Enticing the Learning: Trainers in Development

by John Staley

with a chapter by Sue Mayo

This book is about training for people who work professionally with communities, as in development work, social action, community organization, awareness-raising and voluntary aid programmes.

The approach and methodology are person-centred, participatory and experience-based. The starting point is the participants themselves, individually and as a group in training together. The focus is on how they – as practitioners, leaders and managers – can work more effectively with others, whether in the training group or in organizations and communities.

The book is based on many years of training practice. More than 100 exercises, group events, conceptual inputs and methods are presented in detail, with timings and practicalities; and more than 50 handouts – guidelines, case studies, questionnaires etc – are included. The carefully-written text tells the trainer what to do at every stage, and why and how, in order to ‘entice the learning’.

The material is drawn from the well-known Development Studies Course which was conducted at Selly Oak Colleges, and has been tried and tested in NGOs throughout the world. The text is enlivened by the comments, insights – and the humour – of men and women from all over the world who have taken part in the training.

This is an invaluable resource for the established trainer and the would-be trainer.

 

Discussion in a group of four

 

Exploring the helping relationship

 

482 pages, including photographs, line drawings, handouts, glossary and index

Keywords        COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT / training of trainers / training
                        exercises / training manuals / training materials / community workers /
                        development education / participatory methodology / participatory
                        training

ISBN 0 704426 072 and 9780704426078                                             Price £18.00

 

Enticing the Learning: Trainers in Development can be ordered from bookshops. 

For other enquiries please contact The Institute of Applied Social Studies,
University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15  2TT, UK. 
Telephone: +44 (0) 121 414 5719.       E-mail: w.banner@bham.ac.uk

Please contact John Staley directly if you have any difficulties in obtaining the book.
E-mail: js@cmail.co.uk

 

Preface from Enticing the Learning: Trainers in Development

The purpose of this book is to increase the effectiveness of community workers and leaders by means of training. The book is a resource for trainers and would-be trainers.

It originated with the training of practitioners in development work, but the principles and methodology can be used in any setting where people work professionally with other people in community.

The book contains a wide variety of methods, together with appropriate interpersonal and group events. These should be viewed as components in an overall approach to training. The approach is person-centred, participatory, and experience-based. The starting point is the participants themselves, individually and as a group in training together. The focus is upon how they – as practitioners, leaders and managers – can work more effectively with others, whether in the training group or in organisations and communities back home.

There is an openness about this approach to training. Any contribution can become raw material for learning, and every participant makes contributions. What is required is experience and the willingness to examine and analyse it. Participants work together co-operatively, sharing in the experience which arises day-by-day – even moment-by-moment – during such training. Many also bring professional experience from back home, and all bring life experience. Seniority, certificates and amassed information are less important. To learn about working with human beings the main qualification is to be a human being.

The task of the trainer is to choose the methods, to organise the events, and to play the roles that create conditions favourable to the participants’ reflection and learning – to ‘entice’ the learning. The further task for the trainer is to manage his or her own learning: as trainers we cannot suppport others in their learning unless we ourselves are learning.

The approach has a long reach. Attention shifts between the human scale of the group in training and the challenges of the wider world. Issues of the world are played out in the group. As participants consider their roles in the group they also consider their roles in the community. The individual is linked with the global through thought, feeling and action.

I have been committed to this kind of training for many years, both as a participant and as a trainer. I find it practical, egalitarian, broad in outlook and profound in effect. It encourages respect for people, and supports diversity and exploration. It can be deeply satisfying, exciting and at times inspiring, as others also have found:

- 'this has been one of the best times of my life'

- 'the most enjoyable two and a half months of education in my whole life'

- 'a major event in my life'

- 'it has been beautiful and a symbol of how the world might become'

- 'the course touched me, I hope for ever...'

 

 

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