Facilitating Transformative Learning: Attending to the Dynamics of the Educational Helping Relationship

In most professions, images of exemplary practitioners influence practice powerfully, and adult education is no exception in this regard. In the adult education literature, arguably the most influential images of exemplary adult educators include the following: (a) Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule's midwife (1986), (b) Brookfield's skillful teacher (1 990), (c) Daloz's mentor (1 986), (d) Freire's partner (1993), (e) Knowles's andragogue (1975, 1989; Knowles & Associates, 1984), and (f) Mezirow's emancipatory educator (1991). Although these images are not identical, they clearly share several features. Perhaps foremost among those commonalities is their encouragement of adult educators to establish educational helping relationships with learners and to promote transformative learning within the context of those relationships. In this essay, I attempt the following: (a) explain briefly the goal of promoting transformative learning within an educational helping relationship; (b) point out the critical problem of a relative lack of preparation and support that the field offers its practitioners to accomplish this goal effectively and responsibly; and (c) discuss six recommendations that will help to alleviate this problem.