“The only way to understand better how your resistant students feel is to place yourself in the situation of having to learn something you find confusing, irrelevant, or difficult. This is the only way you can experienc
e viscerally what so many of your students are going through” (Brookfield, 2015, p. 214).
While it is almost impossible to comprehend that students do not feel the same passion for what we teach as we do, this is indeed the case. Most of us teach because we are passionate, however the students who take our courses may have little to no interest in our subject area or may be entirely intimidated by it. In the above quote from Chapter 16 of The Skillful Teacher, Brookfield (2015) challenges us as teachers to not only put ourselves in the place of our students, but consider when we ourselves have be in a situation which we felt things to be either “confusing”, “irrelavant” or “difficult”. How did you feel? How did you act? How might you have been perceived?
As I reflected on this, I am taken back to a entry-leve statistics course I once took by distance. It was the first time I had taken a distance course and since I had always been good at math, I assumed (incorrectly), that I would find this course quite easy. I quickly found that statistics was confusing to me and my previous proficiency in mathmatics was not an apparent asset. My instructor was only accessible by telephone during limited office hours and since at that time I was working shift work as a nurse, I found connecting with him difficult. As well, I did not find him particularly receptive to me and I recall losing my motivation partway through the course. While I passed this course (barely), it has stood the test as being one of my worst experiences as a student. Fortunately it not deter me from further education and finally I had the opportunity to redeem myself (and my perception of statistics) years later during a graduate-level statistics course taught in a classroom by an enthusiastic instructor. Whether it was the platform, the instructor or where I was at in life, I found this course much more engaging and relished in my “success”.
As I reflect back on the first experience, I wonder how I was perceived by that instructor? Did he label me as “resistant”? Did he happen to pause and question why I was responding with indifference to a course that was required for my program? Did he attempt to understand and help me achieve success in the course? These questions will remain unanswered, however they do provide me with an opportunity to pause and consider how I may have been quick to label student behaviour over the years, based on my perception of how they should be responding.
I hoe you too will take up Brookfield’s challenge and reflect on your own learning experiences to see if you can find one where you might have found yourself disinterested or confused. Consider how you felt. And then, the next time you see a student who appears resistant, I would encourage you to stop and question what might be a catalyst for this behaviour. You might be surprised by your discovery and armed with new strategies for student success.
From:
Brookfield, S. D. (2015). The skillful teacher: On technique, trust and responsiveness in the classroom. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.