways students can gain direct experience of a field.

Those of us who teach also need to regularly venture out into the territory to test our intellectual knowledge against experience. It is when we teach from our own experience that our teaching becomes authentic.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

General Education

I support the concept of general education requirements in college. I have had students tell me that while fulfilling their general education requirements they developed an interest in history, science, art, or other subjects outside their declared majors. However, I have had far more students complain to me that they have experienced general education courses as a waste of their time and money. They did not perceive the courses as having any relevance to their personal or professional lives.

General education courses play an important role in promoting integrative learning, which includes making meaningful connections between disciplines. Yet students do not seem to be grasping those connections. I continually hear students question the usefulness of a general education. Their questions have prompted me to seek answers.

There are two arenas in which I have been conducting experiments to find those answers, the academic courses I teach and the leader development process I coordinate. What I have found is that students enter a course or workshop expecting to be told specific answers to their life and career questions. They are not accustomed to devising their own answers. They also are generally unskilled at learning from their own experiences. They lack reflection skills. I have found they do enjoy learning about themselves. These observations inform my suggestions for approaching general education.

The primary complaint I hear from students about general education courses is the lack of relevance to their lives. How do these courses help them with their future careers? One of the explanations I give students is that a general education exposes them to various ways of thinking. To compete in the job market, one must differentiate oneself from all the others vying for the same positions. Being innovative is a key factor in differentiating oneself from the competition. One skill in being innovative is the ability to apply the perspectives and knowledge from one field to another. The majority of practitioners in any profession tend to read the same books and journals, attend the same conferences and seminars, belong to the same associations and clubs. They all draw from the same pool of ideas. To stand out from the pack requires the ability to draw from different sources of ideas and to synthesize new solutions.

Simply telling students of the value of learning from other disciplines is insufficient. They need to experience the connections between disciplines. Students need to practice how knowledge of history can help in making better decisions; how the arts foster personal creativity; how the scientific method can be used in problem solving; how philosophy may be applied to resolving life’s dilemmas. And students need to be helped connecting various disciplines to their own areas of interest.

Those interests are not limited to career. General education courses can play a critical role in personal development. In addition to general courses in religion, there could be a course in spirituality. In such a course students would journey inward. They would discover their inner source of strength and direction. They would discern their personal calling and sense of mission. There would be the opportunity to experiment with a variety of spiritual practices.

My point is that general education courses should go beyond teaching students about subject matter in a discipline. General education courses can also expose students to the paradigms and practices within each field. These courses also need to help students make specific connections between the academic disciplines and their own personal interests. Helping students cultivate the capacity to integrate interdisciplinary knowledge with life practice leads to wisdom and individuals prepared to learn, serve, and lead.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

The Scary Side of Learning

I love learning. It energizes me. This week I attended training on learning assessment. I came away from the workshop with many practical methods, some of which I have already applied in the classroom. Attending the program was well worth my time. I came away renewed. I also left scared.

What scared me about what I learned is the realization that my teaching is not as effective as it could be. I then wonder how I have shortchanged my past students. I experience such anxiety whenever I learn better ways to teach. I have the same reaction every time I learn something new about child rearing now that my children have been reared. My new learning prompts me to wonder how I may have psychologically scarred my children because of what I did not know. I have these thoughts in spite of the fact that my children are healthy, loving, productive adults.

My fears are not lasting. They dissipate as soon as I experience the thrill of applying my new learnings. My fear, however, does make me aware of why people may resist learning. Learning challenges our self-image. We discover we are not as knowledgeable and able as we thought. On the flipside, learning promotes our growth. We discover we are more than who we thought we were.

Learning reminds me that I am a work-in-progress. I strive to give and be my best at whatever I do recognizing that I will always have more to learn. Holding this perspective keeps me close to my students and open to learning with them. This keeps me fresh and energized. The scary side of learning keeps me alert. So I look forward to what I may learn from the next workshop, book, article, conversation. I may find it scary to discover what it is I don’t know, but I am more frightened of becoming content with what I do know.