Sound Relationships

This article is posted to continue my previous posting; it was about twelve principles for effective adult learning. The third principle after need assessment, safety, is Sound Relationships. Sound relationships for learning involve respect, safety, open communication, listening, and humility. Zohar (1997, p. 134) offers a new reading of dialogue, dia + logos, as dia “through” and logos “relationship”: “through relationship.” She teaches that such dialogue is a central tool in quantum thinking.

The initial meeting between teacher and learner has to demonstrate the sense of inquiry and curiosity felt by the teacher. When doing a learning needs and resources assessment, through use of either e-mail, focus groups, or telephone surveys or by being a participant to observer in their work, we as teachers can discover specific personal or group learning needs. Then a dialogue about learners’ expectations is a way to confirm our perception of their needs or amend it.

Again, learners are immediately in the position of decision makers, deciding what they want to tell us, feeling safe enough to share their true feelings. A manager of a nonprofit organization in Boston, about to attend a seminar at Tufts University, responded to a telephone call inviting him to name his unique learning needs for an upcoming management seminar by saying, “I am honored by this call. It’s the first time anyone ever asked me what I   Imagine the relationship that was established between him and the professor via that simple phone call.

The power relationship that often exists between learner and “professor” can be a function of a mechanistic system where power is frequently used to dominate. Our efforts through dialogue education to build a world of equity and mutual responsibility cannot be designed without attention to the power of sound relationships. If show how accessible I am to learners through an early dialogue in the learning needs and resources assessment, and respond to their questions with respect and affirmation in a safe environment, that world of equity already exists. We do “make the road by walking” (Freire and Horton, 1990). In order to be sound, this relationship must transcend personal likes and dislikes and obvious differences in wealth and power. In such instances, a teacher knows she must be even more careful about showing respect, affirming, and listening carefully. When the teacher fails to show respect or fails to affirm a learner in a group or allows the fatal “plop,” the whole group begins to doubt the learning relationship and often manifests anger, fear, and disappointment. Nothing can diminish the importance to learning of the relationship between teacher and learner. The example in Chapter Six of Dr. Margie Ahnan from Indonesia shows how powerful a sound relationship can be in getting an adult learner to stretch beyond himself and grow in the knowledge, skills, and attitudes he needs.

                                                                                  Adopted from; Jane Vela

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