‘Two sides of the same coin’ by Bruce Murray, Training Journal, February 2012

This is a rather academic article that may seem short on practical application but is nevertheless thought provoking.  At MTP we found after the first few years of our existence that using the word ‘training’ as part of our title gave the impression to some potential clients that we were working at a lower level than our competitors the business schools.  I remember one particularly pretentious contact telling us that training is for dogs, education is for managers.  So we were not too concerned when the origins of our name became forgotten as ‘MTP’ became our brand.

We also found that emphasising ‘learning’ rather than training seemed to work best with many clients and was in line with the way things were moving.  But I always retained the view that it is not ‘either/or’ and we should not be ashamed to say that there are elements of both training and education in what we do.

The article starts with an amusing example of the importance of choice of words, pointing out that most parents who hear that their child is attending a sex education class would not be worried but sex training would be a different matter.  This makes the point that, in most people’s minds, education is about knowing whereas training is about doing.  And this distinction leads on to another feature of attitudes of learning professionals in recent years; the tendency to reject any initiative that is positioned as awareness or knowledge, because it does not change behaviour.  Thus both words - training and education - have been ones to avoid and the emphasis has been on learning and the transfer to behaviour.

The author goes back to some early theory to justify his arguments.  He quotes John Dewey’s ‘constructivism’ which emphasised the importance of interaction between new learning and existing experience; the teacher is not all knowing but offers concepts and ideas for students to build on.  He follows this up by quoting Pablo Freire’s work which condemned the conventional academic lecture and saw the teacher’s role as posing problems, mentoring and guiding.  This was later converted into the catchy slogan - no longer the ‘sage on the stage’ but instead a ‘guide on the side’.

This trend has been strengthened as modern economies have moved towards the service sector with more complex business models; there are fewer hard techniques and accepted right answers in the study of business.  On the other hand there are still many industries and processes where the scope for argument is limited; the author quotes weapons training as an area where you wouldn’t want to allow scope for learner interpretation!

All this leads to the perhaps obvious view that it is ‘horses for courses’; all depends on content and audience and most learning programmes will quite rightly have a combination of education and training.  There are some areas where knowledge is not in dispute and must be retained; others where there is scope for adaptation to context and situation.  The good trainer/educator - at MTP we use the word ‘tutor’ in an attempt to find the right balance - will see the need for both approaches and design a programme that integrates them in a way that is engaging and enjoyable.

It could be argued that this article takes a long time to say something that is pretty obvious but, despite this potential criticism, I found the journey interesting and informative.  It is often useful to be given an academic framework to support an approach that has evolved pragmatically.

Click here to view the article in full:
http://www.trainingjournal.com/magazine/