The art of video training

Teachers do this all the time but Julia Child turned it into an art when the American chef and television personality mastered the feat of ‘thinking on our feet” as TV host of her live French cooking shows in the 80s.

While teachers may be skilled at performing a task, few are endowed with the power to teach, convey ideas and persuade. Despite television being a multi-medium with endless possibilities for props and special effects, Child ignored these bells and whistles when she became a show by herself.

Making spontaneity an art

Like a teacher with no recourse to stop time to restart her teaching, Child on live TV could not stop the camera and start again. What she did instead was invent a “spontaneous, somewhat fumbling style” (Castro, 2002, p. 191) now emulated by TV chefs worldwide. She expressed in words and showed details that most cooks would omit, like how to hold a knife with the proper positioning of the fingers, for example. She gave you these little details to give you the feeling of the job.

Thinking in real-time as events unfold

Castro (2002) cites Schon (1984) when he calls Child’s style  “knowing in action” (p. 191), the application of in-between knowledge, or space, between theory and practice. Also called “reflection-in-action”, thinking on our feet involves being aware of our experiences, feelings and theories in use as they unfold through our actions.

Castro (2002) discovered Child’s spontaneous delivery style when he analysed informal education training videos. A perfectly scripted presentation, he found, hid the difficulties and tips and tricks that learning a trade involves. No student can relate or approximate that perfection, asserts Castro. To illustrate the point, Caster compares two training presentations on video, one by a hotel restaurant maitre d’ and the other by Child (p. 190).

“The first video demonstrates how to remove the bones from a trout. The maître d’hôtel, in formal dress, tackles the fish as an actor performing in front of a full house. His movements are swift and precise, not one second is wasted. In no time, the bones are extracted, and the fish is reassembled as if by magic.

The second video is chef Julia Child. She searches for the right word, stops to ponder what she is going to do next, fumbles with the knife, drops the food, looks for a towel to clean her hands, discusses alternatives, and looks a bit worried about the results when removing the finished dish from the oven” (p. 190).

Conclusion

Focusing on advanced Internet technologies to deliver adult literacy and skills training may have blindsided us to an important fact: most may not have the means to afford online access. Fortunately, Castro (2002) discovers the efficient simplicity and cost effectiveness of going back to basics with the humble video or compact disc recorder, a companion to the ubiquitous and affordable television. On video, an adult trainer can focus on techniques for teaching with impact, sincerity, persuasion and empathy, like Julia Child did, to an audience of learners who want nothing more but to feel that learning a skill is within their reach.  

References

Castro, C. (2002). ICT for adult training: The victory of spontaneous action. In W. Daddad, & A. Draxler, A. (Eds). Technologies for education: Potential, Parameters and Prospects (pp. 186-191). UNESCO. Retrieved at
http://www.ictinedtoolkit.org/usere/library/tech_for_ed_chapters/17.pdf

Infed.org (undated). Donald Schon: learning, reflection and change.  Retrieved on 2 September, 2011 from The Encyclopaedia of Informal Education website at http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-schon.htm