Informal Education And Learning Harvard

Informal Education and Learning 1

THE CREATIVE APPROACHES USED TO FACILITATE LEARNING AND

DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN MY AGENCY

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Informal Education and Learning 2

The Creative Approaches Used to Facilitate Learning and Development of Young

People in My Agency

Introduction

In my church of placement, various approaches are used to help in the learning and

development of the youth. This development happens in diverse ways including spiritually,

socially, emotionally and partly academically. To achieve this, ministers involve themselves

in a variety of tasks namely; bible study, counselling, organising visits for the youth,

accompanying the youth for sports, managing youth study groups and facilitating local youth

seminars and talent shows. The aim is to grow the youth into whole humans besides the

academic knowledge they get from their schools. Malone and Bernstein (2015) believe that a

complete human should possess the various forms of intelligence that deal with personal

growth and interpersonal growth. For example, Bible study nourishes the youth spiritually

while sports grow them physically. Visiting other youth groups improves their interpersonal

skills while the study groups reinforce their academic strengths. These activities cut across the

three forms of education namely formal, informal and non-formal (Van and Adeniji-Neill

2014). During my placement however, I am primarily interested in the informal and non-

formal learning and development of the youths. These are the areas that I explore in this

paper. I also demonstrate in the paper how I apply Biblical and Theoretical models of

education to aid growth of the young people.

My Activities in Detail

My placement activities can be put into the three broad types of education; formal

informal and non-formal. Formal education is well planned in a hierarchical manner and takes

place for a specified period of time (Manzano 2017). It is conducted by professionally trained

teachers and is involuntary because every child is entitled to go to school. On the other hand,

informal education is the lifelong process of acquiring skills, attitudes and values through

Informal Education and Learning 3

experiences and interactions with the environment and people in someone’s life (Jeffs and

Smith 2005). Non-formal education refers to any organised education that takes place outside

the formal education system.

In the formal education the youth have study groups. I only participate in coordinating

the youth study groups that happen in the church every Saturday afternoon. I am present in the

groups to ensure there is order and silence to enable the learners conduct peaceful, personal

studies. I thus do not act as a teacher but just as a facilitator. Even though I only participate

indirectly in the formal education of the young people in my church, I play a huge role in their

informal learning. For example, the lessons learnt during the Bible studies go a long way in

shaping their personalities and spiritual lives. Visiting other youth groups and interacting with

them during sports or prayer activities impacts each of the youths differently. If a young

person for instance, meets a highly aggressive counterpart during sports but manages to deal

with them, they learn the lesson on being slow to anger and patience (James 1:19). The visits

and having the groups where the youth can interact one-on-one with each other offer valuable

interpersonal and life skills.

As part of non-formal training, I facilitate in-house seminars and also organise

seminars for the youth where I invite external facilitators. For example, I have organised three

seminars during my placement each with a different topic. The first seminar handled the topic

on teenage love and relationships. The second tackled the topic on ‘The place for Money in

the lives of young people’. The third and last of the seminars that I organised and participated

in was about salvation in the 21

Century. I thus feel proud that I participated in impacting the

young people with three skills on relationships, money and salvation.

Banking Model of Teaching in Developing the Young People

The term Banking Model of teaching came about as a result of criticism of the

conventional learning model where teachers teach learners lessons that they have already pre-

Informal Education and Learning 4

determined without any input from the learners. The criticism was put forth by Paulo Freire.

Freire (1970) termed this act of teaching learners pre-determined lessons as a de-humanizing

act. He suggested that to create true learning and understanding in the learners, the learning

process should involve the learner in creating content to be learnt. Freire argued that it is only

in so doing that the learner can relate learning to his circumstances and hence have a better

understanding of their environment. Freire criticized the education system where the teacher

assumes the status of knowing it all and then treating the student as only a recipient who has

nothing to input (Freire 1970). In my interaction with the young people, I practice the banking

model of teaching on a number of occasions. One of the ways that I do this is through the

Bible Study sessions. I possess a better understanding about the Bible than the young people

and thus I have to feed them with certain knowledge about the Bible that they do not have. I

teach them how to reflectively read the Bible to derive the best spiritual experience. In the

seminars too, the facilitators highly practice the act of banking the knowledge they have in the

minds of the youth. They do this not because they want to inhibit learning from the young

people, but because they feel the need to pass over some of the knowledge they have to the

youths.

Though Freire criticized the banking model of teaching, it has its benefits. To start

with, this type of teaching prevents learners from making certain mistakes that they can learn

to avoid from the experiences of others (Villacan

as 2015). For example, when I share my

youthful experiences and the mistakes I made, I am certain there are youths who derive

lessons from that and resolve to avoid such mistakes. This type of teaching also reduces

wastage of time that learners would have spent in finding information by themselves.

The Banking model of teaching however has real disadvantages that inhibit intrinsic

learning from the learners. First, the learner’s opinions are less valued and the teacher wants

the learners to take the knowledge that they teach (Villacan

as 2015). The second disadvantage

Informal Education and Learning 5

of this model of learning is that it kills creativity. When learners get final lessons from the

teacher, they miss a chance to explore issues and come up with their own solutions. This type

of learning is also not specific to an individual and thus may not take care of individual needs.

For example, in the seminars that I organised, I might have youths who had attended similar

trainings and thus did not find my lessons relevant to them. If anything, I was wasting their

time instead of teaching them something new. With such disadvantages, the banking model

should be used sparingly to enable learners explore the world for themselves.

‘Drawing Out’ as a learning and Development tool for the Young People

Whereas Freire described the conventional education system as an act of depositing

knowledge into the minds of learners, Richardson and Wolfe described another model that

they called ‘drawing out’ (Richardson and Wolfe 2001). In this type of learning, the learner is

presumed to already possess the skills that the teacher wants them to learn. With the skills

already with the learner, what a teacher does is to bring those skills to the fore and make the

learner realise them. In my case as a youth worker, my task is to help the youth realise their

potential and utilize it. This method works well for me especially during counselling sessions.

In these sessions, I let the young people explain their situations and at times ask what options

they think they have to get out of their situations. After listening to them, I give the pros and

cons of each of their options and finally let them make a decision. Another way this method

works well for me is in resolving disputes that often arise among the young people. In settling

the disputes, I let the persons involved give the full account of what had happened. In the

process of giving the occurrences, I point out to the cause of the dispute and still from their

explanation point out to the solution that they would have applied without letting the issue get

out of hand. During my coordination of the study groups too, I use this method to help the

youth recall what they had learnt in class and apply it to solve their questions and homework.

By so doing, I only draw from their minds what they already have. This method is great in

Informal Education and Learning 6

helping the young people learn how to utilize the knowledge that they already have before

they can rely on external guidance.

The method of ‘Drawing out’ as a learning tool has a number of advantages as

discussed below. The very first advantage is that learners feel respected (Richardson and

Wolfe 2001). They feel that their teacher or trainer values that they are not dump but have

some useful material that can facilitate their learning. The second advantage of this method of

development is that the teacher values the opinions of those being taught (Richardson and

Wolfe 2001). Instead of disregarding input from learners, a teacher encourages them to give

out whatever they may have in relation to the topic at hand. The third advantage is that the

learners are empowered to think for themselves and apply the knowledge that they have to

solve their own problems (Richardson and Wolfe 2001). For example, when I use this method

to settle a dispute, the youths feel empowered to solve similar disputes in future without

involving a third party. Fourthly, this method gives the learners an opportunity to participate

in their learning (Richardson and Wolfe 2001). The fifth advantage is that the learners are

able to think for themselves. When a teacher triggers their learners to remember and give out

what they already know, this makes them think for themselves without the teacher having to

give everything to them. Through this method, the learners are able to develop their

capabilities.

The above benefits of this method notwithstanding, there are disadvantages related to

the method. Firstly, the learners do not learn anything new apart from what they already had

in their minds (Richardson and Wolfe 2001). Similarly to drawing money out of a bank,

where one only withdraws what they have deposited, the learners only give out what they

already had. The method thus inhibits learning of new skills or knowledge. The method too

risks appearing boring to learners because they do not receive any new information. This may

discourage them from participating further because they may perceive the teacher as not

Informal Education and Learning 7

adding any value to them. A teacher should thus factor these two disadvantages to ensure that

the method does not fail the learners.

Facilitation as a Middle Ground between Banking and Drawing Out

The above two methods of learning are on each other’s extreme side. On one hand,

banking assumes the teacher knows everything and that it is their role to deposit information

into the learner. On the other hand, drawing out assumes that the learner has all the

knowledge and that the teacher only triggers them to remember and apply the knowledge that

they already have. In real life, this is highly unlikely to be the case. Teachers do not know

everything and often they seek input and opinion from their learners. Likewise, learners do

not know everything and will often require new input from their teachers to help them solve

problems. What happens in real life situations is a mixture of the two methods.

When a teacher uses the two methods interchangeably, they are said to be facilitating

(Whitburn and Plows 2017). In my interaction with the young people, I am a facilitator most

of the time. For example, during the Bible study sessions, I cannot claim to know everything

about the Bible. I share the knowledge I have but also give the youth a chance to share with

me and each other what they know about reading the Bible. During my counselling sessions, I

still act as a facilitator. I share my professional knowledge with my clients and only help them

to make a decision. I never offer a solution single-handedly without the help of the youth(s)

under counselling. In my Ministry work, I facilitate the youth to learn through sharing the

knowledge I have and also through giving them a chance to share what they already know. In

the process of listening to me and sharing their views, they learn more than if I just deposited

my knowledge onto them or if I just drew what they already knew. Facilitation is thus a better

way to develop the youth.

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

Informal Education and Learning 8

Above banking, drawing out and facilitation as methods of learning and development,

another approach that is used in my church to develop the youth is the Gardner’s Multiple

Intelligences theory. In his 1983 book ‘Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple

Intelligences,’ Harvard University Professor Howard Gardner suggested eight kinds of

intelligences that humans possess besides having an intellectual capacity. The eight forms of

intelligence are: musical, interpersonal, spatial-visual, bodily-kinesthetic, verbal-linguistic,

logical-mathematical, naturalistic, and intrapersonal intelligence (Gardner 2006). An

individual could be strong in one form of intelligence but still possess other types of

intelligence in smaller measures.

Spatial-visual intelligence describes people who are great in understanding visual

things such as maps and videos (Gardner 2006). Verbal-linguistic intelligence refers to people

who are able to make proper use of words. These people are great in reading and writing

stories. Logical-mathematical intelligent people possess the ability to understand problems by

logically reasoning them out (Gardner 2006). These people are great in numbers. Bodily-

kinesthetic intelligent people have the ability to use their body movements and perform well

in dance and sports. People with musical intelligence think well in terms of rhythms, sounds

and patterns (Gardner 2006). Persons with interpersonal intelligence possess the ability to

understand and interact well with other people. Intrapersonal intelligence refers to people with

high ability in self-reflection. They like understanding themselves, their strengths and how

they relate with others. Naturalistic intelligent people are in tune with nature and like

exploring and understanding their environment (Gardner 2006). In my church, we are keen on

understanding each of the youth’s strengths and try our best to nurture their intelligence as

part of their development.

Informal Education and Learning 9

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle

In 1984, David Kolb developed his experiential learning model. In this model, Kolb

described a cycle of four stages that he believed people take to learn. The diagram below

shows the Kolb’s experiential learning model.

Source: Kolb 2014

As shown in the diagram above, the first stage that humans learn through is getting an

experience. The second stage is making a reflective observation of the experience while the

third stage is conceptualizing the experience and learning a new lesson from it or modifying

an already existing experience. The final learning stage according to Kolb is to apply the

lesson learnt to the real world.

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Before developing the curve, Kolb had earlier on outlined four learning styles namely;

diverging, assimilating, converging and accommodating. Divergent learners are those that

prefer to watch than do (Kolb 2014). They are great at situations that require thinking because

they are able to analyse situations from different angles. They are reflectors. In Genesis 24,

we read the story of how Abraham sent his servant to get his son Isaac a wife. In verse 21, we

are told that the servant watched the woman who gave her water closely to see whether she

was the chosen one. In this verse, the servant learns by watching. In my Ministry, the skill of

making reflections is vital in reading the Bible and also in offering counselling to the youth

and Christians.

Assimilating learners love to watch and think (Kolb 2014). They prefer logical

explanations to practical experiences. These people are great in processing large data in a

logical manner. They are theorists who understand connections between things. In my

Ministry work, logic helps in understanding situations such as disputes and how to settle

them. In Mark 2:5-12, Jesus rebuked the Scribes and asked them to reason on what was easier

between forgiving the paralytic man and telling him to pick his mat and walk. In this incident,

Jesus used logic to make his decision of forgiving and healing the paralytic. Being Christians

and following in the footsteps of Christ, we should also strive to be reasonable all the time.

Convergent learners are those that do and think at the same time (Li and Armstrong

2015). They prefer practical experiences and are also less interested in people involved. They

can be referred to as activists who want to see things happening. In my Ministry, I would take

an activist approach in pushing for change in legislation and policies that will shield the

young people from moral decay orchestrated by inappropriate use of the internet. In Acts

5:29, the Bible records that we ought to obey God rather than men. This declaration by

Apostles can be interpreted as a form of activism to preach Christ no matter the obstacle.

Informal Education and Learning 11

The fourth learning style is the accommodative style where learners rely on intuition

rather than logic (Li and Armstrong 2015). Learners using this style rely on analysis given by

other people and are great in making plans. They are pragmatists and love to relate learning to

real life. This type of learning is central in Ministry work because it is necessary to relate

Biblical lessons to the real life of the congregation. Even in the Bible, Jesus used parables to

give lessons on real life. One example of the parables is the one about The Prodigal son as

recorded in Luke 15:11-32. The parable teaches Christians on the need to forgive. Similarly, I

will strive to relate Biblical learning to real life of the worshippers.

Among the four learning styles, I prefer the convergent method of learning. I would

like to be an activist who wants to see things happening. My strength however, lies in being

logical and applying reason in every situation before taking any action. On the other hand, I

have a weakness because I dislike just sitting and watching things happen. I need to learn

when to let things just be without my indulgence because I cannot do everything. In my

activities during my placement, I highly believe that I portray the convergent learning

behaviour because I participate in the actual activities that the youth are engaged in, and I also

think through each the activities before offering any advice or guidance.

Informal Education and Learning 12

Bibliography

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London, Penguin

Gardner, H. (2006). Multiple intelligences: New horizons. New York : Basic Books.

Jeffs, T. and Smith, M. K. (2005). Informal Education: Conversation, democracy and

learning, 3

edn. Shrewsbury, Educational Heretics Press.

Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and

development. New Jersey, Pearson Education Inc.

Li M., and Armstrong S.J. (2015). The relationship between Kolb's experiential learning

styles and Big Five personality traits in international managers. Personality and

Individual Differences. vol. 86, pp. 422-426.

Malone, T. W. and Bernstein, M. S. (2015). Handbook of collective intelligence.

Massachusetts, MIT Press.

Manzano, D. (2017). Bringing down the educational wall: Political regimes, ideology and the

expansion of education. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Richardson, D. L. and Wolfe, M. (2001). Principles and Practice of informal Education.

London, Routledge.

Van, W. B. and Adeniji-Neill, D. (2014). Indigenous concepts of education: Toward elevating

humanity for all learners. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Villacan

as, . C. L. S. (2015). Critical pedagogy and Marx, Vygotsky, and Freire: Phenomenal

forms and educational action research. New York : Palgrave Macmillan.

Whitburn, B. and Plows, V. (2017). Inclusive education: Making sense of everyday practice.

Rotterdam, The Netherlands : Sense Publishers.

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