Newly confident that I knew something about the situation the young teachers were getting into, I designed and led their training for the new summer program. Dr. Craige and I wrote a book for the new teachers and I dedicated it to my own best teachers: the Hait- ian migrant workers I had met on the back porch in McGee’s Cross- roads that first summer. These migrant workers followed the stream of ripening vegetables into New England, and many wove them- selves into the workforce of their adopted nation as a result of their newfound language skills.
My stories of Jean Pierre and his colleagues gave the new teach- ers in training lots of laughs and some encouragement that they, too, could use sequence and reinforcement to enable these coura- geous men to learn the language and other skills that could secure their entrance into a new life. Seeing the world as I do today through the clear lens of quantum theory, I would teach those young people to go even more slowly and to learn the whole social, economic, political, and cultural environment well, for their sake and for the success of the learners.
Design Challenges
• What one thing might I have done differently to create more safety in the entire context for all the “who” in- volved, including the Migrant and Seasonal Farmwork- ers Organization, the townspeople, the grower and his family, the migrant farm workers, and the U.S. and Haitian authorities?
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112 LEARNING TOLISTEN, LEARNING TOTEACH
• What use do you see in this story of these quantum principles: the connectedness of all, energy, holistic perspectives, duality (holding the opposites), uncer- tainty, and participation? Knowing what you do already about quantum thinking, what one change would you make in this situation to afford the best learning for the migrant workers?
• Take any lesson you have planned: a class, a workshop, a seminar. Examine it for the occasions of reinforce- ment of your primary concept, skill, or attitude. How often do you repeat the idea in a new way to keep the engagement of the learner and emphasize the impor- tance of the central point? Remember the magic num- ber 1,142. That’s how many times, I am convinced, I need to hear or do something before I know I know it.
• A principle is the beginning of an action. The princi- ple of sequence invites us to examine our actions and reorganize them if the sequence is inappropriate. We can readily see that our sequence is not working for an adult learner when he looks confused or lost. This kind of physical indicator gives you the information you need as teacher to change your sequence with that individual or group. Stop now to reflect on a situation in which an adult learner was simply not getting some- thing you were trying to teach. Look at the one learner.
Look at your program. How could you change the dis- tance between steps in the sequence to get that learner on board with the necessary confidence? How could you affirm and reinforce what he has already accomplished?
• The size of a group is directly related to the potential for effective reinforcement and the quality of sequence.
In this migrant labor camp I was fortunate to have a one-digit classroom: nine, not ten, adult learners. I am personally convinced that the one-digit classroom (nine, not ten learners per teacher) has tremendous potential not only for adult language learning but for the formal school system as well. Imagine the rein- forcement and the personalized sequence of learning tasks that are possible in a one-digit classroom. It is an idea whose time has come.
• The principles of dialogue education are so interwoven that it is impossible not to see many at work in a situa- tion. Two principles that are manifest in this story of the migrant labor camp in North Carolina are humor and rhythm. Again, consider any teaching you are presently doing. What was hilariously funny? How can you celebrate that? How can you bring humor into any adult learning situation? Nothing is better rein- forcement than a discovery of the incongruity in a situation—the dancing light on the surface of ideas that will not fit together but dash against one another.
There are endless opportunities for laughter in an adult learning situation.
• While rhythm lends itself obviously to language learn- ing, consider how it could be used in helping adults learn whatever you are teaching. How can you use rhythm, poetry, and dance in your adult learning classes?
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n Chapter One you read about praxis,a Greek word that means“action with reflection.” There is little doubt among educators that adults learn by doing something with what they are learning, whether it is concepts, skills, or attitudes. Praxis is doing with built- in reflection. It is a beautiful dance of inductive and deductive forms of learning. As we know, inductive learning proceeds from the par- ticular to the general. Deductive learning moves from the general principle to the particular situation. Both are necessary. Learning tasks can be used as praxis in teaching knowledge, skills, and atti- tudes as learners do something with the new knowledge, work with the new skills and attitudes, and then reflect on what they have just done. Watch how this learning event in the Maldives became praxis.