“What Stops Students from Participating in Discussion?” (Brookfield 2006 p.133)
Brookfield identifies several reasons:
Crippling Personal Introversion, Fear of Looking Stupid, Feeling Unprepared, lack of trust, not feeling welcome, feelings of being burned by the “safe environment”, it is not cool, and more.
As a health & safety advisor lack of participation has become my “Holy Grail” if you will. On any given day I am tasked with encouraging people to participate, and fail to understand why something as important as ones personal safety can become something “we don’t talk about”.
Here are some of my thoughts:
Sharing YOUR idea is personal, and for each and everyone of us there are things that need to be in place before we do that.
- On some subconscious level we must trust the environment we are in. If one person has our internal “Spider Sense” tingling we will not share. Inside we each have a criteria that must be met before we feel safe, if this does not happen we keep to ourselves, and try desperately not to be noticed.
- By sharing we open ourselves to criticism, both positive and negative. But the fear of hearing and interpreting one comment negatively shuts us down. We fail to understand we learn by failure, how many times do you have to put your hand on a hot stove to realize it will burn and hurt you.
Ultimately we must approach our chosen career with respect without judgement. And understand at the end of the day we will forever be stymied why one approach works one term and the next term we fall flat on our face. We are dealing with individuals and I would bet that most instructors do not take the time, or do not have the time to learn and understand how to effectively communicate with each individual.
Brookfield S, The Skillful Teacher on Technique, Trust, and classroom Responsiveness in the Classroom, 2006 John Wiley and Sons
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