Let's just be vulnerable and learn

This short episode was from a conversation at the start of class, when the learners were sharing their thoughts about the previous day. The first part of the conversation was their frustration at how what they were doing would not easily transfer to their classrooms, which prompted Ana to say that they designed this class for adult learners. Several people said some positive things about the class, and then Dan talked about being an adult learner.

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Dan: Listening to this discussion, that we as adult learners, the bad habits that we might pick up, or, like, for me as an adult learner I won’t participant in a discussion if I don’t have the right English word because I don’t want to sound like an idiot. So all those little stories that we begin to tell ourselves on the way, whereas with kids still, we can help them still be playful, to explore, to take risks, and to suspend that judgement. It’s like Ana said, I remember her saying, you know easier said than done, it’s what we do over the course of trying to  be intelligent, functioning people, um to appear knowledgeable about things. But to, to take that risk, I guess? Um, and for me, since I don’t know the subject it’s not ever pretending, it’s that fear, okay let’s just be vulnerable and learn, for learning’s sake.

This was a powerful statement, at least to us researchers. Dan is recognizing something that is common to all adult learners (and that applies to the undergraduates I usually interact with, as well). By the time we get to be adults, we're supposed to appear knowledgeable about topics, and, perhaps more importantly, about situations. Thus, when we we're in a situation, we're supposed to know how we're supposed to act in that situation. Being an adult learner is uncomfortable for at least two reasons: (1) We don't know the content we're talking about (as Dan pointed out), and we might say something foolish. (2) We're adults, but the teacher is the authority, so we don't get to decide what kind of activities we'll engage in, and what the rules of those activities will be. We know that many students are uncomfortable when they are first involved in learning activities that aren't what they're used to (i.e. traditional lecture). They probably don't want to say something wrong, but I would suspect that it's also uncomfortable because they're not sure what's going to happen next, nor how they should talk or behave.