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Seeds for Change: Educating the Educators

By Margerit Roger

Adult educators don't often get a chance to inspect their personal philosophies about teaching and learning. Usually we take part in workshops that give us information or help us develop new skills. Only rarely do we get prodded into thinking critically about why we do what we do in the classroom, and the impact that might have on the learners, on us and ultimately on the community we live in.

A diverse group of Manitoba literacy educators had a chance to stretch and struggle during a workshop led by labour educator Jean Connon Unda in the Fall of 2002. We learned about emergent curriculum and the problem-posing approach to teaching outlined in the CLC guide Seeds for Change: A Curriculum Guide for Worker-centred Literacy. We learned how to work with authentic materials and action-based exercises in the classroom, making instruction more learner and worker-centered. But most importantly, we experienced a significant shift in our understanding of our role as educators, and the role learning can play in social change. We carne to learn about transformative education, and carne out transformed ourselves.

Powerful connections

The workshop began with a self-assessment of our views, assumptions and strengths and weaknesses as educators. We found ways to integrate the problem-posing approach into our classrooms, and how to identify "teachable moments" and expand them into opportunities for a better understanding of the systems and beliefs that underpin our society. Making this connection was powerful, because it showed us how our work as facilitators could help create change on an individual, community and political level.

"The workshop ... inspired us to trust our instincts as progressive educators and to keepworking for positive change in the classroom and' in the community:"

The workshop confirmed what we knew about learner-centered instructing. It also inspired us to trust our instincts as progressive educators and to keep working for positive change in the classroom and in the community.

Margerlt Roger is the Program Develper for the UFCW, Training Centre in Winnipeg. The Seeds for Change workshop was sponsored by the CLC and the Manitoba Federation of Labour with financial support from the National Literacy Secretariat. Participants were labour educators, teachers instructing in union settings and curriculum developers. A similar workshop took place in Halifax, April 28-29, 2003.