Replying to LO24563 --
Dear Organlearners,
Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz> writes:
>I gave you something that you did not receive. I will share
>this with you once again for the last time least you "perish
>on the way seeking to find what you desire"
>
>The formula for your motives lies is in this simple concept.
>Do not rush to defend your point but think and experience
>what I am going to say and do not answer me, I have no need
>to pursue this point.
Greetings Gavin,
Thank you much for your consideration.
What I write on this list is intended to benefit all participants on this
list (including you and me) with their own learning. When I respond to a
fellow learner on a topic in the LO-dialogue, I always ask myself first --
will my reply help others with their own learning? When closer to the end
of my reply, I systematically begin to weed out any inadverted control
coming from me.
I can now do one of two things. I can bear only your learning in mind and
thus do as you wish. I can also bear the learning of others in mind and
thus respond to their wishes. A few expressed wishes like yours. A few
others expressed wishes to the contrary.
But what about the tacit (silent) majority of fellow learners? It reminds
me very much of our dialogue on the topic tacit knowledge. Some stressed
that it cannot be articulated, defending their point with Polanyi's
definition (1967, The tacit dimension of knowledge).
As a teacher trying to help others in learning, I have become much
sensitive to the tacit knowledge of the learner and how often failure
in learning is related to this "tacit knowledge cannot be
articulated".
How much more proof do I need than the rich, joyous and caring
lives which they now leading?
I experienced often teaching to less than 10 students and to more than 200
students in a class. In the former I helped each learner who desired to
overcome his/her tacit participation in learning. In the latter it is
impossible so that I had to learn how to become sensitive to their tacit
participations. My experiences in both cases helped me to learn that the
major reason why they choose the tacit mode is to protect themselves from
the hurt inflicted by others who want to control them, especially in their
learning.
The motto of a certain organisation is "Give us the child in its first
seven years and we will make it a fitting member for life in our
organisation." The same organisation has the practice "Shut up, listen
what the top brass has to say and learn it" You have lived in South Africa
too. Whether for or against that organisation, not only government, but
also too many other organisations here had been copying their system for
the well being of our country. We are now paying the price for it.
This list like most others have far more tacit than articulating learners.
They are called by the ugly (for me) word "lurkers". Is it not time for us
to learn why they are tacit learners?
Dear Gavin, I am smiling because what you are asking from me in your reply
LO24563 is to become a tacit learner. You have used my own desert
experiences to do so. Perhaps the imagination of some fellow learners is
not any more like it had been when they were kids. So let me spell it out
-- when going alone into the desert to learn, one becomes a tacit learner
with the advantage that nobody else is there to control one's learning so
that one has to take control of one's own learning.
I enjoy my tacit learning. I also enjoy my participation in LOs. Why
should I make a choice between the two?
What greater beauty is there than a child who is learning how to express
his/her daily experiences with the whole of his/her personality by
self-control of creativity in a constructive manner?
>Listen carefully.
(Snip)
>Do not defend your point.
>
>Here is the secret again.
(Snip)
>Remember the formula is the tension between: the hoped-for ideals,
>desires and our feared disadvantages, losses and dreads.
>
>This is how humans are controlled by the very values and mechanisms
>you mention in your paragraph.
>
>It controls you,
(Snip)
>Contemplated this and you will have learnt' something.
>
>Kindest
Dear Gavin, there are at least three questions which have to be
answered. You have succeeded in answering one of them.
How does the control happen?
Where does the control originate from?
What happens to our motivation when the source of
control shifts?
I leave it now to up to all fellow learners to answer the other two or
leave them unanswered. I leave it also up to them to express their answers
or remain silent about it. I leave it up to them to create other questions
on this issue, trying to answer some of them.
As for me, I will continue learning from their actions.
NO. On last thoughts -- tension (intensive differences) involves mainly
spareness. What about liveness, sureness, wholeness, fruitfulness,
otherness and openness? Paint a rich picture self in which they are
involved too!
With care and best wishes,
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.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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