The way I see it

I think we are supposed to run our ideas by our class mates to make sure we are heading into the right direction, right? We have learned so much, I had a hard time choosing a topic! I really thought about it this past weekend and I finally chose a topic and started working on my paper.  I am writing mine on Self -directed learning (SDL) as it applies to my workplace in the library. So I am starting with  Knowles theory of andragogy, then moving into Houle and Tough’s research and then honing onto the interactive models of Spears, Brockett and Garrison. In the library we are very much concerned with the application of SDL for life long learning endeavors. It is almost like swim or sink;-)

Conscientization is used interchangeably with critical consciousness in some of the literature.  Conscientization is a concept that in adult education deals with social change. The concept was developed by  Brazilian education theorist named Paulo Freire.   Learners gain a deep understanding of their world so that they recognize the different forces in their world that may be oppressive. This new understanding of their world is a catalyst for taking control of their life and removing the oppressive forces thereby moving into a more democratic direction. Conscientization can be an ongoing process.

One would think that in a library which is supposed to be a place of work crawling with liberalism you would see little oppression. However that is far from the truth. Administrators try very hard to make it a very welcoming place but despite their best efforts, things do not always work out well for everybody. There is a big division between those who are technically savvy and those who just get by. Those who are good with technology put a lot of pressure on the ones who aren’t so good and make life difficult for them. It is not like these people aren’t trying but it just takes them longer to learn new things plus they don’t have a lot of the gadgets available to them at home.  They also have other abilities that are just as important for the library so we still need them. These employees can start taking advantage of the free technology training that is provided by the University and all the other training provided by the library. This may help them learn the technology fast. They can also get together as a group and remind their oppressors about their other strengths.  It is just as important that they have better  libraries ‘ knowledge, people skills, and teaching skills. They can rise up and command more respect and stop the oppression. Conscientization will allow this  group to become part of the solution to the problem because they will become self determining subjects rather than objects of the oppressors.

In some workplaces people who are introverts are marginalized. Pressure is put on them to be more outgoing, attending and participating in activities that make them feel uncomfortable. If they do not, they are penalized. No effort is made to try and understand these people and accommodate their personalities. Being active in every activity is not all that is needed to be a good employee because different people have different strengths. In this case the whole workplace becomes an oppressive environment.

This is also apparent in the world of library academia where library faculty are forced to publish a certain number of journal articles and books (or book chapters) in order to attain tenure or just to keep their job. I am glad VCU is not like that. In some cases the publications can only be in certain journals. As librarians, they still have to work 40 -50 hours a week and can only pursue their publication endeavors outside of work.  At the same time they are supposed to perform volunteer service to their communities so they are well rounded. That is a lot of oppressive pressure. It will take a collective social consciousness to correct this. The powers that be in those universities are the oppressive entities because they do not provide time for the librarians to pursue publishing and service activities. It is great to publish and keep up with scholarly activities but it would work better for the librarians if they were given time at work to pursue those activities.

I posted a blog entry about transformative learning two weeks ago  but I never actually elaborated on my experience with this form of learning. I wrote about how exciting the class was because this topic caused us to express our views in the most passionate way that I have ever seen this class to engage in.

As I understand it, transformative learning is the type of learning that cause you to look at your values and rethink them. Once you go through transformative learning, you cannot have the same values and beliefs you had before. In most cases you are expanding your world view so you start to see things differently from before.

One of the most transformative experiences for me was a religious one. When I was little,  I believed that Christianity was the only true religion and that everybody else was going to go to hell. Nobody could be good and not have a religion. Everybody I knew in Malawi was religious, thanks to the English, Irish, Dutch, Portuguese, Arabs, Scots, and especially the Canadians! (My very strict high school in Malawi was run by Canadian nuns)  My job as a christian was to convert the “heathens” so they could be saved. God was a scary being who would put even little kids in hell if they sinned. As I grew older, I started to modify my views of religion and God a little bit but I still felt sorry for people who were not religious.

In 1997, I made friends with a woman who was the kindest person I have ever known, she will give you the shirt off her back and do just about anything for anybody in need. I assumed she was a christian until one day she told me she was atheist and that she did not believe in God or any other religion. This was very confusing to me. Here was a wonderful non-religious person who was making a difference to people in need.  From then on, I started to open up my mind and started accepting all sorts of different beliefs. Just last month, I took in a friend to stay with me while her house was being fixed. One day the conversation run into religion and she told me she believed in witchcraft. Before my religious transformation, I would have been shocked and asked her to leave. Most people in Africa, especially Malawi are afraid of witches, there are so many stories about witchcraft that are unpleasant.  Most people in Africa would not accept it as a religion. But I am glad that with my expanded view, I was able to accept her as the nice person she is, irregardless of her religious beliefs.

I am pretty sure I will never go back to the narrow mindedness of yesteryear because now I know more about religion and people and frankly, I am so glad I went through this experience because now I am one of the most open minded person on this earth and I am not joking! I can be good friends with anybody. I truly believe that people have a right to be whatever they want to be.

The class on Thursday was very interesting! There was unbelievable passion and I really enjoyed listening to the discussion. It was really exciting! This is what learning is all about. I have had several transformative learning experiences myself that have been very powerful and I definitely changed my behavior after the experiences. Most of my transformative experiences are cultural experiences due to travel. Moving to America offered me two distinct transformative lessons that have stayed with me. Another experience was incurred during my travels to India and Sri Lanka

Now I am feverishly working on the epistemilogical paper and I am still not sure which theories I identify with because I see myself in almost all of them. I guess I just need to go over them one more time and pick the ones that I feel the most affinity for.

I cannot believe four of us forgot we had a meeting this afternoon until the director reminded us! The meeting should have been on our calendars because the schedule was published at the beginning of the semester. I saw the schedule months ago but I did not put it on my calendar thinking I was going to do it later, then I forgot. As they say never put off till tomorrow something that you can do today. This is a lesson I will do well to remember.  I am so glad that now I have put all the meeting dates in my calendar and got started on three other tasks I was procrastinating on. I am pretty sure that if I continue to do this, I will become one of the happiest woman in the world:-)

On another note, I completely value the lesson of being able to say no. The awkward situation I got myself into  for saying yes to helping a friend, is threatening to overwhelm me. I just hope I can hold it together enough to function normally and not accidentally lose control and express my true feelings!

When I took Pratt’s Teaching Perspectives Inventory, it took me a while to interpret the results because my scores were so similar in all the categories. My scores were 37 for Transmission and development and 38 for apprenticeship, nurturing and social reform. My dominant scores were apprenticeship, nurturing and social reform. I do think I am a well balanced teacher. I find that these scores are consistent with the way my teaching is. I feel that I am well balanced and the scores show that. I feel being balanced is very important when one teaches adults. Adult students are going to be at different stages of development and the instructor may need to modify her/his teaching to be able to meet different students’ needs.

Apprenticeship

In this teaching perspective, the teacher is considered a highly skilled practitioner where learners are engaged according to their level of understanding and ability. As they mature, they are given harder tasks and more independence knowing that they need to learn the lessons so they can independently practice whatever craft they are involved in. I can relate to this. When I teach I feel comfortable if I know the stuff I am going to teach before going into the classroom. I will go over my lesson and my searches to make sure that I know the database well before teaching it. I also make sure that I know the level of my students so I know what level to start my teaching and how far to go into the databases.  I want my students to be able to perform the databases well on their own because this is a skill that they are going to need all their life. I do not have the luxury of seeing my students develop and mature because I do not teach them semester long classes, just the one time.

Nurturing

One would not think that this teaching perspective where you nurture somebody would have a place in formal education and yet it does. When I think of effective teaching, I see how important it is to make sure that a learner is comfortable enough to learn. A teacher can make them comfortable by letting learners know that they will learn if they try no matter what their history in learning has been. I see that some of my students (the digital immigrants) are not very comfortable with computers. They watch their children use web 2.0 tools and they do not think they can do it. I always like to tell them that they can use the computers and follow at their own pace. Those who do not feel comfortable take notes with pen and paper and then try the searches at home and contact me for one on one instruction if they have problems. Most of them realize that they actually can do it once they try it either during class or later at home where they are comfortable. I do not want them to fear that they will be unable to do it because they can.  They see learning databases as an insurmountable obstacle so it is very gratifying to me when they realize they can overcome their fear.

Social Reform

I was very happy to learn that social reform is one of my dominant perspectives. I believe we can change our world and every little bit counts. Just because certain practices are embedded into the system, does not mean it has to continue to be that way. I have been interested in Health Disparities (gaps in the quality of health and health care across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups) for a very long time.  I even have a resource guide on Health Disparities on the VCU Libraries’ web page. This resource guide offers some cultural competence tools that I encourage my students and practitioners in the health care field to use. In the near future, I would like to do more research on Health Disparities. I feel that this is something that is utterly unacceptable.  Like Dr Martin Luther King  Jr. said, “of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most  inhumane ”.  People die unnecessarily just because some treatment is not prescribed for them because the practitioner feels it is useless since the person in front of them will probably be non-compliant. The decision is made solely because of the patient’s race. If we can get our students in the health care fields to realize what a big problem this is, we have solved part of the problem. We have many people in the health  care field who do not realize that they discriminate against some people in prescribing treatment due to preconceived ideas that they carry from childhood. They are not necessarily bad people because they do not set out to do this on purpose.  Cultural competence training is very important.

I did not mean to preach here, but I ended up doing it anyway.  I like that this test shpwed that I am well blanced as a teacher. I will take the test again in about three months and see how I do. I really hope I will continue to be balanced in my teaching perspectives.

I have no idea how this week got so busy! I cannot believe how much I have to get done before I go to the Librarians’ conference next week. I have mountains of tasks to complete for work, school and home! On top of all this, I just accepted a nomination for a regional libraries committee. I have no idea why I did that! How hard is it to just say no? This gets me in so much trouble all the time. I should have listened to Emily who gave me the best advise that I totally ignored! Saying yes to everything is a learned behavior from my childhood that I definitely have to unlearn. I was taught to always put myself in other people’s situation before saying no to them. My father was the same way. He did so much for so many and everybody liked him. I guess I have this constant need to be liked by all even though I realize that is an impossible goal. Now that I have learned that we can continue to learn new things no matter what age, I am going to add this lesson to my mountain of lessons as an adult.

I have been able to unlearn some lessons already as it is. I never knew I could share so much with my classmates. Every time we discuss our learning in both small and large groups, I sometimes have surprised myself with how much I share. The sharing helps a lot to get things in perspective as well as make you think of ways to handle things especially your learning. This is especially important to me as I make the important decision to apply to the program.

I have been sitting here thinking about class and many other things. I cannot help being aware these days how I keep on learning new things all the time. I have been conditioned to think that education is achieved through classroom learning even though I have learned so many other things out of the classroom.

One of the many lessons I have learned informally this past week is that I really need time to myself where I can just do things the way I want them done. I have very little free time and I really want to spend it the way I want to without being considerate to others. Listen to my music as loud as I want to, dance like a crazy person or stay in my pajamas all day long just because I can. Is that so bad?  As much as I like to be with my amazing friends, I have also suddenly realized how much I value time with just Irene.

I completed the VARK questionnaire yesterday and I came out as a Read/Write learner which I can relate to. I do feel comfortable  to have instructions that I can read and follow when learning a new activity. This way when I am alone and I get confused or forget how to do something, I can refer back to the written instructions and get it right!

I wish I had been able to discuss with others in the class about the Kolb Learning Style to see their perspectives after getting their results. I had mixed feelings with my results. After I took it, I saw that I fall under both accommodating and assimilating styles. I was surprised that I did not score higher on the diverging part because I see myself as very sensitive to different perspectives on issues. I dislike it very much when people are dismissive of others. I do see the accommodating style in me. I like to work with others whenever there is a problem to solve. I will listen to what others have to say and let everybody have their say. This working with others is very comforting to me and it sort of validates me. At the same time, I like to take action and try different things on my own as well.  I think the assimilating side of me is apparent when I look at my career as a librarian. I have always liked to gather information, researching it as well as investigating issues, which is really what being a librarian is about. My learning style depends on the situation. I may have developed a lot of my assimilating tendencies through my job. Reading through the booklet, I completely see how one can develop other learning styles by being put into different situations and thereby becoming an even better learner.

Working in an academic medical library, I can definitely say that demographics, globalization and technology have greatly impacted the learning in my work place. This can be seen in the library users, the students, faculty, staff, including library staff and the community.

The demographics of the library users are changing all the time. Most of our students are graduate students. Even so, we have the traditional student who went to college straight from high school and continued on to graduate programs. Then we have those who are older who stopped school to have children or to do other things like “finding themselves” before continuing with higher education. The faculty and other library users are also of different ages and social back grounds.  We have the same issues with the library staff in my work place. We have people of different generations working together to serve our users. I see often that some of the younger staff are impatient and want things to move and change faster while some of the older people want things to remain the same and are scared of change. These differences in age have a great impact on learning because these different groups of people do not learn at the same pace plus they have different learning needs.

When it comes to technology these same divisions appear in both the library user groups as well as the library staff. The younger people seem to be more at ease with the new technology than the older population. The younger ones have the advantage of being born with the new technologies since they are digital natives and most of the older users and staff who are digital immigrants are somewhat challenged by technology. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a comfortable meeting place between these different groups. There is a tendency for the older people to just assume that technology is difficult and they are not going to learn it so they will just ignore it. The younger people are no help because they just look down upon these digital immigrants and assume that since they are not good at the technology, they are inferior and useless.

Furthermore new technology has brought us new tools to use in serving our users and this has necessitated a change in the collection of library materials for learning. Web 2.0 tools are also being incorporated in the library. We now use Facebook, Web casts, Flickr, Podcasts and other social bookmarking tools. We have also done away with a lot of the request forms we used to have in print and instead people can request items on line. Technology has also brought about an expansion of distance learning programs because course offerings are no longer limited by space. The library is working harder towards meeting the needs of the ever growing number of distance education by offering more material on line and other support like offering virtual reference services. We are now increasingly reliant on technology when providing library training. We mostly teach how to use the databases on the Internet and when the Internet has problems or there is no power, usually there is no recourse. This actually happened a few days ago when staff had to teach a class and the Internet was down. There was no real back up plan because in most cases, the technology has become very reliable and people use the databases on line to find research since the older non- computer tools have become obsolete.

Globalization has changed both the composition of our user groups as well as staff. Not only do we have students, faculty and staff from all over the world, we also have students taking classes from different parts of the world. We now try to meet needs of a diverse population in terms of national origin. We have done things like offering databases that can be used in different languages as well as print materials in foreign language. There is need to offer services at all hours because of different time zones. We also serve community users including patients. We do not have a Spanish speaking librarian on staff at the Medical Center but them again we haven’t seen a real need for it because almost all the scholars that come to VCU can read and write in English.

It is difficult to talk about the impact of demographics, technology and globalization on learning in my work place separately because they are interrelated. The differences in age, technological know how and national origin brings to light different learning needs. Most younger people are good at technology. Technology has brought about globalization because in part it has brought tools that make it possible to operate across borders, different time zones and languages. This translates into different needs of our library users so our teaching should be modified for these different groups. The same can be said for library staff. I truly believe that the older people can learn the technology just as much as the younger people and we have seen it happen. Patience with people is a virtue that behooves us all in these times for we must realize that different learning styles and learning pace are a fact of life. Both experience and technological savviness should be respected. At the same time everybody just has to believe in themselves and take the time to learn the necessary new technology as it becomes available and use it. The fact is all this technology is here and the world has changed, there is no going back, so either get on the train or be left behind!