The post Still Here! appeared first on Bright Books.

From my reading so far, I understand that some people have found covid-19 lockdown a time of immense creativity because they have suddenly found themselves with time and reduced responsibilities; more headspace and thinking time to embark on long-delayed creative projects. On the other hand, for many, this has been and continues to be definitely not a time when they are able to be creative. Heightened alertness and hypervigilance, uncertainties about the present and the future, misery for themselves and/or others, inability to breathe, grieve, conceive as they would under ‘normal’ circumstances. For some, it is a time of non-working and financial terror. For others, the heightened demands of home, family, functional and dysfunctional relationships, violence, desperation, depression. For others, it has or continues to be a time of massive upheaval, working beyond exhaustion, enduring fragmented, shredded family life, threat and risk, trying to meet gargantuan needs in health, welfare, sanitation, housing… For yet others, myself and my husband included, it has been a time of increased workload working from home, given the mostly online nature of our usual work.

Finding ways to help support others who are in dire need, unemployment and ill-health, or those who have suddenly been thrown into an online world for work or study in ways that they have never encountered or needed to encounter before.

Our creativity is stretched, exhausted. We rejoice and are warmed by videos of those who have found new online ways to connect with others in creative projects, making music together from within homes or balconies, stunning and inspiring solo concerts for neighbours, gatherings on balconies or street frontages to socialise, from a distance. My creativity seems to have been drained out of its usual genres and redeployed into cooking and craft projects, relating to family and strangers from a distance, redetermining needs and priorities, heightened awareness of how fortunate we are and how crushingly hard it must be for so many, many others.

Now, in New Zealand, apparently, we have collectively conformed to the recommendations of science and health professionals to create our own New Zealand-wide bubble of safety, for now; holding our collective breaths and wondering if it will last and what will happen if the virus does reappear. Now, I finally find some time and headspace to write, to dream of choregraphing and performing more dance, to exploring the arts once again…breathing in colourful, rich-textured imaginings of joy and pain …

And, for those who are still in the depths of misery, for those who are exhausted and stretched beyond all imagining, for those who find their creativity challenged and expanded, and for those who find there is just no space left for their usual creative embodied aliveness, what can I say but kia kaha (be strong, take courage).

The post Covid-19 and Creative Constructions? appeared first on Bright Books.

The group were a mixture of New Zealanders and Australians, all mature women in this instance. I had previously explained to the whole conference that poi had been originally used by Maori men to strengthen their wrists for battle, even if, in recent times, it is seen as a skill that only women employ. Nevertheless, only women attended the workshop.

I suggested that each person use four different colours, to make it easier to understand the process of plaiting (besides, the four colours make for a very interesting–looking string). I had pre-cut enough lengths of coloured yarn for each person in the group to make at least one poi. For the second poi, participants would need to measure off their own lengths of yarn and complete their poi.

My particular method of making poi involves creating the basic poi ball out of Dacron-fill, binding it up with white yarn, attaching the coloured yarn lengths to strands of the white yarn, completing the 4-strand plait and then finishing off the poi with a secured plastic cover.

Clearly each woman needed to find a method of plaiting that worked for her, since these individuals were the ones who would need to competently re-use the skill in the future. As demonstration models I had completed several stand-alone strings, one poi with completed string, and one poi that was simply a Dacron-fill ball bound up with white yarn. With these pre-prepared samples I was able to show what the string and the poi should look like and to demonstrate the next steps to completion. I had also acquired appropriately coloured felt pens and paper, so that I could draw the plaiting procedure as we proceeded.

Several interesting things emerged:

1. The most outspoken group members did not want me to draw the progress of the plait strands. They said this confused them. As a result, I ceased to use this instruction method.
2. Regardless of the above, every adult there preferred that I come and individually demonstrate. Fortunately the group was small enough and the time sufficient for me to do this. I let each woman work on her own plait while I called the steps using the names of the four colours, and guided, corrected and commended. In this way, each individual actually did the plaiting and developed her own methods and cues for knowing which strand to use next and how.
3. One new learner noted that a fellow learner tried to help her but could only demonstrate by doing her own plait. The new learner said that this was unhelpful; she needed my approach of instructing with words while she actually did the work.
4. Several members suggested that I needed to have used particular words to guide them. I commented that, while it was great that they had discovered instructions that would help them, these same instructions might confuse others. Essentially, each needed to do it enough to find her own way of remembering the process and completing the task.
5. One group member quickly blocked me from helping her, proclaiming that she’d ‘got it’, but it soon became clear that she was doing something wrong. She and I undid some of her string and identified a good starting point. After applying my usual approach of using words and the names of the colours, she achieved the task. Thus, I was able to correct without causing offense.

Conclusions

This exercise re-confirmed the principles of adult learning that I had absorbed and taught in adult education classes several years before. Adults need hands-on experience to learn new practical skills. Demonstrating and showing completed stages of the process, talking, pointing, miming and verbally instructing are all helpful, but, essentially, adults need to work on a practical skill for themselves, in order to achieve competence in that skill. Individuals may find certain words and phrases to be helpful, but I while, I might use these same words and phrases as part of my future teaching, I would never assume that these would be helpful to all. Finally, while this method of teaching worked for mature women, a younger group of learners may have different learning preferences.

Of course, this skill of making a 4-strand plait to complete a poi was non-life-threatening; it would be very different if the skill involved learning a particular medical approach on living humans.

The post Teaching Adults to weave a 4-strand plait for poi. appeared first on Bright Books.

What is a Trainer?

From my experience and understanding, being a trainer involves imparting skills and knowledge that trainees need for their workplace or the particular tasks in question. The trainer takes care that these trainees learn and are able to perform the skills required, and guides them to an appropriate level of proficiency. Safety, labour laws, national standards and workplace expectations are likely to be included, and the workers or potential workers must become skilful, proficient and, if required, legally certified in the particular skill set. There is an emphasis on conforming to strict standards and protocols as laid down by experts and authorities in the field, including governments. Such standards may well have been laid down by the dominant culture of the particular society and may or may not take into account cultural, spiritual or psychological differences. Following the training, the ‘trainees’ gain employment in the area specific to the training and perform the particular skills, under supervision, in their workplaces and become experts or masters in that particular area. At a future time, the same people may be trained to perform a new, perhaps more senior or complex, task, and the cycle is repeated. There is a very clear connection between the workplace skills (including knowledge and attitudes) required and the training to master those skills.

What is an Educator?

An educator has a slightly different role. As an adult educator who has spent many years training other adult educators, I see an educator as someone who, while teaching particular skills and knowledge, also seeks to empower and inspire the participants in the educational experience to reach higher, to develop their own skills, to enlarge their aspirations, to go further and wider in their career or future roles than they had previously envisaged. There is an emphasis on transferable skills – the possibility of taking the skills, knowledge and attitudes learnt into a wide range of different careers, roles or situations. Thus, while education may be focused on a particular set of skills, knowledge and attitudes, there is a wider view of education, learning and individual or group potential. The educator creates space for and encourages celebration of diversity and expression of the spiritual, psychological and cultural. There may be a focus on lifelong learning and the desirability of returning to an educational context to learn additional skills, update, or change direction completely. Following completion of the course or programme, graduating students or participants move on to take up careers and roles in a wide range of related areas and, perhaps, become leaders and train others.

Update

Looking back at what I originally wrote three years ago, I still believe in the role of an educator as being different from that of a trainer. However, since I wrote the original blog I have added to my adult educator role; I have taken up managing a homework centre for school-aged children in a lower socio-economic area of my city. There can be a wide range of ages at any given session, and there are no enrolments and no set curriculum or particular skill set to be taught; the children come from several different local schools and different classrooms within those schools. My role is to support the children with homework and/or research tasks, guide them and monitor their use of the free laptops, tablets and wi-fi, offer them a simple afternoon tea and encourage them in the use of books and board games as appropriate. Literacy, numeracy, IT and oral communication skills are the main focus. Occasionally a child needs to be taught specific skills, but more often my role is simply to support, guide, supervise and monitor. The aim of these sessions is that children are supported in their learning, so that areas of disadvantage are reduced, and a wider range of future options and opportunities becomes possible. Yet, in this work with younger learners, all of the outcomes I have mentioned above (concerning adult education) are identical. Even in this context of school-aged children, my role is as an educator, rather than a trainer.

Summarised

My experience in both adult and schoolchild education indicates that there are differences between being a trainer and being an educator. A trainer focuses on knowledge, skills and attitudes in relation to a specific work-related context. On the other hand, an educator may focus more strongly on the learners themselves and on their potential, and may encourage diversity and expression of the psychological, spiritual and cultural, while imparting specific skills, knowledge and attitudes.

The post Educator or Trainer (Revisited) appeared first on Bright Books.

I Have to Do Research – Where Do I Start?

Lots of us research things, whether it is researching views on a particular issue for my social issues interest group, researching the historical or social background for a dance or other artwork, finding out what people in our workplace would like to have included in our annual staff retreat, or an online search for information on different brands of washing machine.

The following are some questions you need to ask before you start:

First Question: Work out the question you need the answer(s) to. You may be like me – I often find it hard when I am researching online – what question do I need to ask to get the information I need? Being clear about the question will help us to look in the right places for answers (or help Google to find the answers we need!). If my research involves asking people for their views, then I also need to give them very clear simple questions; if my questions are not clear, the people being surveyed will be confused about how to answer, and I will end up with a survey that was a waste of everyone’s time!

Second Question: How am I going to report on this research? Am I going to produce a series of focus questions or a short paper the social issues interest group, a dance or other artwork, a summary for the staff newsletter, or a hand-written summary of features of the best washing machine?

Questions when your research involves people: For an academic research project involving people, there are a lot of ethical questions that have to be answered before the academy will give permission or funding for the research project. But I think we can learn something from this, even if we are not doing academic research. These ethical issues are really about respecting people: things like asking permission from leaders or elders, making sure you survey a wide range of people, ensuring that people’s names and photographs are not included in the final report unless they give permission, allowing people to opt out if they don’t want to answer a question (or even be involved).

Whatever you are researching, these are important questions to answer before you start.

The post I Have to Do Research – Where Do I Start? appeared first on Bright Books.

The above discussion is, of course, rather simplistic, since there will always be numerous other ways of knowing being accessed at the same time; ways such as cultural knowing, presentational knowing, and the very complex area of embodied knowing. Thus, as I consider knowing and how it occurs, I think about the intersections between different ways of knowing, the multi-layering, the interactions and how one way of knowing informs, enhances and intertwines with another way of knowing. As I think about ways of knowing, art-making as a way of knowing, and specifically dance-making as a way of knowing, I also reflect on how a group dance can become a collaborative way of knowing. As each dancer accesses her or his ways of knowing and blends these with performance tools such as timing, spacing and peripheral vision, a new entity is created, an experience is created that effects  both by the dancers and the witnesses.

The photo with this blog was taken in Costa Rica in 2015 as I led a group in improvised dance

The post Thinking about Knowing appeared first on Bright Books.

The post Still here! appeared first on Bright Books.

Many Impressions

Inadequate to describe in English words, but here are some: family-feeling, old and new friends from around the world, friendly, happy, relaxed, laughter, new friends, new connections with other writers and academics from various countries, many last minute changes and unexpected challenges and delights, working hard, seeing some of the city of Accra and some of the countryside, a slave castle (so much pain), the amazing experience of being in Africa. Some of the challenges involved uncertainties of electricity supply and internet access and the usual technological compatibility issues, while some of the delights included meeting and interacting with new people, finding food at markets, eating and experiencing new things, seeing amazing dance works and being invited to be part of some of them.

Moving and Inspiring

It was moving and inspiring to see and experience how the Ghanaian people have found ways to move forward after the devastations of slavery, cultural impositions of western imperialism, and all the fall-out of so many difficult past events; a Ghana that is uniquely Ghanaian.

More Learning than Teaching

More learning than teaching for me – isn’t that often the way when you go somewhere new and interact with new people and different cultures? So good to be around different people, to get other perspectives on life and what matters.

Books Sold

But I was able to sell some of my books both to the University of Ghana and to individuals. As usual, my approach was to be flexible over pricing, so that I was not pricing out the people whose currencies do not match favourably with $US. I see this attitude as consistent with the philosophical approach I take in my writing…and life. 

The post Travel Musings appeared first on Bright Books.

Yet, as an experienced adult educator and learner and a believer in a feminist, qualitative approach of multiple ways of knowing, I find myself rebelling and becoming very frustrated in such a learning environment (sometimes very vocally, to my shame). I recognise that I am now on the receiving end of the trainer-trainee dynamic I wrote of some months ago, with some differences. In that case, the concern was people and nationally consistent equable/democratic systems; the training was based on face-to-face learning experiences, and the assessments were practically and small-group based. There were rigid processes to be learned but a qualitative approach to assessment. This was a comfortable fit for me, even if the course was very prescribed. In the case of this course, business administrative processes are the focus, I deal mostly with a machine (a computer) rather than a person, and the assessments are formal, individually produced and rigidly marked on a quantitative basis.

In general, my own workplaces operate in a different manner and the processes and requirements do not correspond to the methods and processes in the course. Yet, if I wish to receive a ‘pass’ mark for the certificate, I am forced to conform. There is no room for creative problem solving or individual variation, or for using workbooks and assessments as a means of creating something that could be of use in my real world. I still espouse the need to act professionally in business or in my writing, and to be clear and consistent in my dealings with clients. Having said that, I also view the people with whom I deal as individual humans whose professional needs and requirements may not fit into the mould of ‘one size fits all’. An accountant may argue with me about this, but I believe there is room for both, something that this course with its very small team of overworked tutors is not able to deliver.

The post Standards-based Assessments in Adult Education appeared first on Bright Books.

The post Embodied Knowing appeared first on Bright Books.