![\"Chuck](\"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Chuck-Sandy192-150x150.jpg\")
\n\u201cI speak as a person, from a context of personal experiences and personal learnings.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u2013 Carl Rogers\u00a0 (From On Becoming A Person<\/a> )<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen it happen. A student gets it <\/i>and her eyes light up. Someone who\u2019s convinced himself he can\u2019t learn does. The one who was going to drop out of school doesn\u2019t. The class troublemaker becomes the class star. The stuck teacher gets unstuck. The village teacher who thinks he\u2019s got nothing to offer becomes an internationally sought after mentor. The writer who believes she has nothing new to say turns out a beautiful piece of work. The teacher-trainer who\u2019d given up after losing faith in just about everything recovers his faith and gets back to work.<\/p>\n
How do those things happen?\u00a0 I have no idea, and I\u2019m not going to pretend that I do.<\/p>\n
Even though I\u2019ve played some kind of role in helping to nurture along the learning that\u2019s led to those changes in behavior and belief, I cannot tell you exactly what that role was or exactly what I did to help it along. Therefore, I cannot tell you exactly how you could work those same changes in behavior and belief in the people around you. What I can tell you is that – based on my personal experience and learnings as a teacher \u2013 I know without doubt that such things do happen and that there are ways to increase the likelihood that they will happen. I also know you can do that, too.<\/p>\n
I can also tell you that given the dramatic effect I\u2019ve seen such changes have on a person\u2019s life, I know without doubt that it\u2019s worth tinkering with whatever combination of method, material, and approach might be available in in order to help spark its happening. I also know that if a teacher is willing to adopt an I believe learning is possible so I\u2019m not going to reject anything that might work to reach this person <\/i>mindset, then the sort of real learning that leads to changes in self-beliefs and behaviors within people becomes even more possible. The lives of the people I\u2019ve seen this happen to while working with a teacher who\u2019s adopted such a mindset is my living evidence of this. I am evidence of this myself.<\/p>\n
I am that teacher-trainer who\u2019d given up after losing faith in just about everything. Although I cannot explain exactly how I recovered it, I can tell you that it\u2019s possible. I’ve done it \u00a0so I know you could do it, too. Maybe seeing how I\u2019ve not only recovered my faith in the transformational power of learning and teaching, but even deepened it would spark something in you. Maybe seeing that I\u2019m not only back to work, but am now working in ways I would not have even considered a year ago would help you begin to imagine what’s possible for you. I’m willing to be that conduit of possibility for you, but I don’t want you to ever think that my way is the right way. My way is just a way, and \u00a0I want you to find your own way. Still, I’ll tell you about my tinkering.<\/p>\n
This past year I\u2019ve tinkered with just about every kind of learning I could find until I \u00a0settled into an evolving set of practices I built into a revised framework for myself. I kept combining this with that until something clicked. Then each day without fail I did those things I’d found to be helpful and I didn’t give up. Some months later, I woke up to discover that whatever had gotten blocked in me had become unblocked.<\/p>\n
Something worked.<\/p>\n
If you ask me what it was that worked, I might tell you more about the things I\u2019ve done, the people I\u2019ve talked with, the books I\u2019ve read, and the courses I’ve taken. \u00a0After hearing all that you might end up thinking, \u201cwoo that guy is out there,\u201d<\/i>\u00a0and that’s fine.\u00a0The point of me telling you about what I’ve done would not be to \u00a0convince you that you should do what I did. The point would be to help you see that change is possible – in our learners and in our selves- if we are willing to first believe that is is possible, willing to use whatever tools are necessary to make it possible, and willing to keep trying until something works. I cannot and won\u2019t claim any more than that. I speak only as a person, from a context of my personal experiences and personal learnings.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, while I love evidence and abhor false claims, I have come to believe that so much of what\u2019s involved in learning and teaching takes place somewhere so deeply within us and is so complex that it\u2019s even difficult to talk about\u00a0 – let alone measure, quantify and package. I have also come to believe that a successful<\/i> learning experience within one person cannot ever be fully replicated within another.<\/p>\n
Therefore, I’ve come to doubt any<\/i>\u00a0claim that any<\/i>\u00a0method, any <\/i>approach or any <\/i>set of materials works<\/i>\u00a0beyond\u00a0the context and within the people in\u00a0which it seemed to work — for whatever complex combination of reasons it might have.\u00a0Yet, I am not about to reject the idea that a method, an approach, or a set of materials I don\u2019t happen to personally embrace or understand does work. If someone tells me they\u2019ve found an approach that will change my life and help students learn faster or better, I will<\/i> doubt it, but I won\u2019t<\/i> doubt that they\u2019ve found something that works for who they are and the people they work with. I might even go on to learn more about it. I might even try it. Rejecting the possible and dismissing what’s beyond my understanding is not my job.<\/p>\n
I cannot tell anyone how to teach any more than I can tell someone how to live. When someone tells me they’ve been learning or teaching \u00a0in a way I don\u2019t \u00a0embrace or understand and asks how to get better at what they’re trying to do, they’re not asking me to say “What you’ve been doing is wrong. There’s no evidence to support those practices. Stop doing that and start doing this.” They are asking for help and that’s not helpful. My job is not to invalidate their experiences and discredit their practices.<\/p>\n
My job is to listen carefully. Then, based on what I hear, I might be able to connect the person asking with people doing work that could resonate. I might be able to suggest a course, a book, or a tool that could be useful. I might \u00a0go off and learn more about the way they’re learning or teaching before asking, \u201cHave you \u00a0tried ____\u201d? \u00a0Then, later \u00a0I could \u00a0follow up with further resources and encouragement and questions and ask to be kept updated on progress. That’s my job. That’s your job. That’s our job as teachers.<\/p>\n
Our job is to offer our students and each other our selves, our presence, and our attention. Our job is to be conduits of possibility \u2013 people who open up ways that can lead to learning that can lead to change. Our job is not about convincing others of our own rightness and their wrongness. We’re not here to fix each other. We’re here to help each other and there is no correct answer or any\u00a0right\u00a0<\/em>way.<\/p>\n There\u2019s only possibility and when we open up possibility for someone her eyes light up, the one who\u2019s convinced himself he can\u2019t learn does, the one who was going to drop out of school doesn\u2019t, the class troublemaker becomes the class star, the stuck teacher gets unstuck, the village teacher who thinks he\u2019s got nothing to offer becomes an internationally sought after mentor, the writer who believes she has nothing new to say turns out a beautiful piece of work, and the teacher-trainer who\u2019d given up after losing faith in just about everything recovers his faith and gets back to work.<\/p>\n Connect with Chuck and other iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account<\/a> to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers<\/a> and Teacher Development<\/a> courses.<\/p>\n Be A Conduit of Possibility – Chuck Sandy \u201cI speak as a person, from a context of personal experiences and personal learnings.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u2013 Carl Rogers\u00a0 (From On Becoming A Person ) I\u2019ve seen it happen. A student gets it and her eyes light up. Someone who\u2019s convinced himself he can\u2019t learn does. The one who … Continue reading Myths, Beliefs, and Truth in ELT – Chuck<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-myths-beliefs-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Like what we do? Become an iTDi Patron<\/a>.
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