Overview

last updated:October 2008

Why is the issue important?
All teachers seek to promote significant learning and instill a love of learning amongst their students. Carl Rogers explained how he believed such learning could be brought about in his book Freedom to learn, first published in 1969.

What did Carl Rogers believe?
To Rogers, creating successful interpersonal relationships with students was fundamental. He also believed in creating a classroom environment where all participants (ie. teachers as well as pupils) were co-learners in the educational journey.

How was this achieved?
Rogers believed that effective relationships lie at the heart of successful learning and that the way to create successful relationships was through being genuine, and showing students acceptance and empathy, as they worked through learning challenges. He found that when he started to be himself and try to understand his students as learners it completely changed the interaction and the climate of the classroom. He ceased being a 'teacher’ (ie. directive). Rather he became a 'facilitator of learning’. ln such learning environments, students were engaged in collaborative learning activities, peer teaching, carrying out their own enquiries and classroom talk that required multiple levels of thinking.

What evidence was there to support his view?
Carl Rogers’ ideas about education grew from a lifetime of research, experimental work and interaction with people, both as a counsellor and as a psychologist. At the time of the first edition of the book there existed only anecdotal evidence about the impact on learning of the kind of person-centred classroom environment Rogers advocated, but later editions incorporated a variety of robust research evidence too. The findings showed how, when teachers provided the kind of facilitative climate Rogers described, students learned more, attended school more often, were more creative and more capable of problem-solving.

What are the implications?
Carl Rogers’ book Freedom to learn shows the value of teachers:

• showing students empathic understanding
• allowing students some (although not complete) 'freedom to learn’, such as choosing which tasks they do and/or how they will go about them
• involving students in collaborative work and discussion
• facilitating experiential learning - discovery and problem-solving, requiring pupils to hypothesise, ask questions and discuss lines of enquiry
• providing students with resources that give them the opportunity to learn experientially.

What do the case studies illustrate?
The case studies show:

• how a group of teachers were successful at creating an emotionally supportive learning environment for their pupils
• the impact of enhancing the learning environment and teacher-student relationships on student achievement
• how a group of teachers successfully moved from a didactic teaching approach towards student-centred practices and what helped them to make the change in approach
• the value for teachers of consulting students about their learning.