I worked with a graduate student earlier in the week who was frustrated with a situation wherein she believed one thing and was being advised another. She was at a maddeningly place with her data analysis and had run into a real obstacle. I recognized the sound in her voice as one I had many times when in my graduate programs.
While explaining to me that she didn't believe what was being suggested to be possible, and instead she thought there was a different approach that was more appropriate I was struck by how our educational system is backward. We teach people to take instructions and do what the teacher says, when what we want is for people to think independently, and to do that requires practice thinking independently, practice that should be explicitly provided in graduate school. (I want to be fair and say clearly that perhaps it want not the intent of the advisor to have the graduate student simply follow directions, but I can say that is the message the student received and it created a tremendous conflict, and therefore an additional problem to solve.)
I found myself espousing the Gwen-Rhetoric of adult-learning principles and began to explicitly explain the point of graduate school as I see it. Graduate school has two main purposes, development of content knowledge in an area in which you've decided to develop expertise, and to develop your ability to think independently, which includes the confidence to stand alone in the face of sometimes quite powerful colleagues. The issue is that no one typically says much about that second goal, which can lead to dilemmas and internal conflict that could be avoided.
It always seems to come back to the same place for me, we need to be explicit with learners about expectations and the roles facilitators play in meeting the goals learners hold for themselves.
I thank the student for the opportunity to discuss educational philosophy and remind myself of my passion for adult learners.
