Guide on the Side vs. Sage on the Stage

Recently I was speaking with a small group and mentioned that my style was to be the “Guide on the Side” instead of the “Sage on the Stage”. This is a phrase I picked up from my time hanging about with classroom teachers. The source for this phrase is from  1993 article by Professor Alison King.

Here’s what the phrases mean. Well, really what I mean, within the context of financial education and learning. Feel free to chime in by making a comment below.

Sage on the Stage: In the old days, the teacher was the only one talking and spent all of her/his time in the front of the room talking offering knowledge to their students. Very little feedback was sought and was often punished if unwanted comments or questions were asked. Did you have any educational experiences like this?

As with other institutions, there was only one perspective shared and/or valued. You had to conform to the teacher’s style.

Students were expected to listen, take notes, memorize, then regurgitate upon request.

Guide on the Side: Using this style, the educator/leader walks along side the students, instead of leading from the front. I am reminded of Paulo Freire when I think of this:

“It should not involve one person acting on another, but rather people working with each other. Too much education, Paulo Freire argues, involves ‘banking’ – the educator making ‘deposits’ in the educatee.” (Source the non-profit site infed.org)

Ô Homi (Paulo Freire) (Photo credit: paulicasantos)

When I work with clients, I want to be their “Guide on the Side”. Sometimes people say to me, ” I don’t know anything at all about money/investing/finances”. Well, of course you do. That is a given. How much do you need to know? That is a subject for a first meeting…And a two-way conversation.

First, I like to learn about your family lessons about money, finances and savings, plus how you have implemented those lessons-or not.

• Are you a spender or a saver?
• How much financial news do you consume?
• What worries you?
• What do you take pleasure in doing?

My job is to help you move forward from where you are; after understanding about how you got there. It is an interactive experience, where your perspective matters-a lot. If we don’t move forward together, we go nowhere.

education (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

Learning about personal finance can be “informal”

“Across our lifespan, humans spend more than 80% of their 16 waking hours in “informal” learning environments outside “formal” classroom walls.”

(University of Washington College of Ed. publication Research That Matters, Volume 10)

So why are some of us stuck in our learning patterns about money?  Or School’s Out Forever?  Apparently we have ample hours after our “formal education” is over to pick up new material, concepts and even practical things like improving your financial infrastructure.

Have you ever heard a friend or colleague say things like the following:

• Math and I don’t get along
• My wife/husband takes care of that
• The economy doesn’t affect me (yes, I heard that once)

My all time favorite is, “I don’t do live math”. (heard during a public radio pledge drive)

Perhaps some of this goes back to the way we all learned about math in school, whether we learned “good” or ‘bad” money lessons at home, or if our education has all come from ‘the school of bad experiences”. Granted, some of us had truly bad math instruction, and some of us just didn’t see the relevance to math, personal finance and economics at the time we first saw with the material. Some people learn about stocks at age 15, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t pick up new concepts at any age.

My reason for beginning my blog with this research is to give yourself permission to begin anew with your learning. You can also give yourself permission to approach your personal finances in a way that is different from “keeping up with the Joneses”, the way other members of your family learn, and the way you learned math from “Mrs./Mr. Smith” in high school. In other words, allow yourself to embrace new informal learning opportunities!

As you follow this blog, you will learn and even change your perceptions about personal finance for the better. I will help you understand that small, consistent, sustainable changes matter. You don’t have to hit a home run. You don’t need to have that ultimate, sexy cocktail party story about your fabulous investment that made you so rich. You do need to remember that “right-size” changes, are what are best for you.

When we learn new things, as youth or adults, remember this advice from UW Professor Walter Parker:

“We have to help [learners] develop the sense that, “If things are tough, it just means I am a novice, it doesn’t mean I don’t have the competency for this work.”