Homeschooling Principles in Corporate Learning, Part 3
- lreyle
- Apr 10, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 12, 2023
Overcoming Resistance: Creating Space to Reflect
“The question is not – how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education – but, how much does he care?”[i] — Charlotte Mason
In our first two articles on overcoming resistance in corporate learning, I talked about using storytelling to create context, understanding, and empathy, and then I used the metaphor of a feast to describe how to approach content and the learner. For the next two articles, I will take a fresh look at reflection in corporate learning. Don’t click away! A lot of digital ink has been spilled on the idea of reflection, and it may feel like a tired subject, but if we combine ideas from science, homeschooling, and corporate learning, we can find some fresh new insights for making reflection actionable for today’s corporate learners.
STRATEGY 3: Create space to reflect.
If the learning content is the feast, then reflection is digestion. If you remember from the previous articles, Charlotte Mason was a British education reformer and innovator writing in the late 1800s to early 1900s. Like many English people around this time, she was obsessed with good digestion! She writes a whole chapter called “Conditions of Healthy Brain-Activity” where she explicitly shares what to eat, when to rest, and how to exercise to promote healthy brains for learning. Many of the ailments of Mason’s day were thought to be the result of poor digestion, so when she describes reflection as digestion, she is regarding reflection very seriously.
Reflection requires just as much intentionality and effort from both the teacher and the learner as exploring the learning content.
It’s a duty, in fact! Some of the words she uses to describe reflection are listening, considering, “a thinking about,” marking, and pondering.[ii] Through the process of reflection, we make learning “our very own property” and develop opinions.
Scientists take this a step further when they talk about assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation happens when we add new information about a subject to our pre-existing belief about it. For example, I think dogs are better than cats. I find out that a pregnant woman shouldn’t clean litterboxes because of a parasite that can be found in cat feces. I use this information to reinforce my belief that dogs are better than cats.
Accommodation is when I receive too much contrary evidence of my belief, and I am forced to significantly change or modify that belief to account for all the new information. For example, I think dogs are better than cats. I read hundreds of news stories about dogs attacking their owners and neighbors. I can no longer justify my belief that dogs are better than cats, and I have to significantly alter my belief. Maybe I now believe that MY dog is better than all cats. Maybe I now believe that, in general, cats are better than dogs. Either way, I have to change my beliefs to accommodate everything I now know.
Assimilation and accommodation may sound uncomfortable (and they are!), but they are completely natural processes that are occurring constantly.
If we want our employees to learn and grow intentionality, then we have to facilitate reflection for our employees to jumpstart the assimilation and accommodation processes.
I will explore one strategy for facilitating reflection here, and then look at two more in the next two articles.
Freewriting
Freewriting has been touted as the solution for everything from trauma and emotional distress to writer’s block, depleted creativity, problem solving, and critical thinking. Researchers aren’t clear on why freewriting works so well, but there is a massive body of evidence that it does. There is speculation that freewriting slows the brain down and provides unfiltered access to your first thoughts without the mental editing our brains do constantly. It takes away the pressure of finding the right words or structure and allows you to focus completely on the act of splashing your brain’s many thoughts, ideas, twists, and turns on a page.
Ready to get started? Freewriting happens when you write without stopping for a predetermined amount of time or number of pages. The only goal is to keep your hand moving (or fingers typing) until the end. Peter Elbow, the author of the book Writing Without Teachers, coined the term freewriting. He tells practitioners to
“write and not stop for anything. Go quickly without rushing. Never stop to look back to cross something out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought to use, or think about what you are doing.”[iii]
If you run out of things to say, simply write “I’ve run out of things to say” until you have a new thought. Some students particularly enjoy writing “I hate writing” until the next thought strikes them. The most important thing is to keep writing. Don’t look anything up. Turn off your phone. Just write.
How much should I write?
Every advocate for freewriting seems to have their ideas about the optimal length of a freewriting session. I have heard everything from 30 minutes every day (Dorothea Brande) to three pages first thing in the morning (Julia Cameron). Author of Essentialism, Greg McKeown, swears that writing for six minutes on a topic is optimal for moving from mental chaos to clarity. Without research to back any specific timing window, it’s up to you to decide what works best. I recommend starting with something that feels achievable and leaves you wanting to write more. Practices form best when we look forward to doing them again.
How often should I write?
Most advocates for freewriting agree that a daily practice is most effective, but that may feel like too much pressure for someone who is just trying freewriting for the first time. Julie Bogart, the author of Growing Brave Writers, recommends freewriting just once a week (Friday Freewrites, anyone?). Greg McKeown suggests using six-minute freewriting sessions as needed throughout the day before meetings or when you are stuck on a project. To jumpstart assimilation and accommodation, it makes sense to use freewriting sessions strategically in the design of your learning experience. Here are some options to get you started:
General reflection: Ask learners to write 2-3 times a week to reflect on how their learning is coming out in their day-to-day work
Module-specific reflection: Ask learners to write after each content rollout (module, lesson, etc) to explore the learning content as a whole
Asset-specific reflection: Ask learners to write after engaging each asset (article, video, mini-module) for just a few minutes to summarize the content and consider how it impacts them
Make sure you are calculating freewriting time into your learning design. Remember Charlotte Mason? Digestion is just as important as the feast, and it’s essential to count that time as learning time.
In my next two articles, I will explore two more strategies for facilitating reflection in a corporate learning environment.
Explore with curiosity and compassion:
What is your gut reaction to the idea of freewriting? Why?
Is freewriting safe to try with your audience?
Where are strategic places you could include freewriting in your next learning experience?
Want to dig deeper into freewriting?
The Greg McKeown Podcast: 165: Turning Chaos Into Clarity with Alison Jones - Greg McKeown
Harvard Business Review: Writing Can Help Us Heal from Trauma
[i] Mason, C. (2012). The Original Home Schooling Series (p. 10176). Start Publishing LLC.
[ii] Mason, C. (2012). The Original Home Schooling Series (p. 14850). Start Publishing LLC. [iii] Elbow, P. (1998). Writing without teachers (p. 3). Oxford University Press.