On Teaching the Mature Student
Particularly for "haptic" type individuals, the ability to organize (or give
the appearance of organization) is one key to success. Around 1997, Stephen
Covey (of Franklin products) produced a module for Microsoft Outlook Calendar
that asked questions pertaining to an individual's personal mission and
translated the mission statements into scheduled behaviours. Through salesmen, I
was taught about Stephen Covey and introduced to his "Seven Habits of Highly
Successful People" and while I could see why the book was not university
curriculum, there were foundational elements that I respected. Through some of
the messages, I began to understand that one could teach principles of common
sense and gain the ability to motivate by attending to people's core values.
When I saw this Outlook module, I went through it and tuned my personal mission.
This process, which took no longer than one half hour for me, turned the
light bulb on in terms of my understanding behavioural objectives taught to me
through university psychology classes—taught at the
University of Lethbridge through the Faculty of Science and through the Faculty of Education Special Education division. By going
through the software module, I learned more about behaviourism and about myself
and through the process gained common sense which I had been up-to-that-point
led to believe was unteachable. The experience was better than having a personal
counselor. I started feeling more control over my
own life. It is hard to get mad at or argue with a computer program telling you
something that basically means "if family means as much to you as you say it
does, then you should spend time with them. Given the amount of time you have at
your disposal and given the importance that you claim to have for this item, I
suggest that you spend at least fifteen minutes a week with your mother and have
set this as a recurring event on Saturdays at noon." A real person judging you
and making the same suggestion would likely have aroused a defensive reaction.
Organization and scheduling is critical to success of any individual/group.
Pre-requisite to my courses, I like to go through a software tool similar to the
one I described with my mature students. Another prerequisite is that
they read and think about my
originally five, now six steps to success.
Underlying all this, lies the ability to give up control to the student. Most
mature students that I work with have had that taught out of them. Anytime I
hear them say, "I can't," I know that somewhere in their previous education that
underlying message was taught to them. Where the control lies, is the most
critical aspect of education. When it truly lies in the student's hands and they
are aware of their responsibility to themselves, then they learn to educate
themselves and are capable of taking advantage of all that educational
institutions have to offer. Too often, however, they have been in a closed
system which forced responsibility for their own education out of their hands.
The two-year-old and the sixteen-year-old are prime examples of a human's
healthy instinct to maintain control.
A good educational system requires adapting. Progress requires openness, not
closure through control. Survival, success, joy of living, of learning, of
growing cannot happen in a healthy way in a closed system.
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