ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Curtis Kelly

Chris Hunt

Panelists: Chris | Marc | Curtis
Date: May 2004

Topic: "Do we need democracy in the classroom?"

Defensive Learning is Offensive

Curtis Kelly

What Chris has written hits home.

I teach in a women's college that tends to enroll the students that can't get into anywhere else, and some of them are the best people I've ever met. And yet, every time I meet a new class, I cannot help but feel like I am there to treat damaged animals. I walk in. Tension. Smiles. Silence. Who are you? Teach me something interesting about yourself. More silence. Shall we sing a song together? Trepidation. This situation is so typical of the Japanese classroom that we have started to look at it as normal, rather than as a symptom. However, funerals, military drills, and dentist's offices aside, human beings do not normally act like this when they get together. It is natural for people to connect, share, feel good about themselves, and do it loudly. It is not natural for them to sit quietly in a seat, feel afraid of looking foolish, and not trusting their abilities. So how did college students get this way?

“We are still enculturating people to live in a feudal hierarchy, where roles are fixed, rather than in the fluid democracies of today, where roles are self-shaped.”

They act like this, and feel this way, of course, because of what we have done to them. We have treated them inhumanly and so they have become un-human, unnatural.

Thank goodness.

After all, "natural" is not all that great for the complex institutions we live in. We would all suffer if people lost their values of obligation, punctuality, and deference, but as Chris points out, maybe we go too far. We are still acculturating people to live in a feudal hierarchy, where roles are fixed, rather than in the fluid democracies of today, where roles are self-shaped. After all, when it comes time to hire, the companies look for people with values of obligation, punctuality, and deference, but not the quiet, fearful, flaccid ones we are shaping.

"What we have done to them," I say, but is this criticism too harsh? There are also fun, spontaneous, laughing classes as well, aren't there? Yes, of course, but even in a great class, if you talk to your students about it, they will give you the curious comment that "it doesn't seem like a class at all," because most of their educational experience is based on a much narrower, bleaker form of teaching: "assign and assess." I decide what you must know, when you must know it by, and if you do not comply, I'll fail you in life. Learning then, for the most part, is defensive learning.

Our notion of curriculum is faulty. We teach facts and skills, and we try hard to choose facts and skills that will be useful to them in life. Yet, there is so much more that we teach that we are not even aware of, and usually has to do with attitudes. Eisner calls it the "hidden curriculum." Although school mission statements all over the world espouse developing children into self-sufficient, independent adults, what they are really doing is the opposite. Inadvertently, we teach our charges that they have no right to choose what to learn, no right to oppose us except in a cordoned off domain of narrow intellectualism, and no right to decide when to show up, where to sit, when to talk, or what to do. Does this hidden curriculum make self-sufficient individuals? Of course not.

Walk into someone's classroom sometime and just watch it for a while. Forget all the techniques you were taught as a part of classroom management, and look at that situation as a group of people interacting. Pretend that everyone is the same age and social status, and what you see will seem absurd. One person standing in the front forcing the others to respond chorally to some mantra that has no meaning in that particular environment. Maybe we have to do it, because it is the most efficient way of teaching a large number of people, but we should be aware of what we are doing and feel the pain of it.

Two academic fields – Humanistic Education and Adult Education – have given me alternative techniques to use in the classroom. The educational approaches Chris talks about are a part of Educational Humanism and they have shown good results. Adult Education is similar, since it was found that adults, as non-dependent learners, and basically, well, as adults, won't put up with being treated like children for very long. So here are a few techniques I have found useful for my college classes:

1. Imagine that everyone before you is older than you are and treat them accordingly. I never, ever scold anymore. If someone comes late, that is their business, and even if I take off points, it is not my right to ask why they are late. If someone is making noise in class, I ask them to be quiet because I am having trouble, not because they should be quiet. If a student doesn't turn in homework on time, I do not ask why. That is their business. I ask when they can get it to me, and hold them to it. I avoid taking off points for lateness. Learning is learning whenever it occurs.
2. Set strict requirements for the course in terms of competencies and baseline attendance, but not in terms of behavior. I try to help them achieve those standards, but I do not try to force them to. If Yuko falls asleep in class, then that is her business, and she obviously has reasons for doing so that I am not privy to.
3. Let learners set their goals whenever possible. You might have them try out a couple textbooks and choose one, or determine class policies, or decide on project topics. I rarely test anymore, and use projects instead, and sometimes, learning contracts.
4. Practice "Absolute Positive Regard." Assume that every one of them is a worthy person striving to be whole, even if that striving does not fit your agenda.

This attitude of non-control, or really less control, works wonders sometimes, and although it generally results in less homework being done, less study for the test, it helps build self-controlling adults, and that matters more.

Panelists: Chris | Marc | Curtis

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Curtis Kelly, Heian Jogakuin University

Author of Writing from Within

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