Learning/Teaching 1
Learning/Teaching Postmodern Ideas In
Three Different Settings
Elena Fernández, M.A., Grupo Campos Eliseos, México City, México
Sylvia London, M.A., Grupo Campos Elíseos, México City, México
Irma RodríguezJ., M.A., Grupo Campos Eliseos, México City, México
Please address correspondence to Grupo Campos Elíseos. Campos Elíseos 430-401, Col
Polanco 11560, México e-mail: gcemex@yahoo.com
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Learning/Teaching 2
Abstract
This paper addresses the training challenges we face when we work with
postmodern ideas in three different educational settings in the greater Mexico City area: a
university, a mental health clinic and a private postgraduate training institute. We discuss
how the notion of Collaborative Learning Communities serves as a platform to address the
question of the teaching/ learning dilemma in training therapists and we include several
practical exercises as examples of possible ways to incorporate creativity and freedom in
the learning process.
Key words: postmodern therapy, collaborative learning community, learning, teaching and
creativity.
Learning/Teaching 3
The Learning/Teaching Challenge: Who does the teaching and who does the learning?
Our approach to teaching and training in psychotherapy is based on the belief that
teaching, training, supervision, consultation and therapy are part of a learning continuum.
In this article we would like to share how this idea guides our work as we implement
collaborative, social-constructionist and reflective practices in different educational
settings.
Seymour Papert (1993) states that "Better learning will not come from finding
better ways for the teacher to instruct, but from giving the learner better opportunities to
construct" (p.1) This way of conceptualizing the construction of knowledge is closely
connected to what Harry Goolishian and Harlene Anderson have often said regarding the
process of becoming a therapist, that therapy is learnable but not teachable. In Anderson
and Swim's (1995) words:
We believe that doing therapy is eminently learnable but not taught.
Learning and learning therapy is the acquisition of knowledge and skills through
experience. In collaborative, interactive dialogical model supervisor and supervisee
learn together. Both change and experience transformation in their professional and
personal lives (p.12).
When our students describe the process of learning collaborative therapies, they
often say it grows on you, it is contagious. We can't just rely on "contagion", though. The
question we ask ourselves as educators is: How can we help a person learn something that
is not teachable?
We would like to answer this question by addressing the challenge of creating
collaborative learning communities, in which students are invited to participate in a process
of collaborative learning. A collaborative learning community (Anderson, 1999) has the
Learning/Teaching 4
goal of accessing every member's creativity and resources and creating an environment
where each participant feels comfortable, open and part of the conversations, a community
where everybody has a sense of freedom and belonging, where participants can express
their ideas, questions and concerns without feeling blamed or judged In a collaborative
learning community, questions are welcome and appreciated as opportunities to develop
new dialogues and meanings around old questions or/and familiar subjects. We also believe
in reflection as a powerful learning tool. Donald Schön (1983) in his book The Reflective
Practitioner, invites professionals to reflect upon their activities and the impact they have
on themselves and their professional practices. We extend this invitation to our students
and incorporate reflecting teams and processes (Andersen,1987, 1995) in our work in
training
We have been working on the development of collaborative and reflexive learning
communities in three different settings: university graduate programs, a community training
site and an independent postgraduate institute in Mexico City. Since we value the
postmodern idea of "multiple voices", we decided to write each section as a personal
account. The exercises we discuss are part of our experiences, and they are in constant
transformation, depending on the participants, the setting, the world news and the daily
human incidents in our lives. It is through "the doing" that we get our best learning.
University Settings
Postmodern critique in general, and collaborative learning communities in
particular, may run the risk of being perceived as too loose or too chaotic to be included as
part of a traditional university that requires specific syllabi, taking attendance and giving
Learning/Teaching 5
grades. I, Sylvia London, have been working at marriage and family therapy masters
programs at two Universities in Mexico City that focus on postmodern and social
constructionist ideas and their application in therapy, teaching, consultation, and
supervision. In this section, I share some ideas that have helped create a bridge to teach
postmodern ideas in traditional settings. In order to make this contribution as clear as
possible I will talk about my role as a class facilitator (faculty), the first encounter with
students, the syllabus and grading procedures.
My Role as Faculty
As a facilitator of the learning process my role is to offer food for thought and
reflection (Anderson, 1997), this can be done through readings, lectures and conversational
exercises in and outside the classroom. My role within the collaborative learning
community is different from the students'. My responsibility is to choose the content of the
class, the type of teaching experiences, conversational formats and the grading system. As
faculty I represent the rules and regulations of the institution (University) and have to
work according to them . I do not think I know more than my students, but I do know the
way I like to facilitate the learning process. My responsibility is to create a space and an
environment where the students feel free to speak, make comments and ask questions. I am
also responsible for inviting the students to share the best of them, and for giving them the
opportunity to express their knowledge and think about their learning style.
The First Encounter with Students
When we meet as a group for the first time, my goal is to begin the creation of a
collaborative learning community. We begin the class emphasizing the importance of
conversation, relationships and personal knowledge. I usually ask them to participate in
introduction exercises. In these exercises, the students are invited to share something about
Learning/Teaching 6
themselves and about their goals for the class, including what they need to have happen in
the class in order to feel comfortable. Some examples of these exercises include:
Exercise 1: The story of your name. This exercise is founded on a few simple
questions: Please tell us your name. How was your name chosen? Tell us the story of your
name. What are (or have been) the implications of going through life with that name?
I might start talking about my name and the stories and experiences attached to it.
When the students are talking, I feel free to ask some questions and ask the fellow students
if they want to ask a question or have a particular curiosity about the person's name.
The goals of this exercise include: 1. The development of new questions and curiosities
regarding students' family histories, in the Mexican culture names are usually part of a
family tradition. 2. Setting up relationships among classmates where stories take an
important part of who they are, how they are seen and how they relate to each other. 3.
Giving classmates the chance to ask questions related to names and the meaning of
"naming". 4. Exercising memory gives students and faculty the chance to learn all the
names. 5. Providing an example of identity building and social-constructionism. 6.
Opening space for the possibility of intimate conversation.
Exercise 2: Agendas and learning style. Once we have all the names and the stories
attached to them, I might ask questions like: 1. What would you like to happen between
now and the end of the semester to make this experience worthwhile for you? 2. How do
you learn best?
This exercise can be done in small groups, allowing participants to develop joint
agendas and giving students time to have conversations in small clusters and to know each
other a little bit better.
Learning/Teaching 7
The students learning objectives and styles are taken very seriously. This
information helps to shape the creation of a learning community as we begin to address
personal needs, group needs, and how they relate to the University setting, the class and the
syllabus. At the beginning, students may have a difficult time talking about what they want
from the course and their learning style. They are not used to being asked or included in the
design of a class. As they realize how the learning experiences are tailored to their
preferences, they feel heard and responsible for participating in ways that make the
experience suitable for their needs.
Syllabus and Readings
During the first meeting, we talk about the idiosyncratic nature of the materials and
emphasize that the program and the texts are my personal/professional choices. We talk
about the multiple possibilities of texts available to address each particular subject and
some of them are included as suggested readings. There is more than one reading, usually
two, from different authors, as class assignments and students are encouraged to read at
least one.
Initially, students often have a hard time with the idea of more than one possible
reading for each meeting; they get confused and don't know how to choose. They are not
familiar with the authors and find the idea of choice somewhat foreign to their learning
experience. It takes time to understand the value of having more than one author who talks
about the same subject. Once students experience the richness of having multiple
perspectives on a topic, they tend to search for more authors.
Some students find it useful to stay with one author through the semester, while others like
to switch readings from class to class and others like to read both reading options every
time.
Learning/Teaching 8
Having more than one author or text for each class gives the freedom to elicit
conversations that compare and contrast and keep the spirit of multiple voices alive in the
classroom. It also represents the postmodern appreciation of multiple voices and
descriptions and helps students take a critical approach to reading and understanding
Evaluation as Education:
Teachers and Learners in Evaluation
"Evaluation is a social practice that involves the systematic generation and analysis
of information about people's experiences in a particular program (construed as an
intentional, orchestrated set of activities), as well as reflective judgments about the quality
and meaningfulness of those experiences. So, a lot of what is learned in an evaluation
relates to the program being evaluated, the contexts within which the program is
implemented, and the nature and meaningfulness of various people's program experience".
(Greene, 2002 p.1).
My approach towards evaluation coincides with this reflective and experiential view
of learning
Grading papers. Every time students do an assignment, individually or in a group,
they are asked to bring the original and two copies: one for the facilitator, one for the
faculty assistant and one for a fellow student. Students can bring more copies and invite as
many readers as they want in this reviewing process. In this particular format each students
will read and comment on at least one fellow student's paper. This exercise gives the
students the opportunity to read and provide feedback to their classmates it is also a very
rich way to be exposed to different writing and learning styles and, last but not least, it
makes the grading system open and public. Students are given specific guidelines for
reading and providing feedback to their fellow students' work. These include: 1. Review
the instructions for the paper and make sure the piece you are reading follows the paper's
Learning/Teaching 9
requirements in terms of content and form. (i.e. Introduction, Literature Review,
Theoretical Framework, Proposal, Conclusions, Bibliography, APA style, etc). 2. Read the
paper and write your comments with the same care and interest and respect you would like
someone else to read your work. 3. Provide feedback in any of a variety of forms (oral,
written, etc.).
Feedback meeting. Once the papers are read, we have a meeting with each student
in which their fellow student(s) and faculty provide feedback about their paper. They are
also welcome to provide feedback about the student's participation, performance and
growth during the class. Students are invited to participate in the conversation and to
comment on their own performance. At the end of this conversation, the evaluation group
comes up with a grade (number or letter) for the student. The process is open and public,
following the idea of public craft proposed by Boyte (2000): "Work that is undertaken for
public purposes and in public ways [it is work that] adds public judgment or wisdom to
knowledge" (p.1). In this process of making their work public, the voices of the students
become as important as the voice of the teacher and power is de-centralized and shared. By
reading other papers, students can refer back to their own work and appreciate differences
in quality and styles. They realize how much they can learn from each other, they also have
the challenge of finding ways to provide feedback that is useful as well as open,
appreciative and growth oriented.
Grading exams. Exams are viewed as a way to assess the clarity of the teaching/
learning process and classroom activities, as well as students' capacity to translate and
appropriate knowledge. Whenever written traditional exams are used (as part of the
university's requirements) they have the goal to assess the understanding of particular
concepts and we use the following grading system: 1. Students take a traditional written
Learning/Teaching 10
exam in class. 2. Students exchange exams after finishing them. 3. Students go home and
look in the textbook for the exact "verbatim" answer to each question and write it for their
fellow student in their exam. 4. Students give classmates additional feedback in the way
they wished it would be given to them. 5. The facilitators then, read the exams with the
students' comments to get some ideas about the class progress and learning.
This exercise requires students to go back and review the textbook and find the
exact answer to the question. It also elicits conversations in class about the ways the
questions can be answered and the language that can be used to translate the books´
language into one that is more comfortable and familiar to them and still includes the main
idea in a way that can be understood by a reader. As a teacher, the exams and the grading
system give me information regarding the concepts that need to be reviewed. This exam
exercise provides the opportunity to develop skills to look at other people' work and to
comment on it in an appreciative and constructive way. The grade given to the exam, as in
the paper, is public and has a colleague as a witness of the grading process (Boyte, 2000).
Although evaluating is something that I did not appreciate in the past, having
students participate in these exercises as a way to assess their work and their colleagues´
has provided the opportunity to value the process of evaluation. I have found this way of
approaching evaluation to be open, fair and public. Students have commented that the
process it is not only challenging for them but it is a learning experience in itself, which
coincides with Greene's (2002) idea of evaluation as education.
A Community Training Site
In this section I, Irma Rodriguez will describe the challenges we face when the
teaching/learning process takes place in a training site at a community mental health clinic,
where the learning of theory and practice go hand in hand. The work described here takes
Learning/Teaching 11
place at a mental health clinic within Casa de los Nios de Palo Solo a Montessori School
in the outskirts of Mexico City. The clinic, located inside the school, provides
psychological, educational and consultation services to members of the school and the
community at large. We strive to offer quality clinical services to our consultants, as well as
an academic program that meets the learning needs of the therapists in training. Therapist
who come for training here are clinicians who are interested in incorporating postmodern
and social constructionist ideas into their practices.
Orientation to Training
Since the clinic is housed in a school, we interact with many people and often work
with the school children, their parents and "guides" (Montessori teachers). Given the
complexity of the site and the amount of people involved in the process, we like to start
therapists' training introducing a metaphor inspired by Harlene Anderson's (1997) idea of
the therapist being a guest, "a guest...who visits clients for a brief moment...who floats in
and out of the continuous and changing conversations they are having" (p. 99).
Exercise 3: "Being host /guest". In this exercise some of the following questions
are used to invite the students to explore their own ideas regarding being a host and a guest
in their common social practices and how these can be relevant to the therapist-client
relationship, in which sometimes we are hosts and other times we are guests: 1. What are
your ideas regarding being a host? 2. What do you do as a host? 3. How do you behave as
a guest? 4. What makes you a good guest? 5. How would you describe an atmosphere
where you feel comfortable and respected?
This exercise creates the beginning of a comfortable and safe working atmosphere.
Exercise 4: Personal expectations and resources. All the members of the group,
including myself, are invited to reflect on the following questions and have a conversation
Learning/Teaching 12
in pairs, after which we get back together as a group. 1. What do you want to get from this
learning experience? 2. What can you offer to bring into this learning experience? 3. What
are your assets, could you describe them? 4. What do you feel passionate about your
life/work?
This exercise helps to access the resources and knowledge available in the learning
community and helps us design the format for training as well as for our therapeutic
sessions. It also gives the students an opportunity to talk about their expertise and their
passion, creating relationships based on abilities and a sense of confidence and knowledge.
The Therapy Training Program
The program at the clinic is two-fold: theoretical and practical. Even though we do
not make a clear distinction between theory and practice in our training program, I make
the distinction here for the sake of clarity. Theoretical training begins with some basic preassigned
readings (i.e. therapy, postmodern critique, constructionist and collaborative ideas,
etc.). As the semester moves along we include more materials according to the needs of the
group, the clinical population and the nature of the clinical work. Practice is the main
purpose of the training, we see clients every time we meet as a group and the class schedule
is organized around therapy appointments. Students take turns participating as therapist and
as members of reflecting teams.
Betty Regains her Mother1
: A Case Example
A clinical example will give the reader an idea of how the needs that arise from the
clinical practice and the characteristics of the population we work with guide the selection
of readings and the exercises for the learning/teaching process. Betty is a six-year-old girl,
1
In order to protect the identity of the family the names have been changed.
Learning/Teaching 13
who was referred to the clinic by her Guide (teacher) who was worried about her. In the
teacher's words: "Betty has a hard time doing her work, she cries in the classroom and talks
about wanting to die.
We scheduled a first session with the mother and the guide. Two therapists
conducted the session and the rest of the group listened part of a reflecting team. The guide
was in the session for the first ten minutes and shared her concerns regarding Betty. After
the guide left, we talked with the mother and learned about her life situation. During the last
year she had left her four daughters with her mother because she moved in with a man. The
relationship did not work out and she decided to go back to her mother's house and to her
daughters. Since her mother had returned back, Betty was having a hard time interacting
with everybody at home, crying all the time, having difficulties sleeping, and was
constantly worried about her mother leaving them again. The mother assured Betty that she
made a big mistake leaving them and that she would never leave again. During the session,
the mother was very emotional and embarrassed about her actions; she wanted to find a
way to convince her daughters that she would never leave them again.
After listening to the conversation in the reflecting team, one of the therapists
suggested that the mother could perform the following ritual. We asked the mother to go
back home and make two boxes. In one box she was to put the things she would like to
leave behind, in the other she was to include what she would like to carry on to the future.
She was asked to find a safe place at home for the boxes. We then asked her to carry in her
purse small pieces of paper to write whatever came to her mind as the days went by. At the
end of each day, before going to bed, she was to choose which paper belongs to which box.
We asked her not to open the boxes and to bring them to the next session.
Learning/Teaching 14
The "doing" informs theoretical learning. When the session was over, there were
lots of questions regarding the use of rituals in therapy. This particular interest that emerged
from the clinical session provided the opportunity to talk about different ways of using
rituals in therapy, including different theoretical frameworks. I suggested that the group
could research some authors that talk about the use of ritual in the family therapy literature,
for example: Imber Black (1988), Selvini Palazzoli et al. (1978) and Freeman, Epston and
Lobovits (1997). This is an example of how the clinical work and the students' specific
interests inform the kind of learning activities and readings we have in the group.
Using the students´ strengths and resources. In the second session, the mother
came with her four daughters. She brought the two boxes and was eager to share them.
While mother was talking about the ritual, the oldest daughter was engaged in the
conversation, but the other girls remained silent. This silence along with their body posture
and facial expressions made us (therapists) feel anxious and uncomfortable. The tension
was mounting, and at that point I thought about one of the students who had experience in
relaxation and breathing techniques. I asked her to help us create a more relaxed
atmosphere, and in a very natural manner she invited all of us to do some relaxation
exercises. Through the use of physical movement, the atmosphere changed into a more
playful and fun one and we were able to talk through our bodies and incorporate everybody
into the conversation. This is an example of how our students' abilities become an essential
asset in our work together.
Becoming a collaborative community where everybody belongs. The atmosphere
was now more comfortable, everybody felt more relaxed, but the girls were still not ready
to talk. We thought that if we created a more intimate setting, the girls might feel safer to
talk. In order to do that, I asked the girls to choose one or two therapists to work with.
Learning/Teaching 15
Three smaller groups were formed and worked in separate spaces for part of the session.
The groups focused on the girls' views of the family situation and their wishes and hopes
for the future. When we all came back together, each group presented their work and the
others listened and reflected. The family left the session with a sense of "being a new
family", a family with hope, trust and direction for a future together.
This session is an example of one of the possible ways to create a postmodern
collaborative learning community, in which every member therapist and client play an
important and relevant part in the conversation. In this particular case, working in smaller
clusters became a vehicle to facilitate intimate relationships and conversations. This also
gave the students an opportunity to have more active and creative roles in the therapeutic
process. This experience also illustrates the collaborative notion of "doing what the
occasion calls for" as we chose to change and adjust the session according to the clients'
needs, challenging traditional therapeutic formats.
Through experiences like these we have learned together that the creation of a
Collaborative Learning Community is a slow and delicate process. This implies that each
one of us can take as much time as needed to feel a sense of comfort, safety and belonging.
Independent Post-Graduate Institute
In contrast to my colleagues at the university and the school based clinic- I Elena
Fernandez teach at Grupo Campos Elíseos (GCE), the experience takes place with students
who come to us looking for training in postmodern therapies. In a way this makes my job
easier because a modern institution does not host the teaching. Our students/colleagues at
GCE already come to us knowing that we will do everything possible to create a
Collaborative Learning Community (Anderson, 1997) and to work from a postmodern
Learning/Teaching 16
stance. All our students are interested in doing collaborative work or adding some of these
ideas to their own models or philosophical postures. We like to explore ideas and practices
under the umbrella called postmodern critique (Anderson, 1997)
We read and explore together theory and practice. We see some of the clients of
our students/colleagues at the institute or they share their client's stories with the rest of the
group. This is done in a space we've called "clinical conversations group". When we see
clients or hear their stories told by therapists, we use different versions of reflecting teams.
I could perhaps express my intentions in teaching postmodern psychotherapy by borrowing
Bakhtin's (1981) ideas on the novel: "The novel is the expression of a Galilean perception
of language, one that denies the absolutism of a single and unitary language--that is, that
refuses to acknowledge its own language as the sole verbal and semantic center of the
ideological world" (p. 366). One of my most important goals as a teacher/learner is to
create a space where my students/colleagues can reflect on their own psychotherapeutic
language and the languages of others, including those of the clients. By creating this
dialogue with others we, hopefully, enlarge our views of the world.
These learning communities can freely explore theory and practice. In our work
together we've found some ideas that are helpful in the creation of learning communities.
and I have developed several exercises to facilitate the discussion of some of these key
ideas, including the social construction of reality, therapist responsibility, where ideas
come from, and how thinking about ideas enlarges the theories we use.
Exercise 5:Other views of reality. . Reading and reflecting on theory is a very
important part of what we do at GCE. We read books and articles by Tom Andersen,
Harlene Anderson, Walter Truett Anderson, Kenneth Gergen, and many other authors. I
also like to use short stories that I specially enjoy. I love to read fiction and to share with
Learning/Teaching 17
my students/colleagues some of the incredible wisdom from these writers. Some of my
favorites are the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges, the Spanish poet Federico García
Lorca, the Mexican author Angeles Mastreta, among others. By introducing information
that comes from off the beaten path my students/colleagues become post-modern critics
more readily. They find that outside academia there are different ways of making
descriptions about various events and experiences. It also opens fresher places to reflect
upon how we construct realities with others and with ourselves.
After reading these texts certain questions arise that can create bridges between
literature and therapy and highlight how identity can be understood as "a person in a
conversation" One example comes from reading some of Borges' essays ( I like "Borges
and I" (1964)), where he plays with ideas about nations, identity and the occurrence of
change. Afterwards I may ask some of the following questions: 1. Who has the
responsibility of one's life? 2. Who is (are) the author(s) of my life? 3. Do tradition and
geography matter? 4. Would you be different if you had been born somewhere else, or at
another time? 5. Do the questions posited above apply to your conversations with your
clients?
The group generates many more questions then. I've found it especially interesting
when the groups talk about the stereotypes of our identities, the possibility of being
objective, about oneself or others, and the transformation we perceive in ourselves through
experience. This exercise is also an invitation for students/colleagues to bring different
texts and other media that have been helpful for them to understand reality from a
postmodern stance. An example that comes to mind is seeing The Matrix series of movies
because it was recommended by one member of the group who found in it new ways of
understanding how we view reality.
Learning/Teaching 18
Quotes. Sometimes I use a quote by Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the United
Nations, Nobel laureate (1905-1961): If only I may grow: firmer, simpler--quieter,
warmer. And I may ask some of these questions: 1. What values are so important for you
that you want to honor them in your life? 2. If you want to be firmer with your values,
what do you need to do? 3. If you want to be simpler, what does that mean to you? 4. Are
there any situations in which you would prefer to be quieter? 5. Are you interested in
being warmer? If you are, how would you achieve it? 6. Does this quote relate to the way
you want to work? If it does, how? If it doesn't, how?
The interesting thing that happens by doing these exercises is that all the members
of the team start reflecting on their own lives and the lives of others. In my experience,
these questions open up conversations in which everyone participates in the teachinglearning
experience. By using quotes or examples from literature student-learners feel their
opinion is on the same level of the facilitator. This openness in turn fosters exchanges
about philosophical questions of theory and practice. In our postmodern work it is
important to reflect on our own values and learn how to present ideas and questions to
others within that frame. It is also expected of our student/colleagues to think about their
personal styles of being therapists and their responsibility in being one.
Exercise 6: Engrossing our ideas: Dumb and dumber? It is very important for us to
be open to world events. . When the philosopher Jacques Derrida died, the training team
decided to read his work. We tried, but the complexity of his texts made it impossible for us
to read them. We made a bold move and decided to read Derrida for Beginners (Powell,
1996). It is not uplifting to read something that implies you have no clear understanding of
an author like Derrida. The group also consulted another book called: The Complete Idiot's
Guide to Philosophy (Stevenson, 2002). We used this text frequently. We went quite
Learning/Teaching 19
slowly, reading in class phrase by phrase, understanding some, getting confused by lots of
it but finally, in the process of understanding Derrida, we had many lively discussions on
topics like: what deconstruction is for each one of us, what it means to be an outsider or
how the prevalent ideas in society can make us slaves to ideologies without us even
knowing it. Some of the ideas that resonated with the group were: 1. To be critical of
assumptions we inherit. 2. To be cautious of not knowing we have those presuppositions.
3. The importance of questioning hierarchies. 4. That texts can be understood in different
ways at different times by the same reader and by different ones. 5. That people can
become marginal simply because they are minorities or because they think or act
differently. 6. That we should be curious and examine what we know.
We stopped feeling so dumb; instead we greatly appreciated the effort others have
made to explain philosophical ideas that at first can be obscure and complicated. We had a
great time. We can admit more readily now that there are theories we don't understand, but
we can find a way to try to find more about what challenges us in our work. Although we
still like to read and reflect on more traditional texts, we learn a lot from solving immediate
needs, like the one produced by Derrida's death. Interacting with the new and the old in a
reflective way brings out the postmodern in us.
All the examples given above are ideas that work sometimes, but not every time. I
see them more as a platform from which we can take off and from where all the members
of the group can visualize and propose different ways of learning/understanding the work
of post-modern therapy.
Some Final Thoughts...
Learning/Teaching 20
Going back to our original question: How can we invite people to be part of a
teaching/ learning situation to learn something that is not teachable? We think that as
teachers, life long learners, (Anderson, 1999) interested in the creation of collaborative
learning communities, we have the relational responsibility (McNamee & Gergen, 1999) to:
1. Facilitate relationships that are more horizontal and fair. 2. Create respectful, caring and
accepting learning environments. 3. Foster educational activities that enhance individual
creativity. 4. Develop evaluation processes that are learning experiences by themselves. 5.
Remain as learners, in the hermeneutic sense of being willing to share and put our own
preconceptions at risk (Schwandt, 2004).
We agree with Csikszentmihalyi (1996) when he says that creativity "arises from
the synergy of many sources and not from the mind of a single person" (p.1). We feel this
creative synergy everyday in our classes as our students and we are both teachers and
learners.
Learning/Teaching 21
References
Andersen, T. (1987) The reflecting team: Dialogue and meta-dialogue in clinical work.
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