Replying to LO28713 --
Dear LeOr-ers,
Three remarks.
1. Learning has a point, with or without a goal. My point of view: it
depends on your own point of view.
When you assume that people learn best with an attractive goal, you'll
probably structure ("enact") the world in ways that support that idea and
you'll see that it works that way. If you assume - as i do - that
evolution is learning and that evolution works without an predetermined
goal, you'll notice that the world works that way too. These two view
exist both, are both valid and true and work at the same time. We also
have different words for "goal": destination, purpose, reason, vision,
mission, focus. These different words reflect the different attitudes
towards learning with a goal. It is you who will make the difference. So
yes: there is a difference.... the difference is you. And it will make a
big difference too.
In one situation, the view with a goal may have a greater change for
succesful learning; in another, you'll have to choose for a goalless
approach. There may also be different levels: on one level of learning we
learn with a goal, on the next we do not. And also, we might have a goal
in our learning, but learn different lesson. In retrospect it is more easy
to say if the learning had a goal or not. Ours is an opportunistic world,
so choose the view that will make the best sense in the situation at hand.
And do remember to change perspective when stuck.
2. Lately, also stimulated by the idea of multiple personalities, the
concept of adaptive template filters returned to my mind.
A template filter is a filter - usually an electronic device - that looks
for a certain template in a back ground of noice. When there is a certain
pattern, like a certain bitrate with a fixed frequency, a template for
that frequency can pick it up the signal with an uncanny resolution. Noice
levels maybe hunderdtimes higher than the signal: it will be picked up.
That's how they're still communicating with the Pioneer satelites. If you
do not know the pattern before hand, but know that there should be a
pattern, you may design a filter that adapts its properties. Carefully
changing the template's parameters may give you suddenly a signal that
makes sense.
Our brain may work as a complex set of dedicated adaptive template
filters. We are pre-wired to detect certain patterns and once we've
detected a signal that may be a template, we start to rearrange the
parameters and "adapt" to the pattern. We all had the ability to learn any
language, but as we heard our mothers speak, we started to adapt to that
voice. Our filters learn to recognize the different sounds and tones, add
the pictures and the meaning. Even the working of our muscles - physiology
- is adapted too. The parameters get "locked" and therefor it becomes hard
to learn a new language later (or to pronounce the Dutch "g"). Recently, i
read that very young babies are able to recognize and learn the different
faces of apes. After a few weeks, this faculty diminishes and only
differences between human faces are "learned". A person's personality
might be a set of loadable feedback-parameters, sensitisers for the
filters. When i'm in the father role, i hear, see, act and speak
differently, in another voice. As i'm typing, the LO-contributor role is
searching for meaning in the language and the senses for sensemaking are
activated.
3. The issue of the environement - and forced learning, "Luctor et Emergo"
- is even more complicated. I'll come back to it later,
Kind regards,
Jan
Minnigh wrote:
> Recently, some strange thoughts developed in my mind. One of them is an
> off spring of the dialogue on organizational learning through the learning
> of the individual employees.
>
> The following question arised in my mind:
>
> Is there a difference between learning with a goal, and learning without
> such attractive focus in the future?
--With kind regards - met vriendelijke groeten,
Jan Lelie
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