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The Many Faces of a Learning Professional
Our need to be right is persistant and we learning professionals are no exception. The key to be an effective and helpful learning professional is to tame that need and accept that learning is a complex and dynamic process with the learner. The least effective learning professional is the one-dimensional teacher.
Yes we are in the knowledge business and supplying superior knowledge is our credo. But when we each reflect on the most influential teachers we have met in our lives, we understand that it wasn’t just the superior knowledge that they gave us but something else that was most helpful from them, right?
When people only “teach” us one-way, that act itself often triggers our psychological defensive routines and however adequate and correct the contents are, we can’t listen. Good teachers back-off when they sense this, catch their own need to be right, and shift modalities of learning. And wow, what beautiful things they do. I guess that’s what they inspired me to be a learning professional too.
So what are these different modalities of learning? I’m sure there are a lot of variations among the different professions of learning such as a school teacher or university professor, martial arts master, faith leader, craftsman and artist, and I can only speak about my experience as a learning professional in mainly the…
