At 03:06 -0400 9/14/98, Doug Merchant wrote:
>Of course, learning and tacit knowledge doesn't seem strange for
>individuals. Tacit knowledge is the knowledge of the craftsmen and the
>guild (explicit knowledge is the knowledge of the professional and the
>profession).
It might be useful to consider that tacit knowledge is the only real
knowledge - the source of some of our individual competencies. Explicit
knowledge, then, would be merely products what we use as excuses for our
actions, or to explain/guide the actions of others.
Some teachers and trainers seem to think that explicit knowledge is
something to be delivered, inserted and stored in people's memory. But
cognitive science is finding that memory doesn't work that way at all.
Rather, tacit knowledge is "constructed" through embodied
perception/action (continuous learning) experiences - including social
interaction and modeling, professional education, and yes, the in-context
interpretation of that stuff called explicit knowledge. And the tacit
knowledge is more a co-dependent tuning or resonance *between* person and
environment, than something to look for "inside" the body.
Just because we generate symbol and image items to communicate and document
explicit knowledge, doesn't mean those same items are inside us, and
causing our competencies. If Knowledge Management just deals with saving
and exchanging those items, and not with creating environments that enable
learning, then it will certainly be just a disappointing fad.
Regards,
John Hanna
--John Hanna <jh@hanna.connix.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>