Immediacy

The eighth principles that should be acquired by teacher is Immediacy. (see the previous principle here)Research recognizes that adult learners need to see the immediate usefulness of new learning: the skills, knowledge, or attitudes they are working to acquire. Most adults do not have time to waste. We want to spend our time studying content that will make a difference

now. We are willing to work in an appropriate sequence, and we recognize the need for reinforcement, but we want to see something in hand as soon as possible. A large percentage of adult learners start a course and then decide to give it up because they cannot see the immediate usefulness of what they are learning. Such immediacy is not a quick fix in a mechanistic sense. It is perceived usefulness, related to respect for the learner’s context, sequence of learning tasks, and the data shared in the needs assessment. The immediacy perceived by learners will affect their determination to continue working. In quantum thinking, perception evokes reality. We participate in making our world.

How does this principle translate into practice? In designing a time management course for middle managers at a large factory, for example, a teacher uses the principle of immediacy by designing three short sessions instead of a day-long course. She makes sure the managers have one particular skill to practice at their posts in between these short sessions. When that skill makes a difference in the management of their usual activities, they gain confidence in the course, the teacher, and their own learning ability. A question we can offer at the end of each learning session is, How can you use this new skill most effectively? So learners, again as subjects, decide on the significance and application of the new skill.

The principle of immediacy helped the teacher decide how to organize the sessions in that short course. This offers an immediate example of what we mean by a principle: the beginning of an action. We are guided in the design of that course by the simple principle of immediacy. The principle of honoring learners as subjects would have us asking learners after the three short sessions: How else could we have organized the time in this time management course? Let’s use the very principles we’ve just learned to redesign this course! That is using the principle of reinforcement as well as immediacy. As we develop skills in the use of all the principles and practices of dialogue education, we shall see how deeply intertwined they are. You can hardly use one without using all the others. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Each part contains the whole. That is quantum

thinking. In the war-torn streets of the little town of Due Arroyo in El Salvador (Chapter Eleven), the community organizers studying the principles and practices of community education had more than enough immediacy. The story shows how they applied what they were learning wisely enough to save their lives and mine.