Responding to Resistance in Adult Learners

Here’s the ending to the 4th challenging scenario. You can return to this post for the principles and strategies of managing challenging behavior that this story illustrates.
Scene 4: 20 bright, capable, mature (over age 40) women in a graduate school class are working in teams on presentations they will make after lunch. I have divided the theoretical approaches to our subject matter between them, each team taking on the responsibility for sharing their assigned theory in a reciprocal teaching activity. I invite them to break for lunch with the announcement that presentations will start when we return when one team, avoiding eye contact with me, submits to their self-identified leader who lifts her chin and practically hisses at me, “We aren’t ready, we reviewed my paper during the work time instead, we don’t and won’t have a presentation to give on our theory.”

Another “oh no” moment, as it also happens to be the first graduate course I have ever taught. Looking around at the other groups disbursing for lunch, I drew in a long breath, allowing silence to fill the space between her challenge and my not-yet-spoken response. As steadily as I could manage I said, “Well, we have a Cohort Agreement to support the learning of our peers. Your agreement is to present on Social Learning Theory for the benefit of your colleagues. You have one hour. I am confident you will fulfill that promise to your co-learners. Enjoy your lunch and we will see you at 1:00 p.m.” and I turned and walked away.

All of my mothering tendencies reared their heads in that next hour, fussing and nattering at me, “What if they don’t do it?” “What will you do if no one in your graduate class on learning theories learns anything about Social Learning Theory?” “How will you continue to model cooperative learning to adult learners if they don’t cooperate?”

The hour passed and all the teams returned for presentations. The self-identified leader of the “we-don’t-have-a-presentation” group approached me and asked to have a private word with me. In the hallway she said, “I was totally inappropriate with you. Please accept my apology. I was frustrated and I took it out on you. We are ready; we worked it out at lunch.” As I nodded and allowed the relief to wash over me on the inside I could tell there was more, so I waited. “And by the way,” she added, “You taught me something about dealing with resistance. You taught me by your example to treat adults with the expectation that they will rise to the occasion, and then to give them space to make their own decision. That example is more valuable to me than what I learned by studying this theory.”

Stunned, I accepted her apology and we both returned to class. If I didn’t think so before, I was now a full believer that everything is curriculum and every interaction with an adult learner, especially the tough ones, is an opportunity to model what we teach and find out if we really believe it.