Coming About

     Lately, I’ve been teaching in the dark a lot. And I don’t mean the hours that my classes are offered, although I do have some that don’t begin until 7 pm.  I’m talking about the classroom experience, the actual physical experience of being in a thirty-or-forty year old building never intended for LCD projectors that are now mounted in the ceiling and the drop-down screen that projects our wiki and blog pages from a wireless internet connection. We simply can’t see what we need to see with the lights on.  The options in this older classroom are limited — no dimmer switches or front bank of lights that can be turned off. Consequently, I’ve found myself teaching in the dark in several of my classes this semester as part of our new foray into the Web 2.0 world in which we make the wiki, in particular, center stage.  It’s been a somewhat strange experience, with peculiar aspects that have brought many things about the nature of teaching and learning to light for me (pun intended).  

     This leads me to wonder why occasions such as these are such rare and special experiences?  What was it about the darkened room that promoted open and honest dialogue? Was it the tool–the wiki? –that webspace where people were willing to put themselves out there without hesitation by expressing their ideas, beliefs and thoughts, and thus open them up for public (class) scrutiny?  Is this where socially constructed knowledge happens?  Is it in these public spaces where we allow the innermost recesses of our minds to be made visible for others to see and hear, reflect upon, challenge, and applaud in the quiet of dusk?  I wonder. Was the level of intimacy fostered by lack of glaring fluorescence—the harsh light of which seems to leave us starkly exposed and vulnerable to criticism?  If so, then put me (and my learners) in the dark and bring on the conversation.

     This fall, alas, I have no windows or natural light in my rooms, so we are grappling with how to use the wiki in what can be only described as the total absence of light.  In my Organizational Learning class, we have dealt with the total dark by burning the lamplight of no-longer-used overhead projectors in the corners of the room, casting bright spots on the back walls that must make this seem like the most bizarre of classrooms to anyone passing by.  Two things I know: First, we must all make eye contact by moving our desk-chairs into a semi-circle so that we can see each other’s faces in the dim light.  Whoever invented “classroom style seating” in which rows of students all look at the backs of each others’ heads knew nothing about learning, that’s for sure.  Second, we must feel safe in order to risk putting ourselves out there.  Psychologically safe. The safety of dimly lit spaces. And, to think, all this brought about by experimenting with a wiki!

     So the challenge becomes, for me, at least, how to create this atmosphere in each and every class, and not just the rare few, so that the safety, closeness, empathy, and genuine “realness” of which Roger’s writes so eloquently in Freedom to Learn  becomes the norm and not the exception.

     Rogers, who died almost twenty years ago, is one of my favorite learning theorists, although his image of himself was that of the humanistic therapist, not learning theorist. It was he who coined the term “client-centered therapy” that led to our conceptions of learner-centered teaching. His non-directive form of helping relationship is the source of inspiration for my espoused goals in teaching, although I doubt that my actual practice comes anywhere close to that ideal.

Creating Psychological Safety in the Classroom

     From the chapter of Freedom to Learn entitled “Creating a Climate of Freedom,” Rogers’ writes,

[I]f there is one truth about modern man, it is that he lives in an environment which is continually changing….We are faced with an entirely new situation in education where the goal of education, if we are to survive, is the facilitation of change and learning. The only man who is educated is the man who has learned how to learn; the man who has learned how to adapt and change; the man who has realized that no knowledge is secure, that only the process of seeking knowledge gives a basis for security.

So now with some relief I turn to an activity, a purpose, which really warms me –the facilitation of learning. When I have been able to transform a group—and here I mean all the members of a group, myself included—into a community of learners, then the excitement has been almost beyond belief. To free curiosity; to permit individuals to go charging off in new directions dictated by their own interests; to unleash the sense of inquiry; to open everything to questioning and exploration; to recognize that everything is in process of change—here is an experience I can never forget. I cannot always achieve it in groups in which I am associated but when it is partially or largely achieved then it becomes a never-to-be-forgotten group experience…

     Rogers goes on to describe the attitudinal qualities that facilitate learning: realness, prizing, acceptance, trust, empathic understanding, and the creation of a psychologically safe space where learners are willing to risk. To me, this is the potential of the wiki-facilitated dialogue. David Bohm, who has written so eloquently about dialogue, calls it “a flow of meaning going through,” and contrasts it with discussion, whose root is the same as the word “percussion”—to break apart. If the wiki can enable a flow of meaning to be co-created amid relationships of acceptance and trust, then the power of 21^st century technology may unleash more learning for all of us. I hope so.

     So for now, at least, I will continue to sit in the semi-dark in a circle of learners as we focus on what each is experiencing, experimenting with, and learning. I’m finding that wikis and blogs do a good job of making this psychologically safe environment possible.  I wonder how Carl Rogers might have used a wiki?