Community Learning Development Resource 100 – 03
THE CHALLENGES OF NEGATIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCES
SUMMARY
Many people living in those neighbourhoods and communities characterised by aspects of disadvantage, deprivation and exclusion are perceived to be non-intending or non self-referring learners – they do not choose to actively seek formal educational and training opportunities – they are non-confident as learners. Could prior experiences of learning which were negative for them have damaged them as effective and aware learners?
We need to understand why such adults, that we meet frequently, tell us that they do not want to learn or deny that they can learn. This resource (100 -03 ) explores how prior education and training experiences may have impacted on these people and shaped their negative feelings and attitudes about learning.
‘We are born with limitless intelligence and we have the capacity to be immensely intelligent. In education experiences, where more people fail than succeed, the learning capacity of those who fail may be damaged or destroyed’
Many non-intending or non-confident adult learners have suffered from negative experiences of traditional statutory education.
In Great Britain the Victorian approach to teaching and learning was founded in the earlier teaching within Christian religious orders and was largely a ‘one-way’ experience for the learners. They were there to be educated, to be given knowledge and skills. There was little room for debate and discussion, particularly if it might challenge the accumulated wisdom held by the teacher and the learning content. Question and answer, and discussion were mainly used to put more of the wisdom in place and then to test individual learners to see if they had taken it on board. This has been described as the ‘jug and mug’ approach – the teacher and teaching as the jug – full of goodness and refreshment and the learners as empty vessels, just waiting passively to be filled.
If a learner performed well and learned what was prescribed, they were rewarded. Learners who failed could be punished or at the very least made clearly and sharply aware of their failings and likelihood of their continuing failure, if they did not improve. The teacher was the role model – the expert and fount of wisdom, who generally did not expect to be contradicted or challenged. The curriculum was prescribed with little option or choice, underpinned by good Christian values.
Victorian teaching and learning practices have to some extent continued throughout the 20th century and may well be the in experience of many adult learners. For some, these will have produced negative expectations about learning and their skills and abilities to learn. For some ‘learning’ may be a dirty word and ‘teaching’ even worse!
In best community learning practice, the focus has shifted from a didactic – ‘‘I teach and you listen and learn’’ teacher-led model, to a learner-centred needs-led interactive model where the learner and the worker are in a partnership based on equality and mutual respect. Many people experiencing community learning for the first time after a period out of any formal learning, express surprise at the interactive nature of what goes on, where the worker encourages and respects their participation and contributions
The commonest negative experience of formal learning – being assessed
The negative impact and memories of being tested, measured, judged and found wanting is in the past experience of many non-confident adults. Their experience of failing as pupils, students or trainees may be much more in their experience, rather than past learning achievements and successes, within assessment systems designed as barriers for those who fail.
The measurement of hard learning outcomes is the common methodology of formal education and training – measuring the academic and vocational learning content that has been transferred to the learner. The measurements also compare individuals against each other or their performance against a target scores or grades – where there are perceptions of divisions between pass and fail. Many adults have been ‘failed’ by this system – they failed their exams or tests, ‘failed to make the grade’ or were labelled as ‘failures’. For these adults, school and further education may have been reinforced as negative experiences of learning.
Examinations, practical and performance tests, essays, assignments and projects, portfolios of work and presentations, oral tests, question & answer, quizzes and interviews are all assessment tools which reinforce the negative feelings in people who already have been judged to be failures, and as such have no place in community learning.
PROMPTS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
- Is knowing whether or not she/he is learning or has achieved learning success, important for an individual learner?
- What assessment of learning would be non-threatening to individual learners and yet could effectively yield evidence of learning and success?
- Why might the most significant skills of assessment not be in the measurement of learning success, but in how the individual can be involved and given positive feedback about their learning success?
Negative experiences of learning can be transferred in relationships and across generations
Previous experience of poor achievement at school creates low expectations of learning success. Learning can become a contentious issue in relationships. Common examples of the negativity about learning include:
• People with little value for learning can undermine and put down those who might seek to engage in learning in later life – men who did not achieve much success in their own educational experience can be very negative about women who seek to learn
• Parents with poor educational attainment, might expect little from their children and may not encourage them to achieve and indeed may actively discourage them from achieving more than they did
• Families and relationships with little sense of the value of learning, frequently reinforce a continuing inter-generational cycle of under-achievement
IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNITY LEARNING
Community learning work with non-confident people who are inexperienced adult learners, should encourage and enable them to ‘re-discover their learning souls’. This is a major strand in any community learning strategy – supporting individuals to re-build their self-awareness, self-confidence and self-esteem, as learners. This emphasises that the personal development of the learner and their abilities and capacity to learn is more important than the learning content within formal education and training, where this usually drives the learning process. In practice:
• Individuals may need to be helped to a greater self-confidence and self-esteem before they are ready to enter formal learning situations or feel able to participate in community capacity-building or regeneration activity
• Individuals may need to have their self-image and feelings of self-worth boosted before they progress into provider institution environments or into collective community development activities
• Individuals may need to gain relationship-building, communication, coping or learning skills before they can participate successfully in group learning situations
• Individuals may need to benefit from the support of informal and non-formal group learning situations, ahead of choosing formal learning routes or engaging in community development or action.
• Holistic soft learning outcomes are core within a community learning curriculum – developing individual capacity within strategies for inclusion and widening participation.