EVALUATION
Don't evaluate by learner satisfaction. Given that so much adult education practice is informed by the felt needs rationale that the duty of educators is to meet as fully as possible those learning needs expressed by learners themselves there is a real tendency to evaluate the success of discussions by the extent to which learners enjoyed them. This is misconceived for two reasons. Firstly, a great deal that is educationally valuable occurs long after the educational event itself. Learners may leave a session feeling puzzled or disturbed because questions have been raised, or perspectives illuminated, which they had not considered before, and which throws their dearly held givens, common sense beliefs, and values into doubt. It may take weeks, months, or years before learners find some meaningful connection between the events within a discussion session and their own lives. And during that time they may feel frustration and perplexity regarding the discussion's format and content. Yet, in the long run, the sense of having one's unquestioned givens challenged, of being shaken out of habitual ways of thinking, are some of the most significant and valuable of all educational activities. Secondly, with learning, as with other things in life, we tend to enjoy the familiar, the comfortable. A discussion which learners leave feeling comfortable may well be one in which their prejudices are confirmed and their habitual patterns of reasoning are reinforced. Such sessions may be pleasant social occasions, but they are hardly educational.
How then might we evaluate whether or not a discussion session is educationally worthwhile? As with so many educational activities, multiple criteria come into play. For me, the overarching criterion by which I judge the educational worth of any activity has nothing to do with social dimensions it is, quite simply, whether or not people have been helped to learn by the activity More specifically, an educational activity is successful to the extent to which it encourages people to think critically. This is why I consider discussions which are characterized by periods of confusion, painful self-scrutiny, and anxious recognition of the fragile, tenuous, and culturally formed nature of our "common sense" knowledge, to be educationally successful, even though participants may resist and dislike many of these activities. So the fundamental criterion for evaluating a discussion whether or not people are being prompted to think critically-is the fundamental criterion for judging all educational activities, and it has nothing to do with social arrangements. There may be many times when learners are silent, or when discussion is halting, tentative, and intermittent. Yet these silences and interruptions may be caused by learners contemplating critically their previously unquestioned values and beliefs. Such reflective interludes, or provisional formulation, are crucial to critical thinking, yet they certainly do not conform to the ideal of discussion as a continuous, informed, and smoothly flowing conversation. With regard to evaluating the social dimension to discussion, the criterion of fairness must prevail. All members of a group should feel that their right to contribute is safeguarded. They should also keep in mind that they do not have the right to dominate the discussion, no matter how much they are convinced of the rightness of their viewpoint. With regard to the order in which participants speak, would urge leaders to discriminate positively in favor of the less frequent contributors. In other words, if several group members are vying for the floor, the leader should intervene to allow the quieter member to speak. Again, while the most preferable option is for leaders not to have to orchestrate the discussion, there will be times when it is necessary to intervene to establish an order in which participants will speak.