Replying to LO28731 --
Dear Organlearners,
Fred Nickols <nickols@safe-t.net> writes:
>What is "collective learning"? Many people learning the
>same thing? Many people learning different things from
>the same experience? The learning of some kind of collective
>consciousness? Could you please say what you mean by
>"collective learning"?
Greetings dear Fred,
I tried to avoid using "organisational learning" in that essay so as not
to draw it into discussion. But you were as fast as a cougar on me ;-),
even with my attempt at disguising the issue of "organisational learning".
But should you go through all my contributions through many years, you
will observe that i have avoided using "organisational learning" as much
as possible, but not "Learning Organisation" (LO). The reason is that
during all these years i have been contemplating the "act of
organisational learning" just as i had to contemplate the "act of
individual learning". I have experience myself three times how some
organisations may emerge into LOs. Thus i do not think of the LO as yet
another "treasure map" to be sold to managers. Obviously, when somebody
sells the LO without really knowing what goes on in a LO, then it becomes
the selling of a "treasure map".
I have no conceptual difficulties with Senge having selected the name
"Learning Organisation". It is something which goes beyond human culture.
Here in Africa are extraordinary different kinds of animals. Some kinds
(like elephants and meerkats) have a highly developed social organisation
based on learning. I am aware of making the error of anthropomorphy, but i
have made too many observations not to doubt what I have seen.
I also understand our need in language to make use of metaphors. The word
"learn" comes from the OE "leornian" which meant to know. However,
"leornian" itself seems to have developed from the proto Indo-European
"leis" for a track up a mountain. Thus somewhere the ancient Germanic
people began to use "leisnojan" (track up the mountain) as a metaphor for
learning. In this metaphor the mountain itself is nothing else than
knowledge.
I do not want to write now on "organisational learning" since i am busy
with an essay on it. I began to realise the necessity of such an essay
when our host Rick earlier this year asked us to have a dialogue on the
relationship between "learning organisation" and "organisational
learning". It is one thing to contemplate "organisational learning" and
another thing to make up the mind on "organisational learning".
But, yes, even within this restriction, i owe you an explanation for
"collective learning". I mean with it that people learn from each other
while learning from the same or a similar event. They can learn together
in person from the same event or in proxy by repeating the event and then
communicate their findings to each other. They need not to learn the same
topic in the event. Even should they learn the same topic, they need not
to arrive at exactly the same knowledge.
Allow me to give you one example of "collective learning". When I teach
pupils or students by way of a demonstration, they learn from me because
in addition to the demonstration i will make comments where necessary. (I
use their ears which respond much faster than eyes to guide their
watching.) Afterwards, when i begin questioning them on what they have
observed, i learn from their answers as much as what they learn from my
questions.
>The prescription of what is to be learned -- that is,
>content or subject matter -- has always been an
>important aim of educators and others. It stems, I
>suspect, from a failure to distinguish between knowledge
>as information (e.g., a rule, a principle, a formula, an
>algorithm, a statement of relationship or some other
>captured, codified observation) and knowledge as an
>internal state of a human being (especially, the capacity
>for action).
Dear Fred, i am even more radical than you. I do not consider two kinds of
knowledge (information and internal state). I consider only that which
"lives" within the mind as knowledge, something which can be used to
produce external information, but which ought to be used far more for
acting.
In 1976 i began to learn how to guide learners by making use of "learning
imperatives". They are like learning objectives and learning goals, but
are formulated strictly in a command mode, devoid of any statements or
even modalities. By formulating them in the command mode, it becomes
impossible for learners to memorise information in them. Obviously, it
took much patience from me and willingness from the learners not to see
these commands as a way of trying to control their minds. I made many
blunders, but through the years i have learned how to formulate these
"learning imperatives" for effective action.
>By "excite curiosity" I assume you are referring to
>stimulating a desire to know.
Yes, but i do not have the original documents here at my office to see
exactly what Greek words were used.
>Hmm. No wonder Montaigne has held up so well;
>he's still on the mark.
I wish i had access to some European libraries. Montaigne would definitely
be on my reading list. The reason is that he lived after the invention of
the printing press. Thus he must have been deeply under the impression
that it is not necessary to memorise information to ensure its existence
from generation to generation.
>I read that as follows:
>
>observation > awareness > articulation > etc
Yes, Goethe made the point that it should rathe be experience because
consciousness involve far more. Yet Goethe was not aware of tacit knowing.
Only more than a hundred years later Polanyi came with the idea of the
tacit dimension with two levels. His first level corresponds very much to
Pestalozzi's awareness. But his second level (which I prefer to call tacit
knowing per se) was a unique revealing. Most interestingly, although
Polanyi studied much literature on psychology, he avoided using the word
"subconscious". I wish i knew why.
Anyway, the order now seems to be
observation > awareness > tacit-knowing > articulation > etc
>>I think that the battle for respecting the knowledge
>>which lives within against the information which
>>exists outside has begun.
>
>I think it's been going on for quite a while.
Perhaps you are right. I meant it in the sense of the survival of the
whole personality.
>I'm a little reluctant to go down the "creativity" path
>because it so often seems to me to lack structure and
>purpose and, as a result, lead absolutely nowhere.
When Guilford, i think it was in 1952, said that creativity was the most
important thing which research in psychology should be focussed on, he was
deadly earnest about it. Unfortunately, uncovering the "act of creating"
is far more difficult than uncovering the "act of learning". I think i
have found the reason for it. Creativity and imagination are not the same
thing. Imagination is a pure abstract activity while creativity involves
both the material and abstract worlds.
>Thanks, At, for a stimulating, thoughtful post.
Thanks Fred, but it is actually history which is so stimulating.
I needed to write this essay because it may provide us with some context
what we are up to when trying to uncover the act of organisational
learning. I am busy writing up my own reflections upon my own observation
as to what it may be and hope to finish with that essay soon.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
PS. Your ISP "safe-t.net" bounces my copies to you back to me. That is why I do not send copies to you any more.
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