How do people learn things? By listening, or doing, or watching. And sometimes in groups like learning circles…
When I was at school, we sat in rows of desks and were taught things by a teacher standing at the front of the room.
If there were exercises to do, we did them individually, at those same uncomfortable desks.
I went off to university where things were pretty much the same – big lecture halls, a person standing at the front, lecturing.
There were tutorials, smaller groups. These were led by a more senior student or sometimes, terrifyingly, by the lecturer themselves.
My educational career to that point had proceeded along lines that were centuries old.
In my third year though, there was the first glimmer that things didn’t have to be the way they always been.
We had a new professor in our Literary Theory course – Professor Friedemann Grenz, whose lectures were round-table discussions and who set us an open book final exam, the first time I had ever done such a thing.
Later, I went back to university
After five years in journalism, I decided it was time to go back to university and get a teaching diploma. And for the first time encountered the phenomenon of students being divided into smaller groups, where they would discuss things amongst themselves. This was also the trend in my years at a community organisation – and in various adult learning short courses I’ve done over the years.
The thinking behind this is easy to see: people are much more likely to learn things if they are engaged and thinking, rather than passively sitting behind a desk.
What’s the history here?
It appears that group work as a method of teaching emerged in modern educational settings in the 1960s and 1970s.
There were two schools of thought, called collaborative or cooperative learning. I’m not going into the deep pedagogical theory about these two things, but this is a good summary:
At the core… the idea [is] that we learn from our own experiences; that learning is active; that we make meaning of the world around us from what we see, feel, hear, smell etc and by asking questions, exploring new ideas and evaluating our existing knowledge… we are not passive absorbers of knowledge given to us by others. We are, on the contrary, active contributors to the learning process…learning is a social process, enhanced by our interpersonal relations and encounters.
Thing is, that’s fine in theory…
My own experience is perhaps idiosyncratic, but I have never learned much in group work, apart from the fact that most people are deeply wary of taking responsibility in a group.
Time and time again, I would be sitting in a group, keeping my mouth shut and hoping like hell someone else would take the lead. (I think that’s happened maybe once or twice in a long life.) Eventually, I would sigh and say: Ok, who is going to take notes? Who will report back to the wider group? Where’s the worksheet? Who is going to speak first? And so on…
And as I do that, everyone in the group relaxes and does one of two things: participates or disengages.
Here’s how it goes in school
The experiences of my son and his friends as they moved through primary and high school were that some people in the group would do all the work, some would help a bit, and some would say yes, I’ll do that, and then just… not do it.
As the deadline approached, there was always the strong possibility that someone in the group was going to have to step in and do someone else’s tasks. Those non-performers would then get the grade that the group got, whether or not they had actually contributed.
It’s my view that work done in a democratic, collaborative manner is a bridge too far. Most people just don’t want to be leaders, nor should they be. And the problem with the usual way in which educational group work is parcelled out is that it simply doesn’t reckon with this wrinkle in individual psychologies.
For all these reasons, I’ve never been a big fan of dividing people into groups when I am the trainer. I try to design training sessions that are activity-based, and can be done by one or two people at most.
Now, I’ve found a way of working in a group that actually accomplishes something
Enter the learning circle. There’s a fair amount of literature about learning circles, and quite a lot of writing that says it goes back to ancient times, painted in fairly idyllic tones. I don’t much think that people were any better centuries ago than they are now, but if they invented learning circles, I’m grateful.
Two links about learning circles:
What is a Learning Circle – Culture Change Network of Georgia
The history of learning in a circle – Facilitation – P2PU Community
I’ve been part of one (looking at AI) since early in 2024, and the key difference between this and my previous experiences of group work is simple: there’s a facilitator, someone who suggests a topic, guides discussion and suggests activities. The ethos is participatory and collaborative and I’ve learned a huge amount simply by turning up and taking part.
I’m now planning to start a learning circle of my own. I’m happy to be a facilitator rather than a reluctant taker-of-responsibility. And happy to have found a middle way that finally defines a role I always end up taking on.
Main picture: Zainul Yasni, Unsplash
OTHER THINGS I HAVE WRITTEN
Leadership in the time of plague | Safe Hands
Good taste does not equal good governance | Safe Hands
Trainers – how to tell the good from the bad | Safe Hands
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