Dear Organlearners,
Robert Bacal <rbacal@escape.ca> writes under:
Subject: Intro -- Charlie Saur LO19080
> > We may call it by different names. But on in the end it boils to one
> > thing: What is authentic learning?
>
> Everytime I see the terms "real learning" or "authentic learning", I
> wonder what unreal learning looks like, and phoney learning. And, I wonder
> by what authority or criteria someone judges which is which.
Greetings Robert,
Did you not ask the same question on a previous occasion? If I did
not answer it, forgive me.
Two of my children have qualified themselves in accounting. The one
works for a bank and the other one for a auditing firm. I posed the
following question to each of them. Is it possible to have "authentic
bookkeeping" and "phoney bookkeeping". Well, they had a lot of horror
stories to tell. My other daugther will be qualified at the end of
the year as an analytical chemist. She is working part time for a
pharmaceutical institute which have to do independant control assays
for the industry. I asked her: Is it possible to have "authentic
assaying" and "phoney assaying"? She also had a couple of stories to
tell. Last sunday I asked our pastor whether the distiction "authetic
preaching" and "fallicious preachings" made any sense to him. He also
had a lot to say.
I noticed how each one often made use of system thinking to
differentiate between the two possibilities.
It seems as if the qualifiers "authentic" and "fallicious" do make
sense in some activities. But what about the two main activities of
education: teaching and learning. We cannot assume that these two
qualifiers can be applied to teaching and learning simply because
they can be applied to other activities. Should we do that, we will
still not know what the differences are. We will have to distinguish
carefully in terms of system thinking, like for auditing, assaying or
preaching, what the differences are.
My argument is basically that learning is a first order emergent of
creating so that any "learning" without the underlying creativity
cannot be authentic learning. The same sort of argument applies to
believing which is a first order emergent of learning (and thus a
second emergent of creating). Any "believing" without the underlying
learning cannot be authentic believing. Clearly, my argument rests on
the assumption that there is such a thing as the emergence of a higher
order from a lower order. In other words, the assumption is that in
any order qualities can emerge which constitures a higher order.
Even more complex than the above, is the fact that no emergence
happen automatically. An emergence is one of two possible outcomes of
an ordinate bifurcation - the other possibility being an emergence. On
the one hand, the system has to be driven skillfully to the
bifurcation point at the edge of chaos. This itself is a complex
issue. On the other hand, the bifurcation will result into a
destructive immergence rather than constructive emergence if certain
contingencies (conditions) are not met. They are liveness, sureness,
wholeness, fruitfulness, sparseness, otherness and openness. This is
also a complex issue.
I must admit that remembering my own systems thinking twenty five
years ago and trying to understand with it the two paragrapghs above,
I would have had great difficulties to make any sense from it. If I
have to summarise the two paragraphs for myself twenty five years ago,
I would write that learning is not a simple activity which happens
instinctively like eating, but that a learner has to learn how to
learn. The result can be called authentic learning.
Fallicious or phoney learning happens when the learner persists in
doing something instinctively, assuming it to be learning without
questioning whether it is learning or not. The key word here is
"persist". This is one reason why teachers are neccessary -- to
caution the learner that learning is more than merely simplistic and
automatical mental activities, that learning involves also learning
about learning. Or to use terminolgy more familiar to Learning
Organisations: Fallicious learning happens when systems thinking is
excluded, or if it is included, learning as a subsystem of systems
thinking is excluded.
We can use any kind of system thinking which gives attention to
learning to give an account of authentic learning. For example, the
behaviourist psychologists Bloom, Krathwohl and others developed a
system which they call the taxonomy of educational objectives. Six
levels (orders) of objectives are recognised: recall, comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. Although authentic
learning begins with recall, once the learning persists with recall
it becomes fallicious learning. For learning to remain authentic,
what can be recalled should also be comprehended. Again, if learning
stops at comprehension, it looses its authenticity. Thus what can be
comprehended should also be applied, etc., etc.
Another example is to use the system "kategoriale Bildung" developed
by German educationalists from the philosophical and cognitive points
of view. It distinguish, for example, between "elementaries" (the
givens) and "fundamentals" (the images of the givens in a system of
thinking). Authetic learning has to begin with "elementaries" and move
towards "fundamentals" and not the other way around. In other words,
authetic learning must begin with experience and not the systematic
reflection on experiences. Fallicious learning tries to revert the
process, tries to find experiences for what had to be acquired by rote
learning.
Fallicious learning has become a serious problem in many third world
countries. Learners who do make it to schools acquire information as a
flat landscape through rote learning. Few persist with this fallicious
learning beyond their tenth year because this very fallicious learning
consumes all their motivation. Thus an incredible shortage of
knowledge workers ensue. Too many hands and too few minds to hire. The
educational system has to employ mostly those who fail to qualify as
knowledge workers. Thus a new generation of kids are taught to learn
by rote learning. A vicious circle ensues of learners not learning how
to learn -- of learners equating information with knowledge -- of
learners who put education last in their list of priorities.
Prof John Ziman in his book The Force of Knowledge sketches a
horrifying story on fallicious learning under the title "An imaginary
country with real problems" (pp 275 -279). The English scientist
Roger Bacon of the 13th century sketches an even more horrifying
picture of scientific learning during the middle ages. Even as early
as 4 centuries BC the famous Greek Hippocrates of the island of Cos
had severe criticisms about medicinal learning. He formulated an
oath to break the circel of fallicious learning in medicine, one
which is still in use today.
[Host's Note: Amazon.com lists this book as out of print. ...Rick]
How will we of the 21st century in two years of now ever escape the
circle of fallicious learning? By taking an oath? No. Even presidents
(or kings and queens) may forget to honour their oath. To take an
oath is talk. Talk is cheap. What we have to do, is to walk the talk,
from the president at the top to the toddler in the slums. But to
keep on walking in a life which is exploding with talk is becoming
increasingly difficult. Thus both the president at the top and the
toddler in the slums need the organised effort of fellow humans to
keep on walking.
Now what is this organised effort of fellow humans needed to keep us
walking to a better future, from the president at the top to the
toddler in the slums. Some say it is system thinking, others say it
is leadership or religion -- the answers are legio. But again all of
it is shop talk -- no walk. I firmly believe that it is Learning
Organisations -- not the talk or theory on them, but the walk
practice of them. How much help through LO participation can the
president at the top show? How much help through LO participation can
the toddler in the slums show? Very little, if any, I fear. Do we
really understand what LOs are about? To make money? Is this what the
president and the toddler need? No. They need LOs to help them taking
care of their activities.
Similarly we will need LOs to help us taking care of our educational
activities such as teaching and learning. Through a LO for Teaching
(LOT) we will learn about teaching -- about authentic teaching.
Likewise through a LO for Learning (LOL) we will learn about learning
-- about authentic learning. I have little doubt that we will learn
less and less about these things as the explosion of talk
(information) becomes bigger and bigger.
A number of times people have questioned the possibility to transform
formal institutions or Organisations for Learning (OLs such as
schools, colleges and universities) into LOs. What - OLs which are not
LOs? How can that ever be possible? Is the equation LOL = LO + OL not
automatically guaranteed? Well, maybe some of you have had the
opportunity to study in LOLs where authentic learning is the talk and
walk But fallicious learning in OLs which are not LOs do not only
occur, but is predominant on our globe. It is the worst catastrophy
of this century.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>