Replying to LO28708 --
Hello At and group,
There are some things I would like to comment on, including the quote of
Fred that started it all:
Fred writes:
>I think the proper starting point is what we mean by "learning."
>Doubtless, we all mean many things by it and therein lies much of the
>difficulty.
As a slight digression from Fred's correct observation, I think the best
way to look at learning is as change. This change might be apparent
through a person's behavior, writing and speech, or it might be hidden in
the sense of changes in thinking and/or neurological changes.
I think also that the only way to handle the problem of "what is
learning?" is to categorize learning in the manner that Gagne, Engelmann
and others have done. If this is not done, it is difficult not to stumble
and fall into untenable generalizations. For example, people often tend to
think of memorizing as bad and understanding as good. This again leads to
people taking postion against memorizing in general and rote learning,
when it is actually a prerequisite to much understanding.
Of course, the focus is on teaching for these people, rather than
learning, but I feel they are really two sides of the same coin. After
all, teaching is about helping another person learn. Also, purposeful
learning, as Fred called it, involves being one's own teacher. I would
also like to take a leap here and say that learning that is not purposeful
is not deep learning because it lacks in becoming-being. Therefore, one
might say that teaching and learning are the same thing with regards to
deep learning. The only difference is that one can be a better teacher for
oneself because of ones knowledge of one's own experiences, thoughts,
assessments and other events hidden to others. This makes one better able
to judge what triggers one's own learning and what is needed at a specific
stage. The basics of knowing how humans learn is equally relevant to both
and is probably the only part of "how to learn" that can be taught.
Back to categorizing learning, Engelmann looks first at the structure of
knowledge. He sees at the first level basic form, which are mere verbal
chains (what are the names of the states in the USA?), simple facts (what
is the capital of Gambia?) and discriminations (What is the capital of the
Norway? Oslo or Reykjavik?)
The next level are concepts, which are labels on categories of things and
events. Understanding concepts requires recognizing its essential
features, that is, recognizing the features that makes something receive a
particular label. This is best done, Engelmann says, by exposing learners
to many examples and non examples until the learner can label
(discriminate) every example correctly. This is a democracy , this is not,
this is a cow, this is not, this is authentic learning, this is not.... At
the higher level, a learner will be able to generate his own examles.
At the level above concepts come propositions, which are connections
between concepts. These could be rules (if people say hello, I say hello
back. When I have identified the main point of the article, the next step
is to ... etc.) or principles (if air becomes hot it goes up), or
relations (the dog is black). The best way to teach these is again through
positive and negative examples.
Finally comes complex forms (arrangements of the previous forms of
knowledge to solve a problem or communicate an event) and operations
(skills for applying the the forms of knowledge, such as identifying the
main point of an article). Critical thinking skills is a complex form that
Engelmann has done much work on how to teach.
This was a quick summary of a 350 page book, called "Theory of
instruction," so I have hardly given it full treatment...
I think one can clearly see that Engelmann's focus is on "sureness," both
in his own approach and his emphasis on what to teach. He wants excellence
in categorizing things, events and relations. Only after that does he get
into complex and novel problem solving, focusing on a/building the
operational skills b/generalizing to seemingly unrelated areas c/changing
and adjusting what has been learned to suit new situations.
I would consider deep learning, learning that involves applying the 7Es, a
complex form. At the operations level, it involves such skills as
abstraction (picking out essential features to categorize things,)
(sureness) asking "how do you know that?" (sureness) and other questions
such as "what do we really want out of this?" (liveness) "why, why, why,
why, why?" (wholeness) etc. At the simplest level it can be made a
routine, but as experience grows (exposure to examples whether in ones
imagination, as a witness or as a performer) one will be able to do
abstraction to the 7Es and at that point a memorized procedure or set of
questions will be redundant and restrictive. One will be able to come up
with the right questions to ask at the right time and place without
reference to a cookbook, but one should't skip the cookbook stage!
I believe that even the 7Es has to start with a routine. This is the most
effective way to start because otherwise one is just reinventing the wheel
in the manner of Rousseau's Emile, (and this is where Rousseau is
horrendously wrong.) The emphasis should be on learning what can be learnt
from others, even memorizing, but then make a conscious effort to improve
learning, learn deeper, by exposure to more examples, especially ones
where one is personnaly involved. That is why I have a real problem with
the way concepts of discovery learning, situational learning, etc. (which
are really variations of Roussea's ideas) are often applied. These methods
are extremely ineffective compared to empirically supported teaching
methods (whether applied to oneself or others) except at a level where one
already masters relevant knowledge forms at a sufficient level. At that
level, of course, they become the only way to learn anyway. Perhaps one
could say that the prerequisite for these methods to work properly is a
high level of sureness in relevant concepts, propositions and complex
forms. What I have covered to far in a rather quick and dirty manner is
largely regarding cognitive knowledge and thinking. The capacity to change
is best handled separately.
At writes:
>With this topic I do not mean what to learn, but how to learn. I also do
>not mean the act of teaching, but the act of learning. I also do not mean
>education, but the very act upon which all of education are founded. As I
>did research on the topic, I once again became deeply under the
>impression that the act of learning itself was usually either neglected
>or taken for granted.
My comment:
At, what do you mean by the act of learning?
At said:
>2.17 "The Master said, Yu, shall I teach you about knowing?
> To regard knowing it as knowing it; to regard not knowing
> it as not knowing it -- this is knowing."
>On other words the emphasis is learning the unknown rather than accepting
>information unquestioningly.
My comment:
Is that what it means? It would be interesting to know what a native
chinese scholar has to say about it. Based on the above translation,
couldn't it simply mean that Confucious advocated ostensive definitions?
I.e. knowledge is what you call knowledge.
At said:
>Europe probably would never have awakened to education again were it not
>for the Arabic civilisation who took a serious interest in learning.
>While Europeans were drilling their students in past information as
>knowledge, the Arabs began to explore the unknown once again. After the
>introduction of the Islamic religion, this process accelerated. The
>reason is that in the first centuries of this religion, much emphasis was
>laid upon religious and political leaders not to follow their own
>understandings, but to consult those people trying to excel in knowledge
>of life in general.
My comment:
What are you refering to here? Who are the people that had "knowledge of
life in general"? While awaiting your reply, probably the most basic
reasons for the blooming of knowledge in the first 300 years or so of the
muslim calendar was that the state was rich and the rulers were
preoccupied with science and knowledge in general. In fact many of them
were scholars themselves or at least highly learned and many of them were
excellent poets. Scholarly debate was a regular occurence, infact the
Khalifa's reception room was a place for many debates and, as was a habit
among the early Arabs, competitions in poetry. They were rich, their
military power was pretty much unbeatable at the time and there was a
strong sense of unity. This left space (free energy) for the progress of
science. In fact, in Arab Spain illiteracy was virtually eliminated.
Also contributing was the fact that the Arabs also believed that
discovering God's creation was a religious virtue, and particularly in the
areas of astronomy, geography, medicine and anything else with practical
benefits to the public. On the other hand, they tended to shun metaphysics
and delving into the details of what the Greeks called theology, but the
necessity of intellectually defending the creed of the Islamic faith
against imported ideas from other cultures, such as the ancient Greek,
Persian and Indian ones, led to a highly developed, as they called it,
"science of monotheism." The peak of this science was probably the
appearance of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali who wrote a book called "the downfall
of the philosophers", which basically eliminated the spread of Aristotlean
thought in muslim communities. He said "I learned philosophy until I knew
it better than them, and since Aristotle is the greatest of them, by
taking care of him I take care of the rest..." At a later stage in life
became probably the most important sufi of all time by a book called,
roughly translated, "re-enlivening the sciences of the religion." this is
really a (huge) book about deep, personal learning, written by al-Ghazali
after he decided to leave position, fame and fortune and accused himself
of having achieved just about everything in his life up until that stage
for the sake of status and prestige.
What was perhaps a unique contribution of the Arabs is that they combined
the pragmatic, experimental approach of their culture with the emphasis on
analogy of the Greeks, which is basically the framework of science (and
learning) that is still in use today.
At said:
>By the 11th century knowledge in the Arab world was at a high point while
>knowledge in Europe was at its lowest point. However, even in Arab
>literature little can be find on the act of learning itself, despite all
>the subjects in which they excelled.
My comment:
This comes back to your definition of learning, but on the surface I'd
have to disagree. The entire literature of Sufism is about self-discovery
and improvement. What is somewhat less widespread are books plainly
labeled "education" and the like. In education emphasis was on reading,
writing, having kids memorize and understand small texts or poems on
religous duties and on memorizing the Quran. Those with the interest and
inclination would proceed further. Memorizing the texts, however, was
considered a prerequisite to understanding. Al-Ghazali said, "let them
memorize, then they will understand as they grow older". The arabs viewed
memorizing as "hooks" for understanding and information. The flexibility,
richness and musical quality of the Arabic language allowed them to write
poems of a few hundred verses as "hooks" for several fields of knowledge
including debating, grammar, medicine, etc. The next steps would be for a
teacher to explain (often done hand in hand with the memorizing) and then
expand upon those texts.
At said:
>It is becomes clearer to me how people who have crammed lots of
>information in their heads by processes which they have been told are
>learning, but have little knowledge by way inner development, have little
>capacity to act.
My comment:
Regarding capacity, do you think it is it because of willingness or
ability or something else? What acts are you talking about?
At said:
>"I think that the battle for respecting the knowledge which lives within
>against the information which exists outside has begun.... what we took
>from nature to become better without giving it back will for sure
>boomerang against us."
>"Rousseau saw the act of learning as "spontaneous, irreversible and
>self-organising". I see it one step further. It requires free energy as
>the necessary condition and the 7Es as the sufficiency condition. Both
>are deteriorating rapidly in the post modern world. Rousseau saw a
>civilisation false to the very foundation which led to its emergence. I
>see the same happening -- the rich trying every heartless trick to become
>richer while the misery of the poor increases rapidly."
My comment:
I still really miss an explanation on what you mean by learning. Yet from
the above I get the feeling that you mean to understand the wider
consequence of ones actions and then act accordingly. It even looks as a
value judgement involved when you said "the rich trying every heartless
trick..." With all the Homer Simpsons out there, I don't think this
learning can be achieved on a mass scale.
In any case, simply having people learn requires educational, value based
decisions. If you want people to be learners, you need to do what is
needed for them to become so. In think it is an illusion to see Emile as
"free," or "genuine learner." He was subject to the decisions and
manipulations of his "teacher" just like any other student, but his time
was wasted by having him reinvent the wheel in many things that can be
taught in about two minutes or so. It is a question of priorities. It is a
question of how much you are willing to leave to coincidences. It is a
question of value judgements on educational techniques in themselves, as
well as the goals.
What guarantee is there that using Rousseau's methods one would end up
with humans with a greater capacity to learn and with greater consistency
than other methods? If taken to the extreme, just to make a point, might
he (Emile) not just as well end up a cannibal or a headhunter, never mind
a miserable outcast?
>From another angle, on a planet of some 6 billion people, I don't think it
is feasible to fill it with individualistic, quasi "hunter gatherers" like
Emile. The real issue is to have these people live together. If you leave
people learning from bumping into each other with no imposing of values
(Roussea thought his desired virtues would sort of pop up naturally and in
a predictable manner if they were left to do so) and little "information,"
I think one can expect some pretty disappointing results, particularly in
the disadvantaged. Discovery learning and the like is for those who have
the prerequisites and the capacity, it is not for everyone and certainly
not for all cases. I don't think Roussea has much to contribute to todays
learning problems, particularly in a time where I hear some 30% of adults
in the USA, the boss in todays political world, have inadequate reading
and writing skills.
As for the so called die-off, other complex crises and the capacity to
change. I tend to believe that it is not a lack of capacity that is the
main issue in the sense of having the tools and the energy, but it is more
of a fundamental psychological problem that holds true for most people.
This is the phenomena that if the negative consequences of an act are seen
as uncertain and/or future they have little effect on behavior. This holds
not the least if the link between a particular act is only vaguely related
to the consequence. There is also an element of discouraging helplessness
involved, because a single individual's change makes basically no
difference to the problem at hand if it is systemic and large scale. The
most obvious solution seems to be central control/ manipulation in such
matters, but even this requires wide public support, whether one is in a
democracy or otherwise. As for the predicted oil/energy crises, I don't
think such support can be achieved, because the immediate sacrifices
required would be very large, for something very distant, vague and not
likely to be relevant to ones own person -- in the eyes of most.
Terje
--"Terje A. Tonsberg" <tatonsberg@hotmail.com>
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