Why I Hate "Program Planning" (Part 2)

I just finished reading Thomas J. Sork’s chapter in the 2000 edition of the Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education. If I had encountered this work a few months earlier, perhaps I would not have started this serial rant on “program planning.” Don’t get me wrong—I still don’t like the phrase “program planning,” and there is plenty about the way adult education conceptualizes it that sticks in my craw—but there is something about Sork’s treatment of the subject that makes it more palatable and even interesting to me.

I first started feeling uneasy with “program planning” when I picked up Caffarella’s textbook (2002). As I skimmed the table of contents, I wondered, “What does this have to do with adult education?” Most of the topics I found there—except, perhaps, the one on learning transfer—looked as though they would have been just as at home in a course on convention planning or hotel management. It seemed so event-oriented and—though Caffarella does not espouse a linear interpretation of her Interactive Model of Program Planning—so formulaic.

At first blush, Sork (2000) seems to take a similar tack as he lays out his own “question-based” program planning “framework.” In fact, the graphic associated with his approach ("Figure 12.1" below) looks a lot like the illustration of Caffarella’s model (2002; "Figure 2.1" below).  Sork’s simply has fewer elements than Caffarella’s (6 vs. 12). However, Sork’s chapter has a different feel than Caffarella’s book, no doubt due, at least in part, to the (assigned) purpose and page limitations of each work. Sork seems more critical, spending more time pointing out the limitations of conventional answers to his six planning “questions” than explaining the nature and/or importance of the “questions.” Caffarella engages in critique and provides background as appropriate, but her emphasis is on “how to” accomplish the twelve elements in her planning model.

Since my distaste for “how to” constitutes a big part of objection to “program planning,” I welcomed the following section in Sork (2000). Here, he has just begun to unpack the idea that program planning occurs on at least three levels or “dimensions” (see "Figure 12.2 below) and is introducing the top one, the “technical domain.”

Most of the literature on program planning addresses questions in the technical domain. The questions raised in this domain largely focus on the “how-to” of planning, so I regard them as “surface.” … It is taken for granted in the literature that this domain is the primary concern of planners, and there is no question that being skillful in these matters is an occupational expectation. But I describe it as “surface” quite deliberately to suggest that a preoccupation with this domain overemphasizes the craft of planning and neglects the artistry. Those who are uninterested in probing deeper domains of planning are unable to respond to the challenges described above because these challenges are unconcerned with the technical domain—it is the sociopolitical and ethical domains that provide space to consider the thornier questions relevant to early twenty-first-century planning (pp. 184-185).

Another thing I find appealing about Sork (2000) is that he clearly differentiates the instructional and logistical elements of program planning. (“Prepare instructional plan” and “prepare administrative plan” are two different “questions.”) When it comes to my objections to “program planning,” I have little problem with the word “planning.” Everything in life—from avocations to education—requires (or at least can benefit from) careful intentionality (aka “planning”) The impression I have developed, however—and Sork calls this into question—is that administrative concerns predominate “program planning.” In prior careers, I have managed logistics. I am very good at it, actually; but I don’t intend to go back there. As I have written elsewhere (Carter, 2009), my interest now is learning, and that’s where I think the focus of “program planning” should be as well.

References

Caffarella, R. S. (2002). Program planning for adult learners: A practical guide for educators, trainers, and staff developers (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Carter, S. L. (2009). From preacher to adult educator: Recasting skills for new impact. Adult Learning, 20(3-4), 6-8.

Sork, T. J. (2000). Planning educational programs. In A. L. Wilson & E. R. Hayes (Eds.), Handbook of adult and continuing education (New ed., pp. 171-190). San Francisco and Lanham, MD: Jossey Bass and the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education.