Resources

I was in elementary school—second or third grade—at George Washington Carver Elementary School in Philadelphia. The school served kindergarten through sixth grade, about five hundred students taught by roughly twenty teachers. Through the eyes of a seven-year-old, it felt bright, safe, and full of possibility. I loved school. I belonged there.From the first day, the teachers lined us up to walk through the school hallways in alphabetical order. Because of that, Angela White and I, Nancy Westfield, often walked side by side. Angela was quiet. She rarely smiled. She kept mostly to herself and took her schoolwork seriously.Her mother, Mrs. White, worked at the school as a non-teaching assistant. She supervised hallways, lunch periods, recess, assemblies—always somewhere nearby, always paying attention. Mrs. White carried herself with a kindness that settled people. Mrs. White greeted students warmly and helped make the school feel like a place where children mattered.Assembly days were a big deal. Once a month, the entire school gathered in the auditorium. Sometimes there were musical performances or class presentations. Sometimes police officers or firefighters visited with lessons about safety. In the spring, awards added extra excitement. Whatever the program, assembly days broke routine and filled the building with anticipation.One Tuesday morning, our teacher announced it was time to go to assembly.We lined up, barely able to contain ourselves, and marched to the auditorium. Every class had assigned seats. The youngest students sat closest to the stage; older students filled the rows behind us.I was sitting on the aisle. Angela sat beside me. The auditorium buzzed with hundreds of conversations. Children laughed, whispered, called out to friends. It was noisy in the way only children can be noisy—joyfully and unapologetically. The auditorium seating was old wooden theater seats. When you stood up, the bottom flipped upward.Angela started shifting in her seat. She placed her hands behind her back and continued squirming. Then it happened.As Angela leaned backward, the seat opened slightly. Her hands slipped into the gap between the seat and the backrest. When she leaned forward again, the seat shut. Both of her hands were trapped and crushed by the scissor action of the wooden seat. Angela cried out. When she tried to stand, the pressure became worse. Her cry grew louder, sharp with pain and panic.I remember searching for our teacher.Instead, I saw Mrs. White.She was across the auditorium.Hundreds of children filled that room. Yet somehow Mrs. White heard one voice.Without hesitation, she ran toward us. In one swift motion she reached across me, lifted Angela free, released her hands as the seat flipped upward, and carried her toward the nurse's office.Nearly sixty years later, I still remember that moment.In a room overflowing with voices, how did Mrs. White hear that one cry? How did she know instantly it was Angela?As educators of adults, we may hesitate to compare teaching with parenting—and we should. Adult learners bring agency, experience, expertise, and self-determination that fundamentally shape the educational relationship. There is something worth noticing in Mrs. White's knowing and response. She recognized Angela's voice because she knew it. And because she was listening for it. That distinction matters.Adult education unfolds in noisy spaces. Sometimes the noise is literal. More often it is the noise of work schedules, caregiving responsibilities, financial pressures, institutional demands, digital distractions, and the thousand daily realities adult learners carry into our classrooms.Adult learners do not always announce their needs directly.A missing assignment may be a sign of exhaustion.Silence may signal uncertainty, exclusion, resistance, or deep reflection.A brief email may contain far more urgency than its few words suggest.Listening for learners requires more than hearing words. It requires listening for meaning, context, history, and possibility.One challenge of teaching adults is that our time together is often brief. A fourteen-week semester can feel like an extended introduction. Just when we begin to understand who our learners are, the course ends. Yet over time, some learners become more audible to us. We begin to recognize their rhythms. We learn their questions, their hesitations, their brilliance, and the ways they enter a conversation. In crowded classrooms and online discussion boards, their voices become recognizable. That kind of attentiveness does not happen by accident. It is a practice.What distinguished Mrs. White was not simply that she heard her daughter. Plenty of people heard Angela’s painful cry. Mrs. White was listening for Angela. There is power in that kind of listening. It refuses distraction. It insists that people matter enough to be noticed.For educators, the question is not whether our learners are speaking. The question is whether we have trained our ears to hear them. Listening for learners may mean creating multiple ways for students to communicate. It may mean paying attention to patterns of participation and absence. It may mean noticing subtle shifts in tone, energy, or engagement. It certainly means cultivating classrooms where learners know their experiences are welcomed and their voices carry weight.Attentive listening is not passive.It is disciplined.It is an act of respect.It is fodder for dignity.Mrs. White's attuned ear was not merely about recognition. It was about readiness. When the moment came, she was prepared to respond. She came running! Adult educators are invited into a similar practice—not as parents, but as attentive companions in learning. We are called to listen deeply, respond humanely, and honor the complex lives our learners bring with them every time they enter our classrooms.Thank you Mrs. White.  Reflection QuestionsWhose voice reaches you most easily in your classroom, and whose voice might be getting lost in the crowd? What assumptions shape your listening?Imagine your course through the eyes of a learner carrying invisible burdens. What signals of struggle, strength, resistance, or resilience might you be overlooking?When have you mistaken silence for disengagement? What other stories might silence be trying to tell?If your learners were describing the culture of your classroom, what would they say about who gets heard, who gets affirmed, and who must work hardest to be noticed?What would it look like to teach this term as someone intentionally "listening for" every learner? What specific practices would need to change for that commitment to become visible?

You know the feeling.You have watched your students survive it. You have survived it yourself, many times. It is that shift from knowing to not knowing; from confidence to uncertainty; from expert to novice.Learning so often begins with a jolt of disorientation. It is uncomfortable. It can be exhausting. Over time, with patience and willingness, that discomfort usually gives way to new learning, relearning, even transformation.If you have ever wondered whether your body is part of the learning process, think back to how your body responds when you face something truly new: the queasiness, the sense of being under attack, the way fear can freeze you in place. For many of us, our bodies announce the loss of old truths long before our minds catch up. Disenfranchisement, feeling misplaced, confusion—these are not just ideas. They live in our muscles and our breathing.The disorientation of learning can be severe.I have come to believe that this disorientation is a signal. It tells us that we are entering a space of possibility, wonder, and generativity. That uneasy feeling is a sign that we are exactly where we are supposed to be. Pay attention to the breakthroughs when they come—because they do come.The most sensitive teachers stay in touch with what it feels like to be a learner.Some students greet new learning—or the loss of old knowing—with resistance, refusal, distrust, anger, or deep skepticism. Sympathetic teachers remember what it is like to move from being a competent, confident adult with swagger to feeling like an uncertain beginner, without the vocabulary to join the conversation. Learning can be emotional and unsettling. It can feel grief-stricken, like a small death of who we thought we were.I hold deep respect for adults who decide to learn new things. Those who dare to pursue degrees, learn new software, or tackle baking bread from scratch are risk-takers. I admire risk-takers, dreamers, disruptors.Stepping into classrooms, reading substantial books, participating in weighty discussions, exploring new worldviews, and encountering unfamiliar cultural knowledges—complete with assignments, deadlines, and grades—places learners in terrain marked by misunderstanding, uncertainty, surrender. These are not small shifts. They are life-altering, identity-reforming changes.Many students begin their studies assuming that coursework will affirm what they already know. Instead, they discover that genuine learning asks us to move from knowing to unknowing to new knowing. Few adults are prepared for this destabilizing journey.Deep study challenges what we assumed was settled and agreed upon. That cognitive dissonance is both disruptive and life-giving. Learning can be powerful.We need teachers who recognize how difficult learning is and who sympathize with their students, even as they gently invite them to lean into the formation of a reordered identity.Think about learning to ride a bicycle or surf a wave or drive a car. Fear was high and ability was low. What helped you push through was knowing that others had learned before you. You wobbled. You fell. You practiced—again and again—just to gain a small measure of proficiency. You strengthened your determination. And when the new skills finally took root, your confidence returned. Your swagger came back.Over the years, I learned to notice when my students’ swagger disappeared and disorientation set in. I watched their breathing in class. By mid-semester, their breath usually slowed; their bodies relaxed. I listened to how they used new vocabulary and interacted with unfamiliar concepts. By mid-semester, many of them were incorporating new words into their conversations—sometimes tentatively, sometimes playfully.I became a cheerleader for their attempts, even the unsuccessful ones. I designed assignments that did not assume students already knew what they had come to my class to learn. I created learning activities that acknowledged struggle and disorientation, then coaxed students toward deeper, richer, more flexible knowing. I learned to honor and even celebrate confusion as part of the process.The best teachers cultivate a desire to learn and build spaces for community. New learning is best done not in isolation but together.Do not be alone when confusion gives way to reorientation. Surround yourself—and your students—with people who will not be embarrassed or shamed, who will not humiliate others for not already knowing. The heart is too tender in the midst of learning to bear ridicule or blame.Classrooms need clear rules of engagement that foster community, make room for mistakes, and celebrate the courage it takes to learn.Making space for students to imagine new ways of living through engagement with new knowledges is both daunting and exhilarating. It is risky work. And it is worth it.Happy New Year! 

Nancy Lynne Westfield Associate Professor of Religious Education Drew Theological School Please indulge this low-grade rant. I believe the notion of “safe space” in adult classrooms is un-interrogated and oversubscribed. The question is … Safe for whom? Well-intentioned teachers, in wanting students to attempt deep conversation, wrongly presume adult students..