Yesterday I was thinking about something that really intrigues me. It is
very easy to teach a child what "ball" and "car" mean: we show her the
objects. It is also very easy to teach a child what "to eat" and "to run"
mean: we demonstrate him the action. However, it is quite difficult to
teach a child what "to mean" or "to may" mean.
However, and despite the difficulty, a parent seldom has to worry about it
because a mother or a father even more seldom has to explain their child
what words such as these mean. The child learns their meaning by herself!
I guess, he hears the word and does not separate it from its context (a
thing that we, adults, usually do for convinience purposes). In later
occurences of the same word he recalls the prior attributed meaning and
checks its consistency. I don't really know if what I am saying is exactly
as I put it. I'm just a curious trying to make sense of things.
The reason why bring these thoughts to this list is because the children
learning process may help explaining the mechanism behind an
organization's learning process. There usually is nobody in an
organization telling people how to behave, how to feel the organization's
spirit, how to pursue the organization's vision. However, we want them to
know it. And if that is what we want, we need to create an environment
where this learning process (such a peculiar one) is facilitated and
fostered. But how? What could be that environment?
Any ideas?
Ana Neves
--"Neves, Ana L." <ana.neves@pt.unisys.com>
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