PIDP 3260 - Let’s get Real for a Moment

Aug 18

OK, this is going to come off like a guilty pleasure, because it absolutely is. Reading Brookfield’s chapter on Responding to Student’s Resistance to Learning in his book The Skillful Teacher, I couldn’t help but chortle at Brookfield's final strategy to deal with resistant learners:

“…you have to grant people the right not to learn something that you are convinced is important. Maybe you can strike a bargain with hardcore resisters that allows them to work in ways that do not interfere with the learning of others. I have sometimes devised group projects with the intention of removing the most destructive resistance from the room. “

“They can go off, vent together, and eventually implode into a black hole of negativity while the rest of us can get on with some work.”

Ahahaha… “implode into a black hole of negativity” …it’s not the nicest sentiment but it is a true, open and vulnerable moment of real feeling, and I LOVE it. I feel like Brookfield has just poured a cup of hot tea so that he and I can sit in a private, comfy moment to spill a little gossip tea just between us.

After all, even teachers are human, we have emotions, and the truth is that we don’t always like some of our students. Yes, we always have to be professional in the classroom. Yes, we have to give each and every student every chance, every encouragement, and every effort to enable their learning, even when the student is unpleasant, dislikable or their own worst enemy in the classroom. And that is what makes this brief indulgence of honesty between us so wonderful, so empathic, and frankly so healing. Not everything is going to be perfect. Some things are going to tick us off. Some students are going to tick us off. And that’s OK. Stephen (come on, first name basis when we spill the tea…) and I are just going to take a moment to work through our frustrations, even grump about those students who drive us crazy, and then we will put our professional hats back on, get back into the classroom and be the model of a respectful teacher.

But first, pour me another cuppa.