The Skillful Teacher

Maxim 5: Regularly Reflect on Your Own Learning
One of the best ways to improve your ability to work with hesitant,
intimidated, or just plain terrified learners is to remember what it
feels like to learn something new and difficult. This is best accom-
plished by your regularly volunteering to learn something that scares
you and then to observe what it is that helps you through this learn-
ing, and what it is that makes the learning even harder. There is a
good chance that those things that help and hinder you are the
same things that help and hinder your students. For example, as a
result of receiving criticism of your own performance, you may well
decide to temper how you give criticism so that it is not interpreted
as a personal assault on students. You will probably be reminded of
some typical rhythms of learning (for example, incremental fluctu-
ation) that get in the way of smooth progressions in learning.
Knowing this will, in turn, stop you making needless and even
harmful interventions. Most likely you will gain some new insights
into why and how people resist learning and what some useful
responses to this resistance might be. I try to learn something new
each year, to keep a journal of the highs and lows of this experience,
and then to think about the lessons I’ve learned for my own teach-
ing. In an earlier book (Brookfield, 1995) I include a detailed analy-
sis of how my learning to swim in adulthood unearthed and
challenged some of my securest assumptions about good teaching.
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