Transformative Learning

PIDP 3100: Foundations of Adult Education

David Weymer #000421861

Vancouver Community College

Quote

“Reflection possibly leading to transformative learning are modeling and peer learning, storytelling and dialogue, coaching, and action learning conversations” (p. 93).

Objective

The concept of transformative learning is a new concept to me, but upon some reflection I have realized that I have experienced it personally on numerous occasions in my life.

Not surprisingly, becoming aware of the concept and having a new way of viewing what had happened on those past occasions and the changes that may be facilitated in the future, both with myself and the students I work with, is transformative.

Reflective

I teach logging classes, and initially when I read about andragogy, and then transformative learning, my first thought was that the teaching I do is more suited to behaviorism, where “what has become known as evidence based practice, wherein quantifiable, systematic, and observable ‘outcomes’ are used as markers of learning” (Merriam & Bierema, 2014), in that most of it is very practical physical work and there are, for the larger part, well-established ways of doing things requiring skill sets with high levels of hazard associated with them. This is a sort of learning that is much better served by instructor led teaching than self-directed learning.

Safety is the overbearing theme within logging instruction in this day and age. Over the many years of my logging career, my focus has gone through some huge changes. I was young and haywire long ago and had not experienced much death and grief. Being productive was the king and we did not think much about getting hurt or killed.

Over the intervening years I have had quite a few friends get injured or killed in the industry and my attitude towards safety has gone through quantum leaps. Granted, the industry itself has gone through a huge change in its approach to safety, but I as an individual have changed more. This goes with the description of transformational learning, where “an orientation which holds that the way learners interpret and reinterpret their sense experience, is central to making meaning and hence learning” (Mezirow, 1991). One of my long-time quandaries with teaching young loggers has been how to accelerate their progression from where they as young workers are now, with their attitude towards safety, to where I am now after years of life experience. We know that they will move this direction in time in varying degrees, but just think of how much death and misery we would prevent if we could just get them here faster.

Upon some further reflection, while talking with a friend, it occurred to me that, quite possibly, transformative learning could play into my game.

Interpretive

Safety conferences have been a part of my life for many years. At one of the earlier conferences I attended, a young man hobbled onto the stage with the aid of a couple of canes to speak. He told the story of being a university student on a summer job working for a logging company. The work they had been doing was finished, and a foreman gave a couple of the workers saws and told them to go fall some alders along the road to improve visibility. Falling trees is a highly skilled and potentially very hazardous job. Alder trees are some of the most dangerous trees we fall. They are prone to splitting longitudinally up the stem and kicking part of the stem backwards hard and fast. This is called a barber-chair by those in the business, and barber-chairs have maimed and killed a lot of people.

When this young student was falling, an alder tree barber-chaired and broke his back, leaving him partially paralyzed. His message to the conference was that he was very angry because he had been sent out to do an extremely hazardous job with zero training on how it should be done. He had had no idea that the hazard even existed, let alone how to control it, and had suffered a major life altering injury.

His presentation was quite pivotal in transforming the focus of my life towards worker safety in general, and in particular, the development and delivery of adequate training to new and young workers in the forest industry.

Decisional

I was debating on whether I really wanted to do this course. I am now quite certain I will do it and try to do it well. I have high hopes that as I work my way through the course, I will discover new ways to help future students transition to a more highly evolved safety attitude, and that I will become better at developing and delivering the varying training course I am, and will become, involved with.

References

Merriam, S. B., & Bierema, L. L. (2014). Adult Learning: Linking Theory and Practice. San Francisco, USA: Jossey-Bass.

Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. San Francisco, USA: Jossey-Bass.