Bird Droppings April 22, 2012

Being who we are

 

“Realness in the facilitator of learning is critical. When the facilitator is a real person, being what she is, entering into a relationship with the learner without presenting a front or a façade, she is much more likely to be effective.” Carl Rodgers

 

            It does not take a great educator and or thinker to know that if we are real people we tend to be more likely believed. Yet so often we chose to keep up our façade and as I look at this paragraph and can interchange for facilitator the word parent and or friend very easily the meaning remains. While Rodgers is applying to learning it can also be applied to many aspects of life as well.

 

“Prizing, acceptance, and trust, there is another attitude that stands out in those who are successful in facilitating learning… I think of it as prizing the learner, prizing her feelings, her opinions, her person. It is a caring for the learner, but a non-possessive caring. It is an acceptance of this other individual as a separate person, having worth in her own right. It is a basic trust – a belief that this other person is somehow fundamentally trustworthy…” Carl Rodgers

 

Acceptance a key word as we walk through life we have to accept others often without being accepted our selves. I have found this to be a powerful tool in dealing with people not only in teaching but in walking into a grocery store or corner market. Parents need to see their children and I like the word prize their feelings and opinions at least listen to them.

 

“Empathetic understanding. A further element that establishes a climate for self-initiated experiential learning is emphatic understanding. When the teacher has the ability to understand the student’s reactions from the inside, has a sensitive awareness of the way the process of education and learning seems to the student, then again the likelihood of significant learning is increased….” Carl Rodgers

 

Many the time I have offered empathy as a key to success in any field of endeavor especially in teaching however it is crucial in parenting equally as well and in friendship paramount to building and maintaining continued friendships. Realness, trust and empathy are but three simple aspects of life and are the building blocks for relationships that last a week and or a lifetime.

 

“It may include an exchange of ideas, skills, attitudes or values, or even the exchange of things – money, tools or food. Relationships ‘happen’ at all times, in all places, in all parts of society, and in all phases of the development of individuals. We are involved in relationships all the time.” George Goetschius and Joan Tash

 

We are social animals and we tend to want to be in groups and with others and having these relationships as Goetschius and Tash state, if we approach our interactions in a positive light they tend to go farther and be more meaningful.

 

“Humans have social instincts. They come into the world equipped with predispositions to learn how to cooperate, to discriminate the trustworthy from the treacherous, to commit themselves to be trustworthy, to earn good reputations, to exchange goods and information, and to divide labor…” Matt Ridley, The Origins of virtue

 

It has been several years since I set up a theory in the development of trust in which I did say humans come into the world with a certain capacity to trust instinctually and that we learn and acquire distrust and we find this after the fact.  

 

“The fundamental purpose of the relationship lies in the fostering of learning in the group or the individual…”  Felix P. Biestek, The Casework Relationship

 

We move beyond where we are at the moment and as a teacher the students learn, as a parent our children learn and in friends learning occurs. So often we perceive learning as book related as school it is related but learning is an ongoing perpetual project. We learn to walk due to relationships such as watching others having others hold on to us as we scoot on our feet and being fed as a baby.

 

“The whole of life is learning, therefore education can have no endings.” Eduard Lindeman, The meaning of Adult Education

 

From the moment we are born till the moment of our leaving this earthly plain we are about learning. I am always drawn to the idea of Henry David Thoreau giving up teaching to be a learner I wish more of us could do this in our lives. It takes becoming a learner in order to teach and to being honest with ourselves and in who we are. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your hearts and remember to always give thanks.

namaste

bird