Oh, wait. You have objectives, right? Of course you do. How did you arrive at those illustrious literary works? Surveys? Interviews? Do you think you captured every single thing every person might want to learn in your class? Do you think it's possible that your participants don't know what they don't know? That is, until they begin to digest the material, will they have a basis for questions?
This week I facilitated a two-day continuing education class, my first of this nature in about three months. As I have been absorbing direction from my professors and Vella's Learning to Listen, and as all that advice had begun to sink beyond the epidermis, I made a big change in my class management. I LET GO. I refused to keep the boat on course, and I allowed some give in the wheel, abandoning my outline, to some degree. We roamed far and wide, and the breadth of the instruction was much farther afield than it might have been. Did we go off on tangents a bit? Absolutely. Did get to every major topic? Yes, we did.
Would my group have done this without permission? Perhaps not. Vella tells us that, "Adults as subjects of their own learning need to know that, insofar as possible, they themselves decide what occurs for them in a learning event" (p.129). You are in charge initially, and the group members will look to you for consent to manage their own learning.
The training was to take place in a field site, which in this case meant a climb into a remote Himalayan village. This should tell you that there was no hi-tech training facility being prepared for their two-week session. Vella had spotted a large cowshed on the way into the village, and thought it might be a possibility for a classroom. However, she thought it best if the group determined the location that would be fashioned into their facility. Vella sent her teachers out to search for a suitable location, and when they returned, they suggested the cowshed. They had her permission to make a decision about their learning environment, and arrived at the same place she would have. This was praxis - searching, discussing, considering the alternatives based on new information. This was a real life situation, and isn't that the point of learning - to be able to apply what we've learned in a practical way? Shouldn't we be not only imparting knowledge, but encouraging problem solving? Prodding others to take the rudder, to take charge of their own paths?
In the 1991 movie, Deceived, the protagonist--played by Goldie Hawn--expresses her frustration with a spoiled child's parent and asks, "Isn't anybody in charge around here?" I fear that in our classrooms we always know who's in charge. Us. The question is, "Should we be?"