A Selection of Brookfield's Thoughts on Student's Resistance to Learning (or La Resistance as it shall now be known)!

The first thing that came into my mind when reading this chapter of Brookfield's book was "Allo Allo" a classic British comedy set in WW2 about the French Resistance. So thanks to The British Comedy Guide for providing this picture.

Having recently completed a reflective assignment on Active Learning where Barkley & Major (2020) suggest that. "Students need to do the work required to learn. We can help them by setting up conditions for active learning" (p.43) and Deale (2019) shares the results of a study that shows, “hospitality students in this sample tended to prefer active learning opportunities” and “they shared that they did not like to learn in a passive way, they did not care for lectures, they preferred to work in groups, and they wanted to use their creativity” (p.4), I feel I may have preemptively solved the problem with La Resistance. The trouble is that a lot of the teaching I do for work is leaning much more toward the "not active learning" side of things.

So when I read that Brookfield's first suggestion is "Try to Sort Out the Causes of Resistance"(p.228) I think I may have that one in the bag. He suggests, among many options, to gather feedback from La Resistance. Funnily enough, Barkley and Major (2020) suggest the same, "if our goal is to promote engaged learning, we are likely to be more successful if we gather feedback on how well our efforts to set up the classroom conditions that we believe create engagement actually do foster engagement, and then adjust our teaching accordingly" (p.49-50).

Brookfield's second suggestion is "Ask Yourself If the Resistance Is Justified" (p.229). One of the training I facilitate is a mandatory course on our service standards. Team members take this course within 3 months of starting, then again around their year anniversary, and then again every other year after that. So a team member who started with us at the beginning of 2021 will have taken the course then, and again at the beginning of 2022, and will be coming up for their 3rd time this year! Have there been changes to the content since 2021? Absolutely! Will they learn something new? I can only hope so! Will there be resistance? Most likely! Is it justified? Well sort of...

Let me "Build a Case for Learning" (p.234), another of Brookfield's suggestions. Sharing why you think it's important for La Resistance to learn something is crucial. In the case of this service seminar, our industry is described by La Lopa et al. (2018) as "dynamic and rapidly changing" (p.95), it is highly likely that our team may just encounter a situation that we discuss and share that could for the basis for their solution to a problem.

The previous point ties into the next, "Admit the Normality of Resistance" (p.236). By acknowledging La Resistance the benefit is, "it will probably make everyone feel much

more relaxed if the reality of the situation is made public" (p.237). Brookfield (2015) also suggests that "It is sometimes helpful for teachers to describe their own resistance to learning, to talk about its causes (such as the fear of looking foolish in public or being given no good reason for why they needed to study) and how they kept it under control" (p.237).

Now, while these suggestions may not completely eliminate La Resistance, I believe they will go a long way toward lessening it, and allow me (and you) more time to worry about creating engaging training that fosters active learning.

Oh and "Viva La Resistance!"

References

Barkley, E., and Major, C. (2020) Student Engagement Techniques : A Handbook for College Faculty (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass

Brookfield, S. (2015) The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass

Deale, C. (2019) "Learning Preferences Instead of Learning Styles: A Case Study of Hospitality Management Students’ Perceptions of How They Learn Best and Implications for Teaching and Learning," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 13: No. 2, Article 11. Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2019.130211

La Lopa, J. M., Elsayed, Y. N. M. K., & Wray, M. L. (2018). The State of Active Learning in the Hospitality Classroom. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, 30(2), 95–108. https://doi-org.ezproxy.vcc.ca/10.1080/10963758.2018.1436971