Most people assume education is the transfer of knowledge.
But in my On Experience conversation with educator and facilitator Linda Gidlund, I realised I may have misunderstood education altogether.
After four decades as a teacher, facilitator, instructional designer and community leader, Linda rarely spoke about information.
Instead, she kept returning to something much deeper.
Most of us think experience makes educators more knowledgeable. But, what if experience actually changes what educators notice?
The traditional view of education looks something like this: the teacher knows, the student doesn’t and education fills the gap.
It’s neat and simple. But, it doesn’t explain why the best teachers often leave us with fewer answers and better questions. Nor does it explain why we remember certain educators decades later.
Maybe it wasn’t what they taught us, but that they changed how we saw something.
Throughout the conversation I realised Linda rarely started by offering answers. Instead, she watched people, became fascinated by the stories behind their behaviour and she enjoyed taking complicated ideas apart and rebuilding them.
Over time she found herself moving from teaching towards facilitation.
Linda wasn’t trying to deliver information, she was expanding perception.
One thing Linda noticed was that adults entering her classroom often behaved like sixth graders again. They looked to her for the right answer, they waited to be told what to think and were cautious about saying something wrong in front of their peers. So she started creating conditions where people felt safe enough to think out loud.
And when Linda first moved to Australia she was invited to ‘bring a plate’. While she understood the words, she didn’t understand the Australian meaning. (More on this: How Experience Changes Meaning with Linda Gidlund)
Linda didn’t need more information about the words; she needed the context that allowed her to see what they meant. The words hadn’t changed but Linda had. Her experience had changed what she was able to see in them.
Education works the same way. It’s not just about the words, but helping people discover meaning. And if education is about helping people see, then it isn’t confined to schools.
Then Linda said this, “Seeing people with potential that they don’t know how to get to where they want to go… I want to be a facilitator of that. A way to help them see what they’re not seeing.”
Before talking with Linda I probably would have said experience makes educators better teachers.
Now I think it does something more profound. If experience changes what an educator notices in their learners, then this can also change what a learner notices too.
In this way, the deepest purpose of education isn’t transferring knowledge; it’s changing what someone can see.
Perhaps that’s why certain teachers stay with us for the rest of our lives. It’s not the information they gave us but because they helped us notice something we’ll never stop seeing.
I experienced this with my Grade Six teacher Mrs McGowan. She encouraged me to learn outside the classroom by giving me books to read and this has become a lifelong habit.
Who helped you see something you’ll never unsee?
More Field Notes and from Linda Gidlund
This is Field Note #17. Field Notes are observations from my ongoing enquiry into experience. To learn more about how to make the most of your experience, read these posts next:
