The Invitation (The Context For The Training):
A few days before leaving for Christmas vacation this past year, I found out about an opening for teaching conflict resolution at James Madison University. The job announcement clearly stated that a completed Master's Degree was necessary. Given that I was only one semester into a Master's degree, I assumed that I would not be eligible for the position. Just in case, I sent an email describing my interest. To my surprise, the day after I inquired into the possibility, the job was mine. Although my time teaching this semester's classes are over, I am hoping to teach the same classes again next semester. In this paper, I will evaluate the design I used this semester, and reflect on how I would change it for next semester. I will also examine how this teaching experience did and could connect with the principles of adult education presented by Jane Vella in Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach.
Although I have been involved in leading training events for the past six years, this was my first venture into academic teaching. My experience is mostly with highly interactive, elective, and playful workshops in prisons, churches and workplaces. Although the classes I agreed to teach at JMU were listed as lecture courses in the class schedule, I came into the job morally opposed to lecturing as a primary teaching tool. Although I was required to give grades that were largely based on a multiple choice test, I saw grades as an "academically sanctioned form of violence" (I recall a certain CTP professor using that phrase). The rooms I was going to teach in were packed full of rows of desks, but I was used to workshops with chairs in a circle and plenty of room to move around. In most previous trainings I did, I relied on the luxury of participants voluntary choosing to attend. I feared students who felt forced to take classes they didn't want to take. I co-facilitated most of the other trainings I had done with one, two, or even five other trainers. At JMU, I would be standing in front of the class by myself.
My sense of adventure and challenge was heightened when I found out that I would be teaching four sections of this class, and that all the classes were back-to-back each Tuesday and Thursday. The largest section had 55 students, and the average class size was about 40. The topic I was teaching was "Conflict Mediation in the Context of Communities and Organizations." Each of the students took another short course on interpersonal conflict mediation the previous semester, so my classes were intended to build upon that first one. My chunk of teaching would only last for four weeks. My topic was lumped together with three other subjects to make up a general education package called "Individuals in the Human Community." Almost all of the students were freshman, and many of them seemed to think the whole concept of required gen. ed. courses was insulting and a waste of time.
Needless to say, I was ecstatic about this opportunity. Since I imagine myself teaching some college classes on conflict resolution after completing my Masters, I jumped at this chance to get some practice. In addition to my excitement, I had a fair amount of anxiety and fear.
What Do You Have To Say, Jane and Paulo? (The Training Design)
As I left for Christmas vacation, I filled my suitcase full of books by Jane Vella and Paulo Friere, prepared to spend my vacation planning the most interactive, tranformative college class ever. I had a copy of the syllabus used for the previous semester, but I was determined to reinvent the class based on my experience and my teaching style. When I woke up on Christmas day at my parents-in-law's house, I wasn't thinking about what was in my stocking, I was obsessing about what I would do on the first day of my class.
Although Jane Vella's twelve principles for adult learning seem primarily intended for training outside of the formal academic context, I felt strongly that many of those values were essential in college classes. However, I stumbled when I came to the first principle, Needs Assessment. I had no way of contacting any of the students prior to the first day of class. I wouldn't receive the class list until that first day--and, anyway, they were also on Christmas vacation opening presents. Jane's koan of "Who needs what as defined by who?" left me despairing that the university bureaucracy had imposed all of these answers on me and the students. The students were not expected to define for themselves what they wanted to learn. The university expected me to be Paulo Friere's villain and use the "banking" concept of education. I would fill them up with knowledge that I had, and in return, they would regurgitate it back up for me on a test.
My needs assessment prior to the first class was limited to discussions with the previous instructor and my supervisor. On the first day of class, I gave all of the students a written survey asking for their input into the class. I asked them what they learned or remembered from the previous semester's conflict resolution class, what kind of teaching methods they found most useful, what made a class enjoyable or annoying, and what is one thing in society that upsets them. I did not allow the students to shape the content of what we covered--but next time I would like to ask the students to help me decide which parts of conflict resolution would be most useful for them to learn.
Since I felt somewhat resigned about the ideal of a good Needs Assessment, I focused some of my idealism and passion on Vella's fifth principle of Praxis. I wanted the students to learn about conflict assessment and the design of conflict initiatives by doing both of those things. To get at this principle, I decided to organize the class around the question, "How can we use conflicts in ways to build healthier communities?" I would have each student select one community they were a part of on the first day of class. During class exercises and in writing assignments, I would ask them to apply concepts we cover ed to conflicts within that community. Looking back, I am happy with how this focus for the class worked, and I would do it again. Next time I would put more emphasis on identifying specific conflicts or potential conflicts within their selected communities from the start. Some students this semester had trouble identifying any conflicts or tensions within the organizations they worked with.
I knew that Vella's second principle of Safety would also be pivotal in the class. Since I hoped to rely on small group activities and class participation, students would need to feel safe enough to speak about their personal experiences and work together. I knew this level of safety and risk was not the norm in most college classes, and guessed we would need to take intentional efforts to get there. On the first several days of classes, this concern was confirmed when rooms full of students stared at my blankly as I asked them questions. I expected this to be a challenge--but I was almost shocked with the level of detachment I sensed in classes. People would participate in small groups, but they were hesitant about facing each other, and conversations would often fade away with in a couple minutes. It was clear most students did not feel enough safety to share with much depth about their experiences or opinions.
Each of the sections had a dramatic increase in participation and willingness to express themselves one day mid-way through the month. On that day, each class practiced having a dialogue about a potentially conflictual social issue. In the previous class, I had each section vote on what topic they wanted to discuss. Two classes chose the death penalty, another abortion, and one chose discrimination at JMU. I think the fact that the students felt some ownership of the topics made a large difference in allowing people to open up. On the day of the dialogue, I had each student bring one discussion question about the topic that they thought would elicit interesting discussion from the rest of the group. I started by having them get in small groups and select one of those discussion questions to present to the large group. I also asked each small group to come up with some kind of opening statement and follow up questions related to the main question. I think that asking each small group to share in the responsibility of facilitating the large group discussion also encouraged participation and ownership in the process. I started that day of class by reviewing some guidelines for dialogue (in contrast to debate), and I think some of those groundrules contributed to the feeling of safety in the group. At the end of some sections, a few students told personal stories related to the topic, and that was also a turning point in the level of trust and openness in the group. Learning from that day of class, I would hope to incorporate some of these techniques earlier in the semester (guidelines for discussion, asking students to come up with questions to ask each other, etc.). I also want to accept the natural pace with which a feeling of safety develops in each class and not try to force openness and participation.
A related principle of Vella's which was especially relevant was her ninth one, Clear Roles. Vella quotes Paulo Freire as saying, "Only the student can name the moment of death of the professor." (Learning to Listen, p. 17) Throughout the class I identified myself as "Michael," yet students mostly responded by calling me "Professor Bischoff," "Dr. Bischoff," and "Mr. Bischoff." I kept trying to equalize the teacher/student relationship, but usually the students didn't cooperate with this effort. On the survey I gave out on the first day, one student wrote, "The only useful thing you can do is lecture and make us take notes. Everything else is a waste of our time." As uncomfortable as I was with this attitude, I couldn't pretend that it wasn't out there. But, my greatest moment of satisfaction in the class came from that same student. After the day where each class practiced doing a dialogue, I asked everyone to write their reflections about how the discussion went and how they felt about it. The student who demanded I simply lecture wrote, "This was one of the best discussions I have been a part of. I was amazed that people actually respected each other and listened."
While I generally find Vella's seven planning steps helpful, most of those seven steps were pre-determined in this case. The "who" was a group of students who I didn't know about until the first day of class. The "when" and "where" of the course had been planned many months before by the master Gen. Ed. planners. The intended outcomes that make up the "what for" were determined by a faculty committee a couple years ago and passed down to me. The realistic answer to "why" for most people involved (both students and faculty) would probably be "to fulfill requirements and get a degree." The realistic answer to "why" was in tension with the theoretical "why"--that we all deal with conflicts in communities like workplaces, and we need skills to respond to them constructively in order to survive, be happy, and be effective. The "what" and the "how" were left somewhat up to me as the instructor. I broke the "what" up into six different topics: conflict assessment, community mediation, restorative justice, community dialogue, and nonviolent action. I introduced each of these set of ideas as frameworks or lenses, which we could use to see and transform conflict. I will cover the "how" in the next section of the paper.
How Can I Get Them To Stop Staring At Me? (Learning Tasks Used)
I have an image of myself as someone who is good at coming up with creative and effective learning activities for classes and workshops. This class helped humble me in this area. As I mentioned in the last section, many of the activities and questions I posed to the classes were met with seemingly indifferent, cold stares. Exercises that I was sure would engage and challenge most people got shrugs of indifference. Throughout the month, I kept trying different techniques to successfully engage with the students, and slowly found more success. But just as much as the usefulness of different techniques, I came to accept that the discomfort and uptighttness of my students was partly a reflection of my own discomfort and anxiety as a teacher. My lack of confidence and comfort as a new teacher seemed more connected to the students level of openness than I would normally like to admit. On the last day of class, I asked all the students to write their evaluative comments about the course. Three or four students were blunt enough to say something like, "Look a little more confident. Sometimes you look a little intimidated in front of us. We're here to learn, not to assault you. Other than that, this class was very enjoyable."
I quickly discovered a variation on students blankly staring at me: students rolling their eyes to mock me. On the first day of class, I wanted to have an interactive activity to get our feet wet with that teaching style As a way to review some concepts I imagined they covered in the previous semester's conflict resolution class, I did an introduction exercise related to conflict styles. I put up pieces of paper with the names of four different conflict styles (compromise, compete, etc.) in each of the four corners of the room. I described each style briefly and asked them to move to the corner of the style they could most relate to the most on that day. Once they were in the corners, I asked them to introduce themselves to each other and, as a group, decide on one metaphor that would creatively describe that style of dealing with conflict. Each group came up with decent metaphors to describe their styles, but I interpreted the body language of most every student to say, "Don't every make us do a silly kids' game like this again. Or else." On one level, I underestimated the challenges of the physical space we had to work with. The groups were scattered among desks and the groups were too large for much communication to happen. In addition to the awkwardness of the space, this was the first day of the semester, and most people seemed to be starting out shy. Despite the resistance I felt to the exercise, I tried to push through it in a light hearted manner. To my shock, a handful of students wrote on their final evaluations, "you should make us do more activities, like the one on the first day of class, where we move around and get to know each other." Although I found some ways to help exercises go more smoothly in other classes, I was reminded that awkward feeling exercises can still have benefits.
The teaching technique that I found the most consistently effective was story telling. The first day I started off by telling two drawn-out stories about times a response to a conflict helped build a healthier community. One story was from my experience and one was something I had heard. As I told the stories, I was amazed at how attentive everyone was. After the first day of class, I vowed to tell at least one good story each day. Of course, I tried to tie the story to the topic we were covering, but that was sometimes a stretch. I also tried to get the students telling stories to each other, but that often seemed like a stretch too. On the final evaluations, the majority of people said the stories were one of the things they liked the best. Mid way into the class, I was talking to another teacher at JMU who said she had come to see her job as primarily entertaining the students. She said, "These kids were raised on MTV. You have to be dramatic and dynamic to grab them, or you loose them." There is a part of me that insists that education should not be entertainment-- that it needs to be based on students actively taking responsibility and control of their learning. But the more classes I did, the more I saw that dynamic entertainment was an entry point for engaging students in active learning. I gained credibility, respect, and awakeness with the stories, and I could transition that attention to other learning activities. Next time I teach, I will definitely continue my practice of telling at least one good story per week.
Each class period, I tried to have a short lecture, some kind of small group activity to apply the concepts to their selected community, a large group discussion, and a story. In addition, I would often ask them to spend a couple minutes writing on their own to warm them up for the small group or large group discussion. I also used short videos in three classes to illustrate the concepts we talked about. I tried some other tricks to get people talking about their experiences. At the beginning of most classes, I was required to take roll. But instead of calling out each person's name, I asked them to go around the room, say their names, and answer a question that I posed. For instance, one time I asked everyone to say a time they felt at peace, such as when taking a walk in the woods. During the classes, I thought this go-round was useful as a way to help people get used to talking in class, and make roll interesting, relevant, and personal. However, when I read the evaluations, several people said, "I mostly liked the class -- but it bugged me that you always made us answer a question for roll." In fact, one student said she dreaded coming to class because she knew I would make her answer a question. I think part of this discomfort was from people who were used to shrinking in their chairs and almost never participating in classes--so I think part of the discomfort could've been useful. But, I think it was a mistake to use that technique for almost every class. Next time, I would use it more sparingly.
Another of my techniques to get people to talk about their experience was to ask them to write down if they had had any experience with mediation and turn that in to me. There were at least a couple people in every class who had done peer mediation in high school or somewhere else. Outside of class, I emailed each of these students and asked if they would be willing to help me with the next class and give a short talk about their mediation experience. Almost all of these students enthusiastically said "yes," they would be glad to talk about their experience. I think when these students told stories about mediation, that was another small turning point in the class. It was the first time students confidently relayed their related experiences, and I think that set a good example for other students. In addition, this helped me have a little more connection to some of the students. In fact, one of these students with mediation experience helped me facilitate an entire class, since he was interested in getting facilitation experience. I would definitely draw out people with mediation experience in this way again. I would also look for other ways to personally encourage students to speak about their experiences in class.
Another one of Jane Vella's principles is sound relationships between learners and teachers. Being with 140 students for only 8 class sessions, I found meaningful relationships with students to be quite difficult. I did not get to know many student's names, and I would not remember all of their faces if I saw them today. I found this to be a great limit in building trust and safety in the classroom. With the handful of students that I did make a connection with, I could notice a quick increase in their participation and attentiveness in class. After the last class, as I was reading their final papers, I felt an increased connection with many students, and I wished for a chance to build on that connection. If I could redesign the class, I would certainly want more than four weeks to be with the same students--and/or to have a fewer number of students and put more energy into knowing each one of them. Even given the current constraints, I hope to find ways to personally know students more from the beginning. Maybe on the initial written survey I could ask them to tell me one thing that is unique about who they are.
On the day that we covered Restorative Justice, I thought my agenda for the day was pretty brilliant before I went to class. This was early on in the class when people were very hesitant to speak. The process I used was based on a workshop I had attended, but modified it to provide extra encouragements to invite their involvements. I started by asking them to think of a time they had been harmed or treated unfairly--and remember what things they needed in that situation. I told them a story from my experience to show them what I was looking for, and then I asked them to write for a few minutes about what they needed in that situation. Then I asked them to get in pairs and describe the things they needed. After the pairs, I had each pair report back one thing they needed. I wrote down this list on the board and told them we would come back to that list. Next I asked them to think of what kind of things genuinely influenced their behavior. Again, I gave an example from my life, then asked them to write for a couple minutes, and then tell a partner about it. I also made a list of these things on the board. Then I had them do a large group brainstorm about the ways the current criminal justice system uses to influence behavior. I asked them to compare the different lists and see what that said about the way the justice system works. After this discussion, I presented four key characteristics of Restorative Justice, and tied it to the initial brainstorms we had done. Although I was excited about this plan prior to class, it had mixed results. One weakness was that some students didn't see enough direction and purpose to the series of questions to buy into them. Another challenge was jumping right in with asking them to think of a time they were harmed. There wasn't enough trust for most people to really get into that experience --and I didn't provide much space to talk about that experience once I brought it up. At the end of the month, when people were writing their papers and reflecting on everything we had covered, it was clear that Restorative Justice was the concept that sunk in the least. In doing the class next time, I think I would want to limit the number of activities I had them do and spend more time asking students to connect the principles of Restorative Justice to their selected communities.
Overall, I learned a lot about how experiential learning activities can be applied to a large group of students who are expecting lectures. Although I have described many of the limits of these exercises, there were many moments of success and satisfaction. For instance, I was quite energized as I listening to small groups report back their ideas about kinds of nonviolent action that could be applied to conflicts at JMU. Next time, I would want to generally use the same combination of small group activities, lectures, stories, videos, and large group discussions--but try to cover less material in a more in depth way.
Will This Make Any Difference In Their Lives? (Evaluation of The Training)
As I have referred to a few times already, I asked all of the students to write evaluative comments on the last day of class. They also filled out an objective ranking of how I did as a teacher, which I have not seen yet. Reading over their 140 comments, I learned a great amount. Some of the responses contradict each other on the surface (more videos, less videos), but several key patterns seemed to emerge in the evaluations.
The most frequent like was the participatory, interesting large group discussions. In the second half of the class, each section had some great, respectful discussions about conflicts at JMU and broader social issues. These discussions seem to have been the most meaningful part of the class for the majority of students. Many people said that I did a good job fostering discussions where people felt comfortable expressing a wide range of opinions, and cultivating a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere. The second most frequent like was the stories that I told. The majority of students also seemed to like the use of videos to illustrate concepts, the interactive focus of the class, and the relevance of what we did to their lives. In one section, I brought in two guest speakers to talk about conflict resolution in the Middle East, and that was very well received.
About an equal number of people said they liked the small groups as said they disliked the small groups. The critiques of small groups included that they weren't focused enough and that people didn't take them seriously enough. Many people said they disliked the readings as well, and several of people were disappointed that the readings weren't discussed more in class. Next time I will aim for some different readings that are more personal and narrative and consciously tie them more closely to class activities. In one section, a common dislike was that I wasn't more firm in stopping side conversations, and I have a renewed passion for dealing with this proactively next time. Many people found the test hard to study for because of the non-traditional format of the class. Next time I want to present more directly what will be on the test and try to ease people's fears of the test before it comes.
In addition to reading people's likes and dislikes, I found reading their final paper's to be a very useful evaluation of what they got our to the course. They had two options for the final paper: 1) Interview someone from the community they selected for the course about the conflicts in that community, and compare their own perspective to that person's or 2) Envision a conflict resolution initiative that could be taken in their community to help move towards a just peace. Although it was tiring, I loved reading the 140 papers. Several of the students had actually followed through on their ideas for initiatives, and it was moving to read about the results. Almost all of the papers applied concepts from the class in interesting, relevant ways. Reading the papers was a high point of satisfaction for believing that people actually gained some tools and insights for dealing with conflicts in their lives. It was also a high point of realizing that my part of the classes was over and I could take a break!
One of the prompting questions for this writing assignment asks how this training design fits into the peacebuilding framework proposed in the course. On the surface, I think it is easy for me and others to detach academia from strategic peacebuilding. From that viewpoint, I see academic classes as covering a certain topic, and allowing the students the freedom to use the knowledge in whatever context and for whatever purpose they wish. In fact, CTP classes seem to be carried out from this abstracted perspective as well.
In the first go through of these classes at JMU, I mostly fell into that category, and I did not connect these classes to a larger framework for peacebuilding. While I presented some of the framework from Building Peace in classes, I did not think of the classes as building strategic relationships or directly cultivating social change. Of course, I hoped that students would take the ideas from class and use them for constructive conflict transformation in their personal and organizational lives, but the next time I do the class, I would like to stretch myself to connect the way the class is taught to a framework for change. I am not certain how I will experiment with this--but I hope to think more about that in the coming months. One possibility would be to select one community conflict as a class (such as JMU/Harrisonburg resident tensions) and base class assignments around researching this topic. I would also like the class to be more connected to the JMU Mediation Center and other existing conflict resolution activities at JMU.
Although applying the popular education concepts that Vella and Friere talk about to this academic teaching was a stretch, I found it useful. My focus on experiential education helped me reflect on the underlying values and impact of educational methods in ways that often led to a creative tension. Having pushed myself in this way once, I will have more confidence in giving my input into the prior planning for the class done with administrators and other faculty. While I might find ways to reshape the educational philosophy of my classes, the dominant pedagogy of the university around me will almost certainly stick with Friere's "banking method." If I continue to teach at JMU, or any other university, I hope to ask some of the same questions I asked myself with others in that educational system--and slowly look for ways to engage broader changes in those systems. For as entrenched as the U.S. university system is, there is still a great hunger for relevant, tranformative education throughout students and faculty.