Creating Learning Environments LO30710

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 10/15/03


Replying to LO30697 --

Dear Organlearners,

Don Dwiggins <d.l.dwiggins@computer.org> wrote

>One other point: not all learning is emergent; care must also be
>taken to recognize the cycling between emergence and digestion,
>and to interact appropriately according to the phase of learning.
>(At has written on this topic "at length". 8^)

Greetings dear Dwig,

What you wrote compelled me to make one comment. The role of a learning
environment is crucial during the digestive phase of learning.

I had a vivid experience of this while on tour through Tanzania. One night
we stopped at a resting camp in a remote region. We were the only people
there. Soon after we have settled, the camp attendent, a local man, came
to us and asked us for anything to read. He would bring it back early the
next morning.

I began to have a dialogue with him. It was the first and only time in all
my travels to remote places that this had happened. I was very interested
in why he wanted to read. Eventually i asked him. His answer was a
delight. He said that he gets many ideas. It is only when he reads that
these ideas make much sense to him. This answer astonished me. Here is a
man in the wilderness who does not have the luxury of a school. But the
tourists helped to create a learning environment for him. Most important
of all, he had discovered the key to personal mastery. Create your own
ideas and let them grow on what other people wrote (information) having
had similar ideas.

The next morning it struck me with what meticulous care this man looked
after the resting camp. Its owners came only once a month to collect the
money from him. Otherwise he was responsible for everything in the camp.

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

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