Replying to LO30936 --
Dear Organlearners,
Our Rick Karash relayed the following to us:
> going through your web site was very enligthening . but
>could you please stress on unlearning organisation . ..........
>because unlearning organisation is a continous process which
>goes hand in hand in a learning organisation.
>
> how can we use organisational behaviour concepts to meet
>these challanges..
>
> sir, could you please help out with this.
Rick, i will give it a try.
Unlearning organisations? I wonder. I have written in the past that I
am not fond of the term unlearning. Unlearning is associated with rote
learning -- the memorisation and then regurgitation of information --
parrotry. It is like saving a computer file on a memory device and
later recalling it. Should something learned rotely prove to be wrong
or obsolete, then, yes, it has to be unlearned. It is like deleting a
computer file.
Rote learning and its opposite unlearning has serious consequences for
the wholeness knowledge as well as knowledge of wholeness. It leads to
increasing fragmentation. Here again is an example. In the Macrohard
computer operating systems, this storing and deleting of files lead to
a fragmentation of the HD (Hard Disk). Access slows down and
eventually the HD will crash. (Remember to defragment the HD at least
once a year.)
Sometimes i have to specify learning as authentic learning so as to
distinguish it from rote learning. But it is rather stupid should
there be only one way of correct learning.
Authentic learning is intertwined with creativity from its beginning
to its end. It begins with the five sense organs, leads to
experiences, emerges into tacit knowing and only then is FORMed
explicitly into FORMal knowledge. It is from this latter level that
inFORMation is derived.
Authentic learning has much to do with modifying what has been learned
in the past. It is here that I have to rely on some simple chemistry
to tell more about modifying learning.
A chemical reaction modifies a chemical compound in FORM (structure).
Assume the compound can be symbolised quite generally as
A-B-C
where A, B and C are clusters of atoms of whatever elements. The
compound A-B-C can be modified in the following three ways.
* Elimination
A-B-C => A-B + C
Here the cluster C is broken off from A-B-C.
* Addition
A-B-C + D => A-B-C-D
Here a new cluster D of atoms is incorporated into A-B-C.
* Substitution
A-B-C + D => A-B-D + C
Here the cluster C is replaced by cluster D.
This three-fold categorisation of the modification of the FORM of a
chemical compound is possible because the compound consists of atoms.
It would not have been possible if atoms did not existed. Now, all
which we learn at the FORMal level of knowledge, can be FORMulated in
sentences. Sentences act as the atoms of the mind. Sentence can be
clustered together (in paragraphs) and topics are then made up of such
clusters. Let us then symbolise a topic quite generally by A-B-C.
Almost every time when I revisit a topic (I do not know about you
fellow learners), I modify that topic according to what I have sensed,
experienced and learned tacitly on it in the mean time. This
modification in FORM is also three-fold as above:
* Elimination
A-B-C => A-B + C
I do this when the cluster C of sentences is not appropiate to the rest of
the topic, namely A-B.
* Addition
A-B-C + D => A-B-C-D
I do this when I have to incorporate knew tacit knowing or information D
into the topic A-B-C which I already know.
* Substitution
A-B-C + D => A-B-D + C
I do this when, for example, I make use of isomorphisms, metaphors and
parables. I also do it when part of the information, say cluster C, need to
be updated.
Perhaps eliminative learning can be called unlearning. But it is not
possible to include additive and sustitutive learning under the
umbrella of unlearning. Unlearning is for me too a vague concept to be
of any worth.
What general direction does chemical compounds develop into? As for
synthetic compounds, it is to serve particular needs in technology and
medicine. Think for examples of plastics with nylon as the first one
to be made. But as for natural compounds produced by living organisms,
it is to produce increasingly complex compounds. At the top of the
list are the enzymes, nature's own catalysts. Some enzymes consist of
thousands of atoms with hundreds of clusters of them. Were it not for
enzymes, biological life would not have been possible.
We live in world full of topical demands like that in technology and
medicine -- topics engineered for particular applications. But we also
live in a world in which our thinking have evolved naturally. In this
world we create increasingly complex topics through our learning just
as living organisms do with chemical compounds. We begin with simple
topics and then complexify them in FORM by eliminations, additions and
substitutions. Were it not for such complex topics, i think that
intellectual life as we know it would not have become possible.
Learning organisations existed long before Peter Senge identified them
FORMally in his Fifth Discipline. I myself experienced two such tacit
LOs dozens of years ago. I am at present member of two tacit LOs
because i do not want to tell fellow members that we FORM a Sengian
LO.
Learning in a LO, tacit or formal, is by large authentic. In other
words, each learner is continually modifying his/her formal knowledge
in terms of recent learning experiences. This happens by eliminative,
additive and substitutive learning. Last night at a regular meeting of
one of these tacit LOs, it happened again. Afterwards several members
commented on the fact that they have modified so much on what they
knew. And during the meeting I observed them carefully, looking how
they were learning by eliminations, additions and substitutions.
Is unlearning wrong? It is necessary should a person follow rote
learning. Is rote learning wrong? Well, the far majority of people in
my country make use of it. In my younger days i also had to rely upon
it to cram too much information in a short time into my head. But i
did not like it and slowly began to avoid it.
My observations in the two tacit LOs mentioned above, have convinced
me that there is no use for rote learning and unlearning in a LO.
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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