Análisis e interpretación de modelos pedagógicos

With others, I can learn

I’m happy doing what I’m doing, to play,

with other people who I know are like I am we get on well together

we all understand each other, I think

I’m not on my own

I can learn with other people. Other people struggle, I’m learning that too,

you don’t have to be given the gift [of learning easily] even though it’s struggle

you can learn,

I’ve been surprised how much I’ve changed since I joined this place.

(poetic interpretation from Tina’s transcript, emphases my own)

Learning was a significant aspect of the women’s participation and involvement in the Neighbourhood House. Learning was formal, informal and incidental. It occurred in classrooms and formal learning environments, and outside these environments. Knowledge sharing and learning together occurred within and beyond the classroom, and through everyday informal and incidental interactions in relationships with other program participants, and with staff members within the wider Neighbourhood House environment. In short, learning, whether it was formal, informal, or incidental was intertwined with all activities and aspects of the Neighbourhood Houses. Leonie

196 observed that the Neighbourhood House environment was a “much more interactive” place where “you come to learn, or you come to share a skill or join a group” compared with other organisations in the town.

The women participants and staff were actively engaged in co-creating a caring, dynamic, and dialogical learning, knowledge-sharing and social space. Learning occurred within the enduring friendships and relationships they developed, by observing others, and in the casual and fleeting interactions they had with peers and other participants. In some instances friendships and relationships established within the classroom continued by sharing knowledge and learning together beyond the walls of the classroom.

Learning was personal, practical, and political. It contributed to the women’s personal growth, increased awareness and understanding of self and others, extended practical skills and knowledge, and created heightened political and social awareness,

particularly as this related to women and social justice. Leonie remarked on the personal growth and self-awareness she gained from the many interactions she had with Neighbourhood House participants while volunteering at the reception desk, and when she was coordinating a large number of volunteers, stating that this taught her about her own personal limitations and how to work better within her personal boundaries:

Learning a bit more about how to work well within my own personal boundaries which is good. Here you’re constantly interacting with people so you do have to learn how to draw your boundaries quite clearly. If you never interact with anybody that’s often something that you never really figure out. (Leonie)

Several women spoke of sharing knowledge and learning, inside and outside the classroom, with the friends they had made at the Neighbourhood House. Dora recalled

197 how the new friendships she formed with classmates around shared interests in food- growing and gardening aided her in taking on the challenge of restoring, re-vegetating and cultivating the 60-acre property on which she was now living. The encouragement of her newfound friendships gave her the confidence to embark on a “massive big

exponential learning curve” as she had no prior knowledge of local growing and soil conditions, or in large-scale land reclamation:

I learnt, or met different people who were doing great things with sustainable gardening and that was quite inspirational in helping me to get confidence to do things on my own property. (Dora)

The knowledge sharing between herself and her friends involved and went beyond being given a book to read, suggesting a useful website, informing her about a program to join, or suggesting trees to plant for increasing the amount of shade on the property. They were there “helping me plant buddleias in the orchard” and “one friend was

digging and digging the dirt out”. Through this knowledge sharing and physical support

Dora commenced a new phase in her life embracing the labour and responsibility that planning and undertaking large-scale land reclamation required, and in the process she created a new way to position herself within her marriage (Dora had referred to feeling ignored and excluded from decisions that were made by her husband in regard to their relocation from northern Victoria to the property where they were now living).

Leonie developed long-term friendships with the women she first met when attending a sustainable gardening program. After the course finished, they formed a group based on their mutual interest in gardening and growing food, and a desire to continue learning and practising gardening together:

I really got on with the other women in that group and we formed a garden group that met once a month and that was the start of something that lasted until last

198

year when two of us left to go and live overseas. So that lasted about eight years.

(Leonie)

Leonie’s continuing interest in sustainable food-growing led to her decision to move overseas to work with an exemplary sustainable food project in Europe. When she returned, along with other local volunteers, she instigated a food-sharing project through the Neighbourhood House based on the project she worked on in Europe.

Tina claimed that she was “never a scholar”, and had spent a life-time believing that she was not clever. She was a very shy young girl, and “tiny”, and she would sit in the back of the school classroom and never ask any questions no matter how much she was struggling. Since coming to the computer class at the Neighbourhood House, Tina

has become much more outgoing and was enjoying learning:

I’m not afraid like that now. I suppose I really spent my life like that, ‘Shall I go in here, shall I go in there? I’d never been in a café on my own before, now I walk in as if I own the place … and I think, ‘What have I missed all my life?’ I’ve missed a lot, through being shy. (Tina)

Tina recounted how she met her now best friend in the computer class she had enrolled in. When she was struggling to keep up with and understand the tutor’s instructions the younger woman sitting next to her in the computer class “who knew

everything”, helped her out:

I’d be struggling. I didn’t even know what these things were called. I’d say to her, “Excuse me, what do we have to do?” She’d lean over and she’d do it for me which wasn’t really helping me, but I was very grateful to her and I did learn.

(Tina)

Tina and her friend derived great mutual enjoyment from learning together, and sharing their skills and a sense of humour, inside and outside the classroom. She taught her friend how to play the card game, Patience, and later, in a burst of spontaneity inspired

199 by another classmate mentioning that she was learning the ukulele, bought herself and her friend a ukulele so that they could attend lessons together. In the ukulele class they were both novices, learning a new skill together. As the poetic interpretation from

Tina’s interview text reveals, in the shared and social learning environment at the Neighbourhood House, she realised that she was capable of learning new skills, despite finding it challenging. Learning to play the ukulele with others who were

struggling too, one of whom was her best friend, she realised that she was not alone in experiencing difficulties in learning situations, and that this did not necessarily mean that she was not clever. Observing the struggles of others in her ukulele class she realised that learning was not just for those who have “the gift”, everyone can learn and

can develop their own ways to take themselves through that process. Being able to laugh and support each other made learning much less intimidating.

Chanda has been a keen learner all her life. One day in her English class she noticed that a group of people from her birth country were experiencing difficulties

communicating with the teacher. She had no hesitation in translating the teacher’s instructions for them, and the questions they asked back to the teacher. Having faced a similar experience learning English herself, she appreciated the difficulties they were facing, and was happy to intervene. As a result of taking on this role in the class she was subsequently offered a position as a volunteer tutor in a separate class offered to the group. Chanda experienced great enjoyment sharing her English language skills to support the group, and encouraging them to learn. At the same time she was doing this, she was learning and gaining skills as a tutor:

I’m happy that I can teach [the people]. And I enjoy to do it. If they haven’t got a volunteer tutor they cannot study English. I encourage them to make them happy, ‘Don’t worry, you are here now, don’t waste your time’. The [people] they are very poor, their parents sell the farm and pay for the ticket …to come to Australia.

[One] told me that sometimes he was very sad, homesick in the temple, and when he came here, we study and sometimes we laugh. (Chanda)

200

Chanda was proud that she was learning skills as a volunteer tutor, and this

encouraged her to think about the possibility of studying to become a “real teacher”.