The Writings of Stephen Brookfield

I have experienced two different aspects of education from the same writer,
Stephen Brookfield. I think the variance could possibly be due to the fact
that there is a time span of almost thirty years between the two works, and I
am sure the author like the rest of us has changed a bit in his ideology and
delivery in terms of adult education.
In Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning, his approach is very
scholarly, I spent much of my time with the dictionary in hand looking up
terms such as despot and inculcate. But I also learned why educators in
adult programs are referred to as facilitators, not teachers. Brookfield
contends that visions of authoritarian, classrooms, heavily didactic
procedures, and overly directive instructors, are conjured up when
facilitators of adult learning programs are labeled as teachers ( p. 123). This
of course I read after I wrote a lengthy reflective paper on my first year of
being a teacher, I know I read this passage before, but I realize how limited
my short term memory capacity is, when I cant recall what Ive read.
But in his description of facilitators, he does not use the term teacher, it
appears to engage a negative and limiting connotation to the role we, as
adult educators play in the facilitation of learning among adult students. His
description includes such characteristics as democratic, student centered,
not directors, but assistants who guide adult learners to attain a state of
self-actualization, or to become fully functioning persons (p. 123). The

reference he makes in the 1986 text, does not describe the millennial
population of adult learners that we work with today. The old description
makes adult learners sound much more responsible than most of the
students I come in contact with in the current education setting. Our culture
of learning has been altered so much over the last thirty years, that it is
almost comical to read the descriptions of learning and learner abilities that
he describes. He basically says that learning is not a happy place, that
students journey for self-actualization is sometimes very difficult to face, and
that a facilitators task is to basically assist learners to see how it impacts
their current situations. This is a far cry from the candy-coated atmosphere
that students face today. Where we as students had to learn how to do
everything related to school on our own, faculty now is faced with becoming
helicopter facilitators plus! Faculty are responsible for making sure students
know that they have to drop the course, and provide all the necessary dates
in the course syllabus, so students dont have to keep track themselves.
Faculty has to direct students to financial aid, and to answer questions
regarding financial aid, they dont even have to handle their own finances.
There are now student success coaches, to assist learners when they dont
know how to access course material on their own, what happened to
learning from doing? Brookfield states that:
the task of the teacher of adults is to help them to realize that
the bodies of knowledge, accepted truths, commonly held values and
customary behaviors comprising their worlds are contextual and

culturally constructed. Through being prompted to analyze their own

behaviors and to consider alternative ideas and values, adults can
come to an awareness of the essential contingency of their worlds,
Such an awareness is the necessary prelude to their taking action to
alter their personal and collective circumstances (p. 125).
This written example is rarely experienced in the higher education system
today. This text describes a world that doesnt exist anymore. Its not
surprising then that the more current writings of Brookfield are very different
than those from 1986.
In The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the
Classroom, his writing is much more relaxed and purposefully geared
towards creating a participatory atmosphere in higher learning avenues in
todays society. He does keep with some of the same tenets, such as
treating adult learners as adults. And with respect. I appreciate the
reflective candor he supplies with the helpful tips, and insight, for our
benefit, and to initiate a change in educators stagnant routine. He
discussed his own truths, for example:
I will never be able to initiate activities that keep all students engaged
all the time.
Attending to my credibility at the outset of a new course is crucial so I
need to watch out for my tendency to engage in too much selfdeprecation.

Making full disclosure of my expectations and agendas is necessary of I

am to establish an authentic presence in a classroom (p. 9).
This book has been helpful to me in preparing course material for online
delivery. He provides a few examples of technology that I wasnt familiar
with, and he discusses diversity in the classroom, as well as racism, and the
innate power of the educator, that is omnipresent.

He also discusses the

emotional nature again, of learning, and he explains that this is a natural

process, and how we will be partners in the sometimes painful, and new
ways of learning that students are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with. I also
employed the Critical Incident Questionnaire in one of the courses I teach. It
was interesting to see the answers to the questions, and I think I will
implement it much sooner in my nest course, and may be have them
complete it online, as a survey, rather than hand out in class.
Overall, though the two texts provided a completely different perspective
from the same author, I found value in the readings of both books. I have to
say that I found the newer book to be a better fit for the position I am in now,
and I will utilize many of his suggestions, with caution of course.

Brookfield, S. D., (2015). The skillful teacher: On technique, trust, and

responsiveness in the classroom, (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Brookfield, S. D. (1986). Understanding and facilitating adult learning: A
comprehensive analysis of principles and effective practices. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.