Replying to LO28732 --
Dear Organlearners,
Terje Tonsberg <tatonsberg@hotmail.com> writes:
>Fred writes:
>>I think the proper starting point is what we mean by
>>"learning." Doubtless, we all mean many things by it
>>and therein lies much of the difficulty.
>
>As a slight digression from Fred's correct observation, I
>think the best way to look at learning is as change. This
>change might be apparent through a person's behavior,
>writing and speech, or it might be hidden in the sense of
>changes in thinking and/or neurological changes.
Greetings dear Terje,
Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply. In it I am reminded of many
stages in my own path of learning.
I do agree with Fred and you that learning has different meanings for
different people. That is why I carefully wrote that I will focus on the
act of learning itself without which things like knowledge, information,
teaching and education would not have existed. Perhaps I have made one
error by not having stated explicitly that it concerns the act of learning
in an individual.
Thinking of learning as change is for me not enough. When I began teaching
in 1972, after having done reseach on soils using irreversible
termodynamics, I soon observed the irreversible nature of the act of
learning in pupils. Only much later, studying Michael Polanyi's book
Personal Knowledge (1958) I was struck by his observation on pp 75-76 that
the act of learning is irreversible. (Thank you once again Fred for
sending me another copy of this book.) The reason why Polanyi was able to
make this incredible observation is that he was originally a physical
chemist. A knowledge of irreversible changes is crucial in the
understanding of physical chemistry.
I also made a second observation which I could not explain, but saw each
day in those pupils who excelled in learning, despite my teaching. They
were learning by creating. I could not explain why it was like that, nor
could I find any book giving me even a clue to a possible explanation. It
took me many years to figure it out self.
The act of learning is for me self an irreversible change, sustained by
creativity, which results in an increased personal knowledge.
>I think also that the only way to handle the problem of
>"what is learning?" is to categorize learning in the manner
>that Gagne, Engelmann and others have done. If this is
>not done, it is difficult not to stumble and fall into untenable
>generalizations. For example, people often tend to think of
>memorizing as bad and understanding as good. This again
>leads to people taking postion against memorizing in general
>and rote learning, when it is actually a prerequisite to much
>understanding.
I think that chemistry is one of the most difficult subjects to teach if
the teacher/lecturer want his/her pupils to act creatively in chemistry.
The reasons are many -- the immense number of topics to be covered, the
vast nomenclature of compounds, the abstract nature of chemistry on
molecular level, mapping between the molecular level and macrosopic
observable properties, etc.
In 1976 I began to experiment with categorisations like that of Bloom,
Gagne, Piaget and others to see if it could not help the students to
perform better. To my surprise, these categorisations helped those
students who learned chemistry rotely, but those who began to learn
chemistry creatively to act creatively with it, these categorisations
helped little and sometime became even stumbling blocks. I thought it
curious that these categorisations did not enhance the creativity of
students in chemistry, but again at first I could not explain it.
I decided to follow a different route by designing learning objectives
which would enhance creative chemistry, not using one single known
categorisation. The success of the students using these objectives was
almost unbelievable. I decided to look for a possible categorisation among
these objectives. I found three categories and their strange nature
compelled me. Before me were three of the 7Es (seven essentialities of
creativity) -- liveness, sureness and wholeness -- but I did not know it
at that time since I had not yet discovered the 7Es.
As a result of following this different route, I began to understand what
the different existing categorisations were doing. They were
categorisations on knowledge (the outcome of learning) pushed back into
the act of learning itself. Now as a chemist I knew for sure that one
cannot make the categorisation of compounds (the outcome of reaction
mechanisms) also the categorisation of the mechanisms. Mechanisms
(becomings) had their own categorisation which differs much from the
categorisation of the compounds (beings). This made me very wary of
importing any epistemology into the act of learning.
>Of course, the focus is on teaching for these people,
>rather than learning, but I feel they are really two sides
>of the same coin. After all, teaching is about helping
>another person learn.
One of the things which I learned, but oh, so slowly, is not to confuse
teaching with learning. In the late eighties I discovered a logic of
commands. With it I was able to derive many rules of teaching, but not a
single one pertaining to learning. This convinced me not trying to
understand learning from the viewpoint of teaching. I must try to
understand learning as an act in its own right.
Yes, you are right, teaching is to help another person to learn. But
gradually I began to learn that teaching involves more than individual
learning. In the forthcoming essay Uncovering the Act of Organisational
Learning I will sketch my own understanding.
>Therefore, one might say that teaching and learning
>are the same thing with regards to deep learning. The
>only difference is that one can be a better teacher for
>oneself because of ones knowledge of one's own
>experiences, thoughts, assessments and other events
>hidden to others. This makes one better able to judge
>what triggers one's own learning and what is needed
>at a specific stage.
I agree to this "teach yourself" as you have articulated it. Yet there is
also the other complement which we have to bear in mind, "teach others".
But it always have to be done with respect to the "teach yourself" as the
primary directive.
>This was a quick summary of a 350 page book,
>called "Theory of instruction," so I have hardly
>given it full treatment...
[by Engelmann]
Thank you very much for what you have done.
>I believe that even the 7Es has to start with a routine.
>This is the most effective way to start because otherwise
>one is just reinventing the wheel in the manner of
>Rousseau's Emile, (and this is where Rousseau is
>horrendously wrong.) The emphasis should be on
>learning what can be learnt from others, even memorizing,
>but then make a conscious effort to improve learning, learn
>deeper, by exposure to more examples, especially ones
>where one is personnaly involved. That is why I have a real
>problem with the way concepts of discovery learning,
>situational learning, etc. (which are really variations of
>Roussea's ideas) are often applied. These methods are
>extremely ineffective compared to empirically supported
>teaching methods (whether applied to oneself or others)
>except at a level where one already masters relevant
>knowledge forms at a sufficient level. At that level, of
>course, they become the only way to learn anyway.
Dear Terje, I understand your problem. It was for a very long time my
problem too. Discovery learning, situational learning, etc., takes a lot
of time and in a over crowded chemistry course and over crowed lecture
halls (hundreds of students) it causes immense problems. But I finally
found a solution for it after having discovered the Digestor.
We will have to go back to the observation which I made soon after
becoming a teacher, namely that learning is irreversible. The property
"irreversible" is nothing else that entropy gets produced. Prigogine began
to notice that emergent phenomena are always associated with a highly
irreversible process. He succeeded in creating a theoretical model called
the Brusselator to simulate what happens when a highly irreversible
process leads to an emergence. As the entropy production steps up, a
bifurcation point is reached at the so-called "edge of chaos" where the
system either emerge to a higher order or immerge to a lower order.
What Progogine and his school of thinkers could not do, is to find the
criteria by which we would know in advance what the bifurcation will
result into. I was also studying emergent phenomena and were just as
dumbfounded like them. Whereas Prigogine and co-workers began to talk of
the "end of certitude", I began to wonder seriously if these criteria were
not part of the implicate order so that they could not be articulated
directly. But then I discovered the 7Es and immediately knew that I hit
the jackpot. They enabled me to predict, at first making a lot of errors
because of not understanding the 7Es well enough, the outcome of a
bifurcation.
Meanwhile "living at the edge of chaos" became a fashion phrase. It
irritated me much because just as I observed the chaos just before a
learner gets a bright idea and the excitement afterwards, I also observed
how the same learner later would calmly explore a topic with the new idea.
After the discovery of the Digestor I began to understand why. The
Brusselator works at high entropy production and leads to a higher order,
but only barely so. The Digestor works at low entropy production where
this higher order gets a body. Think of the Brusselator providing for a
"vertical jump" and the Digestor providing for a "horisontal growth"
Since then it became easy for me to know when to guide the learner into
disovery learning. It is when that learner needs a "knowledge kernel" (a
noble thought) in a topic to digest all the information available on that
topic. It is then when the Rousseau- Pestalozzi insight becomes
imperative.
>My comment:
>
>At, what do you mean by the act of learning?
Learning is the process leading to such things as knowledge, didactics and
education (as well as many other things), but which is none of them, nor
can be known by knowing them.
>At said:
>
>>Europe probably would never have awakened to
>>education again were it not >for the Arabic civilisation
>>who took a serious interest in learning. While Europeans
>>were drilling their students in past information as
>>knowledge, the Arabs began to explore the unknown
>>once again. After the introduction of the Islamic religion,
>>this process accelerated.
(snip)
>What are you refering to here? Who are the people
>that had "knowledge of life in general"?
I meant with "knowledge of life in general" a "comprehensive knowledge",
i.e. a knowledge which is not fragmented.
>While awaiting your reply, probably the most basic
>reasons for the blooming of knowledge in the first 300
>years or so of the muslim calendar was that the state
>was rich and the rulers were preoccupied with science
>and knowledge in general. In fact many of them were
>scholars themselves or at least highly learned and many
>of them were excellent poets.
I once did a study of the history of mathematics, chemistry and medicine
among the Arab culture to get a closer feeling of the dynamics of the Arab
civilisation. It began to bloom in the 6th century. By the time the
Prophet Mohammed (PM) began to operate, it far surpassed the staleness of
European civilisation in these three subject. PM's assertion that "the ink
of scholars is more precious than the blood of martyrs" and that "leaders
should consult emminent scholars first" made Islamic leaders seek
intellectual treasures of their subject provinces ranging from Spain to
China.
>Also contributing was the fact that the Arabs also
>believed that iscovering God's creation was a religious
>virtue, and particularly in the areas of astronomy,
>geography, medicine and anything else with practical
>benefits to the public. On the other hand, they tended
>to shun metaphysics and delving into the details of what
>the Greeks called theology, but the necessity of
>intellectually defending the creed of the Islamic faith
>against imported ideas from other cultures, such as the
>ancient Greek, Persian and Indian ones, led to a highly
>developed, as they called it, "science of monotheism."
I wish I did an in depth study of their philosophy. What I still remember
is what I incidently came across. There were many Arab philosophers, but
their philosophy tended to the practical rather than the theoretical.
>The peak of this science was probably the
>appearance of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali who wrote a
>book called "the downfall of the philosophers", which
>basically eliminated the spread of Aristotlean thought
>in muslim communities. He said "I learned philosophy
>until I knew it better than them, and since Aristotle is
>the greatest of them, by taking care of him I take care
>of the rest..."
(snip)
al-Ghazali declared reason and all its works to be bankrupt. Experience
and the understanding that grew out of it were not to be trusted; they
could say nothing meaningful about the reality of Allah. Only the Quran
led to worthwhile knowledge. Philosophy was a snare, leading the unwary to
the pits of Hell. By the time of his death in 1111, free scientific
investigation, philosophical dialogues and tolerance for religions
different to Islam were rapidly declining. By about 1200 new discoveries
in mathematics, chemistry and medicine were things of the past.
>What was perhaps a unique contribution of the Arabs
>is that they combined the pragmatic, experimental
>approach of their culture with the emphasis on analogy
>of the Greeks, which is basically the framework of science
>(and learning) that is still in use today.
We should not forget the intellectual treasures from Persia, India and
even China which they incorporated in the same manner. I find in the
following a curious analogy with what happend 600 years later in Europe.
By the end of the 8th century Chinese paper-making technology (using
fibrous plants) reached Samarkand on the eastern border of the Islamic
empire. It became far cheaper and easier to write information on paper
than hide or papyrus. By the end of the 9th century most books were
written on paper. Information which exists outside began to replace
knowledge which live within. The Golden Era of the Arab culture became a
ruthless Islamitic Empire. When the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1256 the
Islamic Empire ended.
>At said:
>
>>By the 11th century knowledge in the Arab world was
>>at a high point while knowledge in Europe was at its
>>lowest point. However, even in Arab literature little can
>>be find on the act of learning itself, despite all the
>>subjects in which they excelled.
>
>My comment:
>
>This comes back to your definition of learning, but on the
>surface I'd have to disagree. The entire literature of Sufism
>is about self-discovery and improvement. What is somewhat
>less widespread are books plainly labeled "education" and
>the like. In education emphasis was on reading, writing,
>having kids memorize and understand small texts or poems
>on religous duties and on memorizing the Quran. (snip)
As far as I understand it, Sufism was a synthesis of Persian and Indian
mysticisms to serve the Islam religion. Since Arabic philosophy was too
pragmatic, a need for spiritual contemplation existed. Sufism supplied in
this need. Sufism did not focus primarily on teaching, knowledge or
education and even less on the act of learning.
>At said:
>
>>It is becomes clearer to me how people who have
>>crammed lots of information in their heads by
>>processes which they have been told are learning,
>>but have little knowledge by way inner development,
>>have little capacity to act.
>
>My comment:
>
>Regarding capacity, do you think it is it because of
>willingness or ability or something else? What acts
>are you talking about?
I think of capacity as both the ability and the propensity to act in a
given context in terms of what one knows. I am speaking of all creative
acts rather repeating procedures mechanically.
>I still really miss an explanation on what you mean
>by learning. Yet from the above I get the feeling that
>you mean to understand the wider consequence of
>nes actions and then act accordingly. It even looks as
>a value judgement involved when you said "the rich trying
>every heartless trick..." With all the Homer Simpsons out
>there, I don't think this learning can be achieved on a mass
>scale.
Dear Terje, I specifically avoided in "History of Uncovering the Act of
Learning" telling of my own understanding of learning. Obviously my own
understanding does influence how I describe that history and what I
selected to describe.
I am deeply under the impression that when society is heading for a
disaster, part of it is caused by a way of thinking about learning which
keeps society on course to the disaster.
I agree that my observation "the rich trying every heartless trick..."
may be a value judgement. But I live in a part of the world where
education is not for all. Almost half of the people in our country are
illiterate. In countries north of us it is even far worse. Only those who
can afford education get education.
Our own country is trying to correct illiteracy with mass education based
on rote learning, even though many children are still excluded. The
effects of those who manage to complete school have drastic consequences
on our universities. Several research studies have shown that between 25%
and 40% of first year students are functionally illiterate and innumerate.
It means that they cannot read, write and calculate at a level required
for the information sources which they have to consult.
>As for the so called die-off, other complex crises and
>the capacity to change. I tend to believe that it is not a
>lack of capacity that is the main issue in the sense of
>having the tools and the energy, but it is more of a
>fundamental psychological problem that holds true for
>most people.
(snip)
>As for the predicted oil/energy crises, I don't think
>such support can be achieved, because the immediate
>sacrifices required would be very large, for something
>very distant, vague and not likely to be relevant to ones
>own person -- in the eyes of most.
Should our western education run on the same patterns when die-off looms
in the not too distant future? What knowledge do we need to act for
survival rather than for die-off for billions of humans? Do we know enough
of the act of learning resulting in knowledge, or is it not time to
explore anew the act of learning?
I have studied the rise and fall of many civilisation through the eyes of
as many scholars possible on each. Eventhough I get seldom information on
the act of learning itself, I came to the conclusion that as soon as the
act of learning (tacitly, no information) or the educational setup
(articulated, much information) are conformed to a particular model to
serve the interests of that section of the civilisation favoured by its
rise, its fall becomes engineered too.
Knowing is an art and not an industry. When knowing becomes an industry,
learning begins to suffer because learning for any human is living.
Learning which will lead to dying is inhuman.
Thank you Terje for telling how you understand it. This gives me much
neeeded opportunity to question my own understanding and then articulate
it.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.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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