Dear Organlearners,
Douglas Max <dmax@bellatlantic.net> writes:
> Let me add this to the "pot" and see if the picture doesn't become
> richer...
Greetings Doug,
I should have done other preparatory things, but while clearing up my
email box, I remembered that I wanted to reply to your contribution.
Allow me to do so. But I will not be able to keep up the dialogue for
a couple of weeks.
You have painted the picture much richer by pointing to prevailing
outlooks in Andragogy and Pedagogy. Thank you.
Let me first summarise the "deemster problem". One of the elementary
sustainers of creativity and thus learning is the dialogue. We use a
dialogue to paint a collective (common) mental picture. In a dialogue
we ought to make use of many different mental activities
(OE="deman"). Unfortunately, when we converge on judgement ("deem")
as one of these many mental activities, the dialogue breaks up. A few
people continue with monologues to.paint for others their individual
mental pictures. The rest become "lurkers" to paint quietly for
themselves their own mental pictures. Hence, sadly, the dialogue is
not available any more to sustain our creativity and learning.
In order to judge, we need a standard with which we can make
comparisons. This standard has to have some properties to make it
suitable for judgements. We ought to articulate these properties, but
usually we are at most tacitly aware of them. Hence, when we have to
look for a standard, we look to ourselves where our tacit knowledge
of these properties resides. Usually we also find the standard in
ourselves. Consequently, when we judge, it goes like this: "I speak
true and you speak false, I do right and you do wrong".
We can judge almost anything as true/false and right/wrong. It is
even possible to judge systems thinking. This is the point which I
think Doug is trying to make.
> I believe that the difference in Androgogy and Pedagogy might illustrate
> the beginnings of the problems...and that WE (the experts in examining
> teaching and learning, etc) are the cause of the "problem."
>
> In Pedagogy, we say that children are "empty cups" and that we as teachers
> should "pour" into them information to help them form models/structures to
> hold their experience.....
(snip)
> In Androgogy, we believe adults have models/structures that are built up
> from experience... (snip) ... the method is to help adults learn through
> self-discovery.
Doug then questions the judgement on our system thinking by asking
the great relativity question:
> I wonder if we've got these beliefs about learning right. Maybe we should
> reverse the applications to children and adults and see what happens?
Now what exactly is the topic in the system thinking here? I think it
is a complex topic.
The etymology of Androgogy and Pedagogy is "andros"=man,
"paedos"=child and "ago"=lead. Doug notes that adults and children
are "lead" in almost opposite manners to learn, that the AGE of the
learner seems to play a FIXED role in judging which manner of
learning should be followed.
I think that AGE is indeed a major topic (part) in the complex topic.
But there is also another major topic (part) in the complex topic. It
is reflected by Doug's usage of words such as "empty cups", "pour",
information, experience, model/structures, hold, etc. What will we
call it? I will call it the topic CONTENT/FORM. In pedagogy the
viewpoint is that the child has to be given form to hold content. In
andragogy the viewpont is that the adult has to be given content to
fill up the form.
In other words, the complex topic here can be summarised by the
equation AGE + CONTENT/FORM.
What a wierd complex topic! Do you have any topic in your system
thinking which even faintly matches to it? Do you think that your
system thinking even has to give an account of this wierd topic? What
is the role of this wierd topic in your organisations? Should we even
try to give a single name to this wierd complex topic?
I firmly believe that this wierd complex topic is one of the most
important ones we should have a never ending dialogue on. It is
vitally important to any organelle, organ, organism, organisation and
organon. They will lose their vitality and eventually die by any
premature judgement on this wierd complex topic. So what will we call
this wierd complex topic?
One name which might speak clearer to you, is "evolution of
complexity".A certain species of birds some million years ago,
already complex, evolved into a whole family of birds consisting of
many genera and many species in each genus. A sigote (fusion of sperm
and egg gametes), already complex, evolves in the womb into a
complexer baby ready to be born. A child, already complex, evolves
into an even complexer adult. An organisation, already complex,
evolves into an even complexer learning organisation. A certain idea
millenia ago, for example, Plato's idea of philosophy (love for
truth) evolved in many academical faculties and many subjects in each
faculty.
In each example above the parts become more numerous and diverse.
They are the content. Their mutual differences give rise to the form.
We think of the content and form together as organisation.
The "evolution of complexity" may easily become part of the deemster
problem when person A judge another person B to be at a certain
stage of what A assumes to be the "evolution of complexity". To use
almost the same words as Doug: "Shut up, listen and evolve where I
have put you." To put it even more strongly, person A has usurped
arrogantly predestination to control the life of person B.
In complexity science itself, the interaction between
"predestination" (or determinism as it is usually called there) and
the "evolution of complexity" is becoming a very hotly debated topic.
It is a topic which we also on this list should paint richly with our
dialogues.
In my own system thinking, I do not speak of the "evolution of
complexity", but rather of the "content of creativity".(It consists
of topics such as entropy production, chaos, bifurcation, order,
revolution, evolution, etc.) I must probably be mad to complexify a
complex picture even more. But I have a very good reason for doing it
which some of you probably may have already guessed. Note the word
"content" in "content of creativity". Replace it with the word "form"
to get "form of creativity". Now what do I mean by "form of
creativity"? For "evolution of complexity" I can reformulate it as
the "fundamental patterns of complexity".What then are these
"fundamental patterns of complexity"? Nothing else than the seven
essentialities of creativity (complexity, learning).
Maybe the above will help you to get another insight on the
essentialities. Each essentiality helps to give form to content. Each
essentiality helps you to position yourself in the "evolution of
complexity".rather than letting others do the job on you or for you.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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