Three More Pearls From Pros

Last time I started a list of some of my favorite training pearls from pros I admire in this field. Here are three more of my favorites.

From Katie A-who was masterful working with resistant adults in a learning situation. When teaching a life skills segment to a particular group of incarcerated moms who felt that the class session on schedules and home organization was unnecessary and not an appropriate topic for parenting class, Katie decided she'd roll with their resistance and instead create a simulation. On the following day , she arrived as usual to her classroom, but set nothing up. She did not put the tables and chairs in their usual friendly U shape, did not write the agenda on the board, did not set out the handouts and daily supplies. When the women arrived to class with nothing ready and a "distracted" teacher (put on for demonstration purposes only) and expressed their surprise, asked what they were supposed to do, and said they were anxious about the lack of structure, she responded as they had the day before: What's the big deal? Why do you need me to set up your environment? Can't you just grab a chair and hunt around for supplies? Well, being bright and capable they got it, organized the room and asked for a re-do of the previous day's session on home organization and schedules to add to their parenting toolbox. Katie shrugged OK, took out her secret stash of handouts and the lesson plan for the previous day's session on home organization and schedules, and nonchalantly did a do-over.

From Laura O who was an expert at folding every "crisis" back into the curriculum and using the skills of the curriculum to address the emergent issues. In a class that began with an attention gaining activity to pique interest and get everyone on board with the topic of the day, followed by a daily practice of having participants write a personal learning goal around that topic, Laura helped learners craft learning goals that focused on what they wanted to learn to do differently, not what they wanted to get someone else to do differently. This was a useful skill but one that the participants seemed to see as an "academic skill" or "for this class" rather than as a tool for life. So, when they grew more comfortable and began coming to class with a gripe or complaint about someone else in their life, she'd often respond with, "Why that sounds like a learning opportunity related to (some skill or topic) from this class. Can I help you write that down as a learning goal?" They rarely refused her warm invitation with a little more than a groan, and after several of those, they began to respond to each other's gripes and complaints with the same invitation, asking..."Can I help you write that down as a learning goal?" Learning goals, by the way, were hung on the classroom wall until the participants felt they'd been adequately addressed by the skills practice in class, at which time, they took them down and would journal about how they'd accomplished that goal in a structured learning goals journaling worksheet.

From a delightful group of Dads I had in a parenting class in a medium security prison. Because we were together 3 times a week for 12 weeks, and there were only 7 of them (plus me), they rapidly grew close to each other with a high degree of trust as they responded to the structured sharing activities of the parenting curriculum we were working through together. What began to happen with the increased trust and small class size was long storytelling. As a part of the natural group process, they moved from forming to storming and became extremely irritated with each other and most especially with each other's "long-winded stories". In the second week of class we had learned a problem solving model. One day, at the height of their storming and frustration with each other one of them said, "Let's run this through the problem-solving model. Can we do that Tracy?" I loved the self-direction and use of the skills to address a real-life issue so aborted the lesson for the day and acted as recorder only as they put their problem of "long-winded" stories through the problem solving process. The solution they arrived at was that at the start of each 2.5 hour class they would each receive 3 chits worth a 5 minute story each. To share in class, they had to turn in their chit. The others would keep time when a story started. Once they shared 3 times, their chits (and story-telling opportunities) were gone for the remainder of the day. We instituted the practice, which worked well, even if it did make the more extroverted Dads a little uncomfortable when their chits were gone. A side benefit was that the process created more space for the more reflective Dads to have a chance to take the time they needed before volunteering to share, so we started hearing from Dads we hadn't heard a lot from. This was their solution, arrived at by using a skill from the curriculum. Because it was their solution, as they moved from storming to norming, they decided they no longer needed the system, as they'd settled into a more natural rhythm of working cooperatively together.