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Could You (Unintentionally) Be A Learning Thief?
Could you (unintentionally) be an Learning Thief?
In my training and coaching work I often say that “we must avoid robbing people from their opportunity to discover the answers to their questions”.
Recently, I had a first-hand experience of this.
I am in a class learning Finnish language and one of the other participants is consistently answering all the questions from the teacher. She is enthusiastic about her knowledge, but she is not aware that she is sucking the air from everyone else’s chance to think and learn.
When we have an exercise together, it is my turn to say a sentence. Before I can even try, she has already said it aloud. My learning is (again) ruined.
At the end of the exercise I’m feeling stressed, frustrated and disengaged.
At work, we often act in very similar ways. People with the knowledge tend to tell others what the answers are. Do this. Write that. Click on the button. Drag that image here. Stand up for 15 minutes.
Every time we do this, we are preventing people from doing their own learning. We are likely to be degrading their ability to learn by themselves and hinder their independent thinking. Thus, we perpetuate a situation where learning is not happening or happening too slowly.
