Letting Go of the Old Paradigm of Education

This is an excerpt from the introduction of George Lakey’s book, Facilitating Group Learning; Strategies for Success with Diverse Adult Learners.  Jossey-Bass Press, 2010.  Reprinted with permission of the author and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Thomas S. Kuhn (1962) argued that when a paradigm is wearing out, people increasingly notice exceptions to the rule. ‘‘Yes, the earth is flat, but it’s also true that Columbus made it back to Spain.’’ ‘‘Yes, only violence is capable of overthrowing a dictatorship, but in 1989 some East European dictatorships were overthrown nonviolently.’’

The old paradigm of education is also wearing out, and parts of the new paradigm have been emerging in my lifetime. John Dewey (1966) famously insisted that ‘‘we learn by doing.’’ During World War II the U.S. government’s effort to educate families to eat foods formerly wasted discovered that homemakers were far more likely to change through discussion groups than through lectures. Brazilian educator Paolo Freire (1972, 1994) found that peasants learned to read more effectively when he used participatory methods that supported their power; his work flowered into popular education. The activist intellectual Ella Baker gained influence in the U.S. civil rights movement through her brilliant organizing skills and coached the young activists of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to use her version of popular education to empower Southern African Americans to stand up to the Ku Klux Klan (Ransby, 2005).

Some founders of the Movement for a New Society (MNS) were active in the civil rights movement and then in the early 1970s began a training program that became international in scope.  Drawing on activist experience, on Freire, and on early insights from mediation training and encounter groups, MNS trained trainers for a variety of groups and published the widely read adult educators’ guide Resource Manual for a Living Revolution (Coover, Deacon, Esser, and Moore, 1977).

Experiential trainers like those who started Outward Bound got life-changing results through group challenges and adventure-based learning. Religious educators made their work come alive through hands-on and participatory methods, which now permeate adult education.

I was lucky to be taught at a young age by a couple of innovators who had begun to tune into the new paradigm of education. They planted seeds that later sprouted; they gave me early personal experience with a model more complicated than that of traditional educators.

Ruth Frederick had a sharp eye and a commanding presence. We fifth graders thought it really was possible that she could see every one of us and at the same time write on the blackboard with her back turned. Unlike some of the dowdy-looking teachers in our school, she wore colorful dresses that fit her snugly, and her brown hair shone as it fell in a wave to her shoulders. Maybe being daughter of the mayor of my town, Bangor, Pennsylvania, added to her air of authority.

Ms. Frederick was full of surprises. She gave each of us a German pen pal—this not long after World War II—and we were soon puzzling about what we could possibly write back to these youngsters with their fractured English and postcards showing strange-looking towns. Another day she took me aside and told me that, instead of reading each of the stories in the fifth-grade reader and completing workbook exercises, I was to choose a few of them and turn them into plays. English class shifted immediately from a chore to a thrill. Finally, she astounded us all one morning when we arrived to find all our desks had been re-organized into a giant circle. ‘‘It’s time you look at each other when you speak,’’ she said. ‘‘We need to have real discussions. You’re growing up, you know.’’

In eleventh grade I again had one of those rare teachers who had a more complex view of education than the mainstream paradigm. Carmela Finelli, I now realize, looked at us and saw thirty adolescents with scant attention for the names and dates of great American authors. We hungered for knowledge, but not names and dates. We most of all wanted to learn to know ourselves, obscured as we were by awkwardness, anxiety, and competition.

‘‘Finelli,’’ as we referred to her, had grown up in the Italian town next door to mine. Roseto, Pennsylvania, later became famous among epidemiologists because of its low incidence of stroke and heart disease despite a diet of rich food. A study of Roseto concluded that the closely-knit Italian community itself was one protection against the stress that promotes heart trouble (Bruhn and Wolf, 1979).

George Lakey

Finelli acted as if she knew how to heal our teenage heart trouble, because from the first day she built community in her English classes. Her method sent the message of affirmation. She used small groups for sharing our essays about the authors. She patiently taught the talkative students that our quiet class members had important things to say. She used debate and dialogue to engage us in the great themes in literature: integrity, relationship, individuality, and courage. The class became a learning community of trust and growing self-respect. Of course, Thoreau mattered, and Emerson, and Hawthorne, and Whitman! How had we coped up till now without them?

Lucky me. I did have some teachers who even in the conformist 1940s and ’50s glimpsed the complexity, the multidimensionality of the learning process. Now even Ruth Frederick and Carmela Finelli might be boggled by what pioneers have learned about learning, but I like to think that they would be pioneers today, too, handling in their graceful way the risks and challenges of a learning group.

What Is Direct About Direct Education?

Direct education cuts through the fluff and pretense that distances learners from the subject. It drops unreal expectations—for example, that kinesthetic learners will somehow learn from Power- Point presentations—and unreal assumptions—for example, that a group is simply the sum of the individuals. I call this kind of education direct because it brings focus to the encounter of teacher and group; it replaces scatter—of teacher preoccupied with curriculum and participants preoccupied with distractions—with gathered attention. Direct education takes the most direct path to the learner in the here and now.

Because this approach builds so strongly on the achievements of popular education, the reader might wonder if there really is a difference. In 2005 I became the chief consultant to a million-dollar leadership education course of the Canadian Postal Workers Union. The course was based on popular education, and it had produced good results in its first dozen years. The union aimed to make it even better. I spent many hours in the back of the room, observing popular education applied to their content, and that woke me up to the distance that direct education has evolved from popular education.

Direct education is highly experiential, using a variety of methods to move participants out of their comfort zones into encounters with new possibilities. Although exercises are structured, they stimulate spontaneous responses rather than demonstrations or rehearsal of previous thinking: facilitators choose interventions that go for the ‘‘here and now.’’

Direct education is multicultural and integrates perspectives developed by movements against sexism, racism, and the other forms of oppression. As you’ll see in this book, direct education doesn’t compartmentalize ‘‘diversity work’’ but instead merges anti-oppression work into its method, into the very framing of the learning group itself.

Direct education works the four major learning channels as naturally as a circus works its three rings. Unlike both traditional education and popular education, direct education highly values the kinesthetic and emotional learning channels. Content is not organized according to linear logic but instead according to how people actually learn. Direct education understands how natural it is for people to resist learning, even in settings favored by popular educators, and it provides strategies for working with resistance.

The natural rhythms and cycles of groups are used to accelerate learning rather than being ignored or subjected to efforts of control. Conflict is frequently encouraged as a promoter of learning. Direct education integrates lessons from humanistic psychology and group dynamics. Design for courses includes the use of the group as a laboratory in which to try new behaviors and apply new insights.

Working with so many variables swirling around in the learning group opens some participants to a deeper adventure than adding skills and knowledge. Some of them (and sometimes even whole groups) want to unlearn the attitudes that slow them down. Sometimes they want to let go of their emotionally held limiting beliefs! When that door opens, the advanced practitioner of direct education gets to do transformational work. The arena of limiting beliefs is one place where most people hold back their own power. The tools we use for transformational work go to a new level of empowerment.

(excerpt from the introduction of George Lakey’s book, Facilitating Group Learning; Strategies for Success with Diverse Adult Learners. Jossey-Bass Press, 2010)

The Painted Sky - My initiative to use Art in Training & Development

Our Workshops aim:

•   To accelerate and strengthen team performance

• To learn imaginative and novel ways to find solutions to challenges or issues, to generate multiple viable solutions to any given obstacle.

• To foster creativity and innovation on campus, to help find innovative processes and product solutions to improve market competitiveness and boost bottom-lines.

• To help new leaders understand the people in their organization

• To help relieve stress and develop camaraderie

• To reinforce company's commitment to inventive thinking

• To facilitate change management; reduce the negative effects of organizational change

• To enhance problem-solving skills and techniques among individuals and teams

• To promote out-of-the-box, non-silo bound thinking

• To improve effective communication among colleagues, and help leaders and managers inspire their teams.

Nine soft skills no immigrant should be without!

Nick Noorani

Skilled immigrants often focus on improving technical skills after coming to Canada, and they are shocked when they are told they have “no Canadian experience.” I’ve realized that this albatross around immigrants’ necks is actually a vague way of saying: “You lack the soft skills I am looking for in an employee.”

I believe there are nine soft skills that no immigrant should be without:

1. Communication skills

Communication skills — both spoken and written — are critical for immigrants. I can’t stress enough how important it is for career success to be able to not only speak in English, but also write clearly and persuasively. 

2. Local language skills

I still smile when I think back to my first job in Canada when I was asked to put my “John Hancock” on a courier document. As I looked at the courier, he said to me, “I mean your signature.” In a corporate environment, your language skills have to evolve to understand local phrases and business jargon. 

3. Presentation skills

In a recent survey, senior managers rated the ability to make presentations as a top qualification. Now this could mean a formal presentation to clients or a more casual way of presenting yourself in meetings and with colleagues. 

4. Small talk

Do you sense a theme here? Most of the soft skills I’ve mentioned so far all relate back to communicating. Water cooler chitchat is a part of corporate life. But be careful not to cross the line of what’s taboo.

5. Leadership and initiative

Staying invisible is why many immigrants are overlooked when it comes time for promotions. Take some initiative, share your ideas, ask questions and encourage others to collaborate as well! 

6. Conflict resolution and negotiation

It is important to learn how to disagree with a colleague or even your boss without getting emotional about it! And if things go too far, learn to apologize.

7. Accepting constructive criticism

Constructive criticism is part of any learning curve. To accept criticism, understand that we are not perfect and learning is a continuous process, at work and in life.

8. Flexibility 

Show your employer that you’re willing to learn and adapt. The labour market and economy are changing all the time, and we must change, too.

9. Business etiquette

Workplace customs and practices may be different in Canada than your homeland. Something as simple as calling your boss by his or her first name may seem odd to you, but it’s normal practice here. 

There are many more soft skills, of course, but these nine are the ones that tend to get lost in translation. So let’s start reviewing these in more depth over the next few months and see where it takes us! 

 Nick Noorani is the founder and publisher of Canadian Immigrant and co-author of Arrival Survival Canada.

You're hired!: Why soft skills can help land that dream job

With employability skills the key to a first job, more courses are including them, says Steve McCormack

Thursday, 31 March 2011

There used to be a time, a few decades back, when anyone with a degree could more or less guarantee to walk into a job: perhaps not their dream job, but certainly something to get started in the world of employment. But as more young people started to go to university, that certainty began to recede, and we approached the stage where a Masters level qualification was regarded as the minimum requirement to secure that first job.

Now, however, the reality is that, even a sheaf of academic qualifications does not guarantee automatic entry to employment. Graduates, however well qualified, also need to have to be able to demonstrate a set of what are called employability skills to show they can hit the ground running in the workplace. These include all-round communication skills, the ability to work in a team, and be a self-starter, to be versatile and have a creative approach to problems.

The need for universities to pass these skills on to students has been spotted by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), the government 

agency charged with raising the workplace skill levels of the population as a whole. In a recent report it bemoaned the fact that too many universities and colleges neglected to teach employability skills or, for funding or capacity reasons, found it difficult to develop them.

UKCES has called on all education institutions to put employability skills at the heart of almost everything they do, whatever the academic discipline.

But the good news, for prospective students, is that there are already plenty of universities where great strides have been made in this very direction.

"Across the board, for each course we are trying to put employability skills as part of the experience," says Sarah Juillet, director of postgraduate careers, at Cass Business School, part of London's City University.

Cass runs a range of specialist Masters courses, each aimed at a niche business sector, as well as a general management MSc for the student still to decide which area to target. "For each of our courses we have an advisory board, of professionals from the business sector corresponding to the course content," says Juillet, "and they talk to us a lot about the importance of these skills."

Every student on a Cass course has a "relationship manager" within the Cass careers department, who guides the student through a programme of sessions designed to land a job, and thrive once a job has started.

Topics covered include the art of cold-calling, something not only useful in the pursuit of job interviews, but also in carrying out the duties of a job itself. Likewise, the "influencing and persuading sessions" at Cass try to give students these soft skills that they can deploy once in a job, as well as in the job search.

"These skills are very important because it's not like 20 years ago when most masters students came with a view to moving on to a PhD," says Andrew Clare, associate dean with responsibility for all postgraduate programmes at Cass. "Today, they want to get the background that will help them get a job."

One ever-present way of bringing a real working environment atmosphere to Cass students is to insist that all coursework is done in groups, frequently placing students with peers they don't really know, and who come from another part of the world.

These skills are also shooting up the agenda of course designers at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) Business School, which runs undergraduate and postgraduate courses in a range of specific business areas, including marketing, HR, creative advertising and internet retailing.

"We are working hard to improve developing employability skills, particularly via internships with real businesses," says Dr Mary Meldrum, head of postgraduate programmes at MMU, "and our approach is always to combine the practical with the theoretical. For example, on the MA in international public relations, students have to devise a media campaign and do a real project with what's called a 'live client'."

And Kieran Maguire, who lectures on accounting and finance at MMU, says the days are gone when university could be considered a purely mind-expanding experience. Employment prospects have to assume central importance. "We're in the process of re-organising our course to ensure that employability is embedded in every unit," he says. "We have to ensure that our students' IT skills are high quality, which means can they move from presenting on a spreadsheet to verbal presentations."

In addition, a large number of assessments in the business school have an element of group work, with each member of the group taking on a real role that exists in the real workplace.

"Some of the students don't like this in the first place," says Maguire, "because they realise that in a team you have shirkers and you have workers, and they feel that, because they're being assessed as a group, their marks might be dragged down by the shirkers. But when they get outside university, they realise that this happens in real life too and that it is an important skill to have to be able to work with people like this and not let it affect your business performance."

At the University of Plymouth's Business School, all undergraduate and postgraduate programmes are shaped with a keen eye on the CBI's graduate-skills framework, which highlights key employability skills, including communication, application of IT, numeracy and literacy, team working and business awareness. For the school's associate dean, Hilary Duckett, presentation skills are particularly important: "We use every opportunity we can to engage students' presentation skills in a real setting. We find that it galvanises their capabilities when they have to make presentations to real clients."

And, given the increasing competition among universities for fee-bearing students, Duckett concedes that stressing the employability credentials of courses is essential these days.

"This has always been relevant for business school, but now it is increasingly important, and it is part of the sell to potential students."

'I learnt some quick lessons in office etiquette'

Thomas McKenna, 24, works for the management consultancy Dunnhumby, having last year completed a business MSc, branded as the Manchester Masters, at Manchester Metropolitan University.

"The course is based on real business experience, rather than textbook learning, and apart from spending two or three days in a lecture theatre right at the start of the course, the whole year is spent out on placement with real firms, with the business-school tutor coming out to see you there.

There are four three-month placements, each one in a slightly different business role. My first was working on a marketing strategy at a company looking into setting up a Manchester lottery. Then I went to a property developer, working on a communications strategy to reach consumers. Third was with a design agency looking at how they could use social media more effectively. And finally I went to a PR agency, where my placement had an HR focus, coming up with the ideal recruitment and training process to reduce staff turnover.

In that one year, I learnt more than I had done in four years of my undergraduate course. The thing I got out of my Masters year most was the art of networking: how to talk to people, how to flex your style according to who you are talking to; when to try to present something and when to listen; and I also learnt some quick lessons in office etiquette. These things seem straightforward, but until you can implement something in a real setting, you don't really learn it."

'My workplace skills were developed by my course placement'

Abbie Thomas, 23, is an HR advisor at the Vauxhall van plant in Luton, a job she went into after finishing a four-year sandwich course BA in business studies at the University of Plymouth Business School.

"Helping us pick up general employability skills was a massive priority for the university, which is why they gave us so much support. They stressed that you needed real life experience if you wanted to get a job. In the second year, building up to our placements, we had careers lectures in CV skills and interview techniques, and we had sessions talking to the students who'd just returned from their placements .But the main thing that helped me develop the workplace skills was the placement itself, which for me was in an HR role at Hays Recruitment in Bath. The nature of that position meant I had to do lots of cold calling, make sales pitches and hold business meetings, which is a difficult situation for an undergraduate to be put in, but it means you have to develop confidence, and I'm really grateful now that I had to do it.

I couldn't have imagined looking for a job without that on my CV. In our final year, when we returned from our placements, our lecturers used to bring in external speakers from businesses to talk to us about the workplace skills that employers look for. I remember that happened particularly on the module I did on organisational leadership."

'You must be proactive in seeking out employability skills'

Thomas Lynch, 29, last year completed a one-year MBA at the University of Leicester School of Management, a course he undertook after a 10-year career in the Royal Navy as a radio communications technician.

"The university laid on lots of courses and workshops that addressed general employability skills, such as how to write CVs and how to behave in interview situations. I also remember attending an event called Tomorrow's Managers, where the university got in representatives from some of the biggest names in business. This was a skills workshop where we worked in groups – like a mini Apprentice programme – for two days, and always with a representative from one of the companies overseeing us.

I went to as many of these events and workshops as I could, despite the fact that I was also working for a local engineering firm as well as putting in 25 hours a week on the MBA. However, I noticed that lots of my fellow MBA students, and lots of the other students eligible to attend these events, did not bother doing so. I think whatever programmes universities lay on in the employability skills area, it is still up to the students to be proactive and to show desire to be employed in as many ways as possible. For example, the job I am now in is with a company that came along to the university for a recruitment event that was very poorly attended. I was one of only two people there. And now, two years on, having worked elsewhere, I am in this job."

Young India lacks soft skills: Survey

Kavita Chowdhury  | New Delhi, April 10, 2011 | 

India's demographic dividend - its young population - is in danger of becoming a liability. By a conservative estimate, more than one-third of the millions that graduate each year are unemployable.

A survey of 303 employers across the country by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) in 2010 found a majority of graduates lacked adequate "soft skills" to be employed in the industry.

Only about one-third employers were satisfied with the communication ability of their employees and about 26 per cent with their employees' writing ability. If this trend continues, the prospects for the 1.4 billion youth estimated to enter the work force by 2020, and consequently for the economy, look anything but promising.

An April 6 report in the Wall Street Journal highlighted this growing mismatch between the labour force and the skill set available.

"India graduates millions but too few are fit to hire," the report says. "Engineering colleges in India now have seats for 1.5 million students, nearly four times the 39,000 available in 2000. But 75 per cent of technical graduates and more than 85 per cent of general students are unemployable."

Narendra Jadhav, Planning Commission member in-charge of education and former vice-chancellor of Pune University, agrees. "Survey after survey has shown that 33 per cent of our graduates are unemployable," he said.

"The quality of teaching on our campuses is outdated. They do not follow the latest market demands. Added to that is the student's level of learning, but most crucial is the lack of communication skills," he added.

The Ficci survey found that only 26 per cent employers are satisfied with their employees' ability to communicate in English, "the most widely used professionally communicated language".

According to the survey of decision-makers in the country, which included top CEOs, MDs and human resource directors, the importance of "soft skills" in today's employment landscape cannot be overemphasised. Though of late, the human resource development ministry appears to have woken up to the fact that 'skill development' is an area that needs urgent attention in our education system. But experts say the focus of the programme is still skewed - it still focuses only on vocational education, missing out 'soft skills' training.

As usual, the government is way off the mark, which doesn't augur well for the future of the youth in the country, and indeed the future of the country itself.

Employers rate 'soft skills' highest in recruitment processes, survey of 5,000 businesses reveals

David Woods, 15 Apr 2011

Soft skills, such as interpersonal and communication skills will rate highest in employers' recruitment processes in 2011, research from Virgin Media Business shows.

According to the nationwide survey of 5,000 business owners, a 'can-do' attitude and soft skills were noted as the most important attributes that employers looked for when recruiting new workers, with 85% of responses. Academic qualifications and professional qualifications trailed behind, at 27% and 28% respectively.

Just 25% of employers said that computer literacy is a key attribute that they look for when reviewing CVs, with many business owners now expecting employees to possess basic IT skills. Not surprising if you consider over 12 million office workers in the UK are required to use a computer for a large proportion of their working day.

Phil Stewart, director of customer service at Virgin Media Business, said: "When I interview applicants to join my customer service department, soft skills certainly top my list.

"The job market is saturated with an influx of applicants; from university-leavers competing for a small pool of graduate schemes, to a host of 18 year-olds entering the job market for the first time, having been put off university by the rise in tuition fees. Businesses are spoiled for choice, giving employers carte blanche to hold out for workers with the right personalities that can set them apart from competitors.

"The change in values could be seen as a reaction to the increasing ubiquity of higher education, or an attempt to differentiate from competitors by recruiting workers that embody an organisation's values and give them an extra edge. With organisations facing enough problems as it is, it's no surprise that a 'can-do' attitude and an ability to offer creative solutions to problems now top employers' wish lists."