Cross pollination is a beautiful thing. In addition to prompting some folks to recommend Rethinking Worldview and add it to their reading lists, some remarks made in my recent CPYU Bookshelf interview prompted thrills and frustration at Caddickisms, where the question turned on whether my devil-may-care attitude toward accommodating material to the supposed understanding of the audience could apply in corporate training environments: "Challenge students?! Are you crazy?!"
Teaching involves plenty of challenges. If no one understands what you're saying, have you really taught? My own experience has been that they do understand, and that the reason they've tuned out in the past wasn't lack of comprehension so much as lack of interest. That's not to say that after prolonged disengagement some students don't find it difficult to switch back on. But over-simplifying material often results in the impression that what you're teaching is just common sense, and people can only be lectured so many times on things they "already know." Anyway, click on the article and read the link -- it's much more interesting than the quote of mine that inspired it.
Thanks for mentioning the post (it's Caddickisms, btw - no 'r'). I'm totally with you. If you can hit the "What's in it for me?" mark, you've at least got their attention. Handing them over-simplified "vapor-ware" though, just turns them right back off again. And rightfully so. Now if I could just get the VPs of the world to buy into that...
Posted by: Jeff | October 22, 2008 at 07:43 AM
Thanks, Jeff. I fixed the typo. My favorite corporate training moment? I took my department (three people and me) to a Microsoft Office training in the mid-90s only to discover when we showed up that there were no computers in the room, just workbooks. At the first break, I led them out. We went to the movies all day -- saw Pacino's Looking for Richard and the then-new Twelfth Night movie. Best training ever, and no one ever forgot it.
Posted by: J. Mark Bertrand | October 22, 2008 at 10:05 AM
HA HA! That's great. Was the instructor Harold Hill? Sounds like the THINK system to me...
Posted by: Jeff | October 23, 2008 at 08:22 AM
I don't remember who put it on, but I did keep the terribly depressing b/w workbook on my desk for a long time as a talking piece. It was held at a hotel and the room was packed. I don't know how many were left by the end of the day, though!
Posted by: J. Mark Bertrand | October 23, 2008 at 12:40 PM