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Figure 2

  1. Connected teaching
    Women want a system of teaching in which knowledge flows in two directions, from teacher to student and student to teacher. The kind of teacher with whom they best develop is the "midwife teacher" who assists students to give birth to their own ideas, making their own tacit knowledge explicit. "Midwife teachers focus not on their own knowledge but on the students' knowledge. They contribute when needed, but it is always clear that the 'baby' is not theirs but the students'"(p.218). The circle is one of confirmation, evocation, confirmation.

  2. Connected Classes
    In Freire's "problem-posing" method, the object of knowledge is not the private property of the teacher but "a medium evoking the critical reflection of both teacher and students." Rather than having the teacher think about the object privately and talk about it publicly, both teacher and students engage in the process of thinking and they talk about what they are thinking in a public dialogue. "As they think and talk together, their roles merge"(p.219) . The connected class constructs truth not through conflict but through consensus, bridging private and shared experience.

Women want a system of teaching in which knowledge flows in two directions, from teacher to student and student to teacher.



In summary, the lessons we have learned from listening to women's voices are that educators can best help women develop their own authentic voices by: emphasizing connection over separation; understanding and acceptance over assessment; collaboration over debate; respecting knowledge that emerges from firsthand experience; and encouraging students to evolve their own patterns of work based on the problems they are pursuing.

A next step in this important research is to further validate and extend the findings and to apply them in education. The validity of the findings is best judged, at our current level of knowledge, by the reception accorded to the study by other researchers. That reception has been overwhelmingly positive. Further development is underway through the efforts of these and other researchers. It is up to us in the educational system to make these findings known to teachers and to women generally, and to work to make education more "women-friendly" in the ways outlined above as well as through ways that evolve as we integrate these findings into our understanding of women as adult learners.

Joan McLaren is the Director of Program and Staff Development at Red River Community College in Winnipeg, Manitoba.



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