Thursday, September 03, 2009

May I Have a Word?

I had a lively discussion with Euan Semple today about life, the universe, and everything.

Euan doesn't like the word "teach" to mean the very broad set of activities by or from which people can learn. He's right -- it implies a top-down, Victorian style classroom behavior that is more broadcast than conversation.

Equally, I don't like the word "coach" to describe the activity through which an individual works to improve his or her presentation skills through interaction with someone who understands performance.

Again, it implies a top-down set of behaviors.

As I am called both a teacher and a presentation coach and find the lack of readily available and suitable vocabulary irritating.

Anyone got better words for multi-directional interaction through which learning takes place on all sides?

2 comments:

Anny Deeru said...

How about starting from creative facilitator?

Annette Kramer, PhD said...

Annie,

It's a good start -- it should be a perfectly good word. But I think "facilitator" has taken on the connotations of business only -- and it's become jargon.

Is there another word that has not yet been anywhere near a learning environment that we can borrow for this context?