If you’ve been kicking around Dialogue Education circles long enough you’ll have heard a bunch of axioms bandied about. You might have read Dr. Jane Vella’s A Few New Axioms, about the new truths that have become apparent to her during her retirement years, or seen the results of the experiment Dan Haase and Kyle Tennant undertook as a result of an axiom.

But what is an axiom, really?

The American Heritage Dictionary defines it this way:

• A self-evident or universally recognized truth; a maxim.
• An established rule, principle, or law.
• A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument; a postulate.

In the world of Dialogue Education learning designs, we have ten favorites that we explore in our Advanced Learning Design course and we invite you to ponder them for a moment as you read them here:

1. Don’t tell what you can ask; don’t ask if you know the answer:  tell in dialogue.
2. Even a group of 4 (or 400) can be broken down to pairs: let every voice be heard!
3. A warm-up is a learning task related to the topic.  It is not an extra.
4. A learning task is an open question, put to a small group with the resources they need to respond.  It is for the learners, not you, the teacher.
5. A critical incident (case study posing a problem) needs to be far enough away to be safe, and close enough to be relevant.
6. Pray for doubt!
7. The more teaching (professing), the less learning.
8. We should generally be teaching half as much in twice the time.
9. Aim for the proper sequence or flow, from simple to more complex.
10. The design bears the burden.

In Advanced Learning Design we do a task together towards the end of our three-day course that’s focused on the axioms:

Think about what you have found most stretching and provocative during the past three days. Create your own pearl of wisdom to express your learning in the form of an axiom!  Write or draw it on the paper provided and bring it to our axiom wall.

 

Take a Gallery Walk and express your reactions to what you see.

While we can't have a typical Gallery Walk here on our blog, we do have a comments section below that will suffice. A lot of you are very experienced teachers, facilitators and trainers – what are your favorite axioms related to learning designs? We invite you to share your comments below.

If you’d like to discover more pearls of wisdom for yourself, please join us in Raleigh, North Carolina on June 19-21 for Advanced Learning Design. This course is unique because only in Raleigh can you have dinner hosted by Dialogue Education founder Jane Vella on her back porch!

By Dan Haase and Kyle Tennant

 Dan Haase, left, talks with his student, Kyle Tennant.

“The design bears the burden.” This is one of our favorite axioms of Jane Vella’s. Our experience with this truth came through a college graduate course entitled “Teaching for Transformation.” Before the class began, we realized we had a major problem with the WHEN. Due to an unalterable work schedule, Kyle Tennant (the student) was not able to make the weekly required course during its slotted timeframe. The eight steps were completed. All of the WHAT, the WHAT FOR, and the HOW were written. Dan (the instructor) began to wonder . . . could the design truly bear the burden? Could Kyle still experience deep learning without actually attending the class? Fortunately, another student had the same scheduling conflict. Putting confidence in the design, and with an experimental spirit, Dan offered the course as an independent study wherein Kyle and the other student would gather weekly to work through the prepared learning tasks.

This is Dan and Kyle's conversation about the outcome.

Dan:  What was your initial response to our course?

Kyle:  I think I felt both excitement and trepidation. I was absolutely thrilled to be gaining more tools for my teaching toolbox, yet taking in all of the information was certainly challenging! While I was given everything I needed to engage with the content in terms of What, What For, and How, the documents were intimidating. A learner who is new to Dialogue Education (DE) will be confused by a single learning task; imagine getting a document with over 70 on the first day of class! But you made yourself available to me via email and telephone, which resulted in an increase in excitement and courage, and a decrease in trepidation.

Dan:  I know for me, I wondered how this independent study would work since you were not physically in the class where I was facilitating the tasks. It was good that you had a classmate to walk with through the tasks and without this I don’t think the course would have worked at all, due to the amount of interaction that took place in groups. What challenges did you face as the course progressed?

Kyle:  The challenge for us was to do the extra work of synthesizing the learning tasks on the paper into a cohesive unit of our own understanding. With in-person learning, the facilitator transitions learners between tasks, and ultimately synthesizes them into a cohesive unit. In Dan’s absence, we were forced to link the sequence of tasks on our own—we had to work to see the connection between each piece of new content and each task. This process was frequently awkward and stilted, but in the end it made for a deep appreciation for facilitators in the design process.

Dan:  How would you describe the role that design played in your learning, transfer and impact?

Kyle:  The axiom we mentioned  earlier – “the design bears the burden” – was proved true in that learning, transfer and impact occurred despite our facilitator’s absence. As we worked to turn these documents into cohesive pieces of understanding, we found ourselves “getting it.” Transfer happened intuitively:  as a pastor working with adolescents, I began to use DE in our weekly meetings, taking what I had just worked through earlier in the week and implementing it a only a few days later. Impact came when I asked students to prepare mini-sessions on a given subject, and they had me and my volunteer staff drawing, acting out, journaling, and singing about the given content.

Dan:  What suggestions or conclusions would you offer to those writing learning tasks when they will not be present to help facilitate?

Kyle:  A few ideas come to mind. First, do as Dan did:  be extremely available to your learners via email and phone. The lines of communication were always open, and we met with Dan frequently. Second, be sure to provide those learners in your absence with all the necessary materials—we received the handouts listed in the HOW at the beginning of each week, so we were able to keep up with the learning. Third, remember the power of a “tough verb” and a clear task. If your verbs aren’t tough, and your tasks aren’t clear, your learners can’t learn. A tough verb and a clear task needs no explanation! Lastly, trust your design and your learners. If the design is good, and your learners are willing, learning will happen!

What do YOU think about Dan and Kyle's experiment? What's your experience with "the design bears the burden?"

Dan Haase, a GLP Certified Dialogue Education Practitioner, is Adjunct Faculty and Internship Coordinator at Wheaton College.

Kyle Tennant is a graduate student at Wheaton College.

The other day I had a conversation with an international DE practitioner who really got me thinking. She said: 

The GLP approach is great -- I believe in dialogue and open questions to make dialogue happen. But, people also need information! Especially in the fields of public health and financial literacy, there are right and wrong answers to questions. The dialogue approach I've seen poses questions to which any answer is correct and that's just not always the case. It's not useful to ask "what do you think causes malaria?" The people in our groups are busy trying to make ends meet -- they want to talk but they also came to learn something -- not just talk. I'm not sure the dialogue approach is right for that.

Well, I agree with her wholeheartedly -- and not at all.

Over the years, I've also seen many practitioners needlessly pose questions to which there is a correct answer. I think people understand that engaging learning involves asking questions and as a result they can become so intent on asking instead of telling that they can go too far and ask what could more easily be told. For instance:

1. How does the pill work to prevent pregnancy?
2. How do companies calculate credit score?
3. What is official poverty rate in your city?

Any one of us could generate a zillion and one questions to which there is indeed a correct answer. But these are typically not the questions we want to pose to learners (unless, of course, our learners are taking a test to pass an exam as a public health nurse, a financial advisor, or a worker for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families).

Dialogue Education practitioners need not feel shy about telling instead of asking. The trick – as described years ago by our very own Dr. Jane Vella – is this:

Don't tell what you can ask. Don't ask if you know the answer - tell in dialogue.

That's always been a tough axiom for folks to grasp in our introductory course. And, I dare say, it's a hard one for even some seasoned Dialogue Education practitioners to fully internalize. 

Here's how I might transform the three questions above from simple asking to telling in dialogue, with this axiom in mind.

1. Watch this video clip that shows the action of a pill to prevent pregnancy. How does this alter your perspective about when life begins?
2. Study this pie graphic showing six factors that contribute to credit score. Which of these factors do you imagine has most influenced your personal credit score?
3. Examine this chart comparing poverty rates in 5 U.S. cities (adjusted for differences in the definition of poverty). What surprises or alarms you?

This was fun! It's much more rich, as a designer, to provoke dialogue around facts than to try and "fish" for information from people who came to you to learn that very information.

How might you transform the question "What Causes Malaria?" into a rich dialogue?

Valerie Uccellani is a Senior Partner with Global Learning Partners.

Usually we’re talking about workshops or courses or change initiatives when we talk about Dialogue Education, and the fact is, for as much as Dialogue Education is about learning, its roots in Paulo Freire’s theories of “liberation education” mean it’s also about managing our power in the world. Will we make decisions based on fear (be dominant or subservient), or based on dialogue and mutual-respect?

There’s no greater opportunity to gain insights into how we use our power than to notice how we parent:  like during those times when we try to force our will or mold our children, claiming it’s for their own good or safety; or the times we devalue or undermine their decision-making in an attempt to force them into behaving the way we believe they “should.” I believe these are red flags that indicate we have our own personal development work to do. Of course, it’s appropriate for parents to scream NO as a toddler runs out into the street, or set developmentally appropriate and mutually-respectful boundaries. But it’s inappropriate to use shame to try to control our teen’s behavior, like when we say “You’re not going to wear that, are you?” or when we interrupt, yet take our child to task when he or she interrupts.

Slow Parenting Teens:  How to Create a Positive, Respectful and Fun Relationship with Your Teenager, is a new book for parents who are seeking a meaningful, positive relationship with their teens. Authors Molly Wingate and Marti Woodward do a brilliant job of helping parents to recognize those attitudes and actions that either cultivate or undermine healthy relationships.

Slow parenting teens is not about raising kids without problems, struggles, or even physiological challenges. It’s about building and maintaining a relationship with your teen so you can move through “trouble” together and not as enemies. You become your teenager’s role model for owning tough feelings and choices. You demonstrate self-care, and compassion. (p122)

Wingate and Woodward offer five attitudes for creating enlivening, trusting and safe relationships with our children. Each chapter ends with numerous suggestions for improving our relationships through the gradual adoption of each attitude.

1. Steward your teens
2. Respect their personalities
3. Catch them doing it right
4. Listening is effective
5. Parent every day

...All aspects of parenting are opportunities to build a sustainable, fun, and respectful relationship with your teenager. Even the most difficult, unpleasant aspects of parenting teens can build the relationship you want if you use the five attitudes… (p88)

Here are some of the outcomes you can expect:

Stewarding teens not only pays off in terms of energy but also in relationship quality. Teens feel cared for, but not controlled, and they’re paid attention to, not judged. Teenagers gain self-confidence and learn to trust their independent judgment. Stewardship allows them to develop judgment and discernment with your support. Your teens are more likely to turn to you for support when you foster a positive relationship…(p34)

One of the things I appreciate greatly in this book are the examples in each chapter of dialogue between parents and teens, and how they differ when we “slow parent” or “fast-parent.”

Here’s an example of how to “slow parent” (be a more effective listener):

Listening, the way we refer to it, means your teenager’s story is more important than your story. You want to hear her process, conclusions, questions, logic, and confusion. Then you’ll ask for more of her thoughts at least two times before you even venture a remark, much less an opinion… (p63)

As one who’s used Dialogue Education in my work for many years, I found these authors to be kindred spirits focused on familiar principles and practices. I highly recommend this book to anyone who’d like to have a better relationship with teens (or adults for that matter)! Not surprisingly, Slow Parenting Teens is also recommended by teens.

Darlene Goetzman, Dialogue Education Coach, is author of Dialogue Education Step by Step:  A Guide for Designing Exceptional Learning Events. She is teaching a course by the same name that begins Feb 4.

I collect verbs. Until recently I assumed I was the only eccentric out there, engaged in doing so, but then I was introduced to Darlene Goetzman’s Voracious Verbs cards for facilitators. She, too, collects verbs. The verbs I collect come from resumés and strategic plans, well chosen in those contexts to convey strategic and/or innovative activity: achievements in the case of resumés; future goals in the case of planning documents.

I use my collection of verbs in my facilitation practice as a way of getting participants to think about the work that is before them. I encourage them to think hard and out loud, to discern together the true nature of what it is they are trying to achieve. Undoubtedly a cognitive learning task, the exercise can also have affective resonance. We sometimes feel differently when we reframe the work. Think for a minute, for example, about the difference between criticizing an employee’s work and clarifying performance expectations.              

I facilitate visioning and planning sessions with public library boards and staff, and in that context, a shared experience of landing on the right verb can shed important light on the true nature of the work required to realize the vision. Imagine the shift, for example, from thinking about organizational change as being that of building a new culture, to growing a new culture. Choosing the right verb for the strategy leads to a more expansive and more realistic understanding of the tasks involved. Naming the work as growing a new culture leads to understanding it as gradual and incremental, as a process requiring nourishment and nurturing conditions. Had it been named as building a new culture, important aspects of the work might be overlooked, as well as unrealistic expectations as to how quickly it can be achieved.

In addition to my role as facilitator, I also coordinate a leadership development program for public library staff. That work has led me to pull together a new collection of verbs – some overlap with my active, strategic verbs - but new candidates, as well. In this case, I am interested in verbs that describe the work of leadership, in particular, the people side of leadership:  awaken, empower, navigate, listen, inspire, choreograph. I believe it can be an important reflective exercise for emerging leaders to think carefully about what it means to be a leader in their given circumstance. I think it might be helpful, for example, to reframe the work of delegating to that of sharing the work, sharing ownership, and sharing responsibility for making success happen.

The verbs we choose hold connotations, sometimes metaphors. If we think of our work as that of orchestrating, for example, we consciously or unconsciously, see ourselves as arranging and coordinating diverse musicians to create a single piece of music. 

I’ve used verbs successfully as both ‘Anchor’ and ‘Apply’ activities, depending on what I am asking participants to ponder. I find it a useful way to cultivate discernment and sense making.    

How have you used verbs to enhance your work?

Anne Marie Madziak is a library development consultant with Southern Ontario Library Service (www.sols.org), an Agency of Ontario’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport.