Dear Organlearners,
Leo Minnigh <l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl> writes:
>I am afraid that my time with the children is too short to build
>a relationship that is open enough to share my own learning
>and thinking steps with the kids. I am not really afraid, I have
>the guts. But I think that somehow there should be a bond
>between teacher and children. I even have an example in mind:
>preparing an expedition to an area also unknown for me. Starting
>with a map of that area, gathering the necessary information,
>why I need that info, what type of information I can already get
>from the map, etc. So finally the whole class could see how and
>why, could see side thoughts, etc. Such preparation of an
>expedition could be a marvellous example of an expedition not only
>to an unknown and undiscovered area, but also an expedition into
>the thinking and learning landscape. Maybe I will use this example
>during a future experiment.
Greetings Leo,
One of only three out of many classes which transformed into a LO (the
term LO was not known in those days) were the 7B's of 1974 (?). I was
their "guardian" teacher as well as their science teacher. Their
transformation began with exactly what you have in mind.
In the first week of school a few of them expressed the idea that we as a
class should go camping together. I put the idea before the class and we
decided to do so the first long weekend. I knew about an extraodinary
place called Venterskroon some 40 kilometer away from the town
(Potcefstroom). See if you can find them on your maps. Potcefstroom is
roughly 180 km from Johannesburg and Venterskroon is south of
Potchefstroom next to the Vaalriver. It had a shop, a post office, a
police station and a couple of houses. Perhaps your maps do not have
enough detail to show this tiny village.
Only one pupil had visited Venterskroon before.
I said to the class that I will arrange with the owners of a farm at
Venterskroon to accept us as campers. But as for the rest of the camping,
they will have to arrange for everything. Furthermore, we will all go by
bicycle from Potchefstroom to Venterskroon on a quiet road. The convoy of
bicycles should under no circumstance stretch out to longer than 500
meter. Those fit enough to do the trip, will have to help the others who
will find it very difficult to ride that full distance. (Some pupils even
had to learn in the meantime how to ride a bicycle!) They could ask their
parents to take some of the food and luggage for them by car to the
camping place, but otherwise the whole expedition was off limits for
parents. Me and my wife would act as their guardians.
After 20 km a most fantastic thing began to happen. The unfit pupils (boys
and girls) could not go on further. So the fit ones had to encourage them
to keep on riding and even make plans how to tow those who could not
respond anymore physically. It was a tired group (fit and unfit) who
arrived at the farm. But tired as they were, some managed to prepare food
while others tried to recouperate. After eating the river draw them like a
magnet with its fast rapids and still pools. Swimming in the cool water
helped to wash the last tiredness from each one. That night I told them
ancient folklore of Europe until most of them could not keep their eyes
open.
On the trip back some parents (curiously waiting along the road) could
not take it any more that their children were willing to "punish
themselves". So after 30 km I gave them permission to take those children
who really could not manage it. But most of the children were determined
to finish the trip, even with the help of their peers, but not their
parents!
The experiences during that long weekend were burnt forever in the minds
of these children. They experienced how to emerge into a LO.
This narrative will be uncomplete if I do not tell about the environment
which had an important influence on the whole expedition. The topography
of the town Potchefstroom itself is very flat while the topography of its
surrounding region is moderately flat with low hills on the horizon. In
fact, as one goes westwards and southwards, this flat topography become
the outstanding feature of the landscape. For example, some 1000 km
further westwards one have the great, flat dry "lakes" of Bushmanland --
one of the desert regions of South Africa. It is on one of them,
Verneukpan, which Sir Donald Cambell set up his world record for speed on
land.
But south-south-west of Potcehfstroom on the other side of the Vaalriver
is another small town called Vredefort. It is the centre of one of the
geological wonders of the world, the centre of the so-called "Vredefort
dome". In prehistoric times a gigantic meteorite hit the earth at
Vredefort, penetrating deep into the earth, splashing molten magma and
deeper layers in concentric circles around Vredefort up to distances of
some 800 km. Many of the mineral riches (gold, platinum, vanadium,
manganese, iron, chrome, etc.) of South Africa seems to have orginated
from this catastrophe. One look at a geological map of South Africa is
enough to guide the eye to this mysterious place called Vredefort.
One can even picture how this impact of this meteorite was so great that
it shifted the rotation axis of the earth to inclinate with its axis of
rotation around the sun. Thus, as a result of this ensueing inclination,
seasons began to appear because of the uneaven heating of the earth. The
massive amounts of water vapour in the atmosphere at labile equilbrium had
to pour down as a true deluge of rain because of the increased entropy
production. Even the continents, then all together as one Gondwanaland,
had to shear apart and then gradually drift away. Long before Wiegner
formulated his theory of continental drifts, a one A E du Toit already
proposed this theory. But since it came from a South African, nobody felt
even worthwhile to take notice of such a crack-pot theory.
While we rode the last 10 km to Venterskroon, the children had ample
opportunity to observe the outcomes which this theory proposes. The flat
landscape suddenly changes. The road begins to wind down steep slopes.
>From the inside of this canyon/gorge/valley, these slopes look like high
mountains. But from the outside, approaching the gorge, no mountains can
be seen, but only the moderately flat landscape. For most of its more than
1000 km course, the Vaalriver runs through essentialy flat landscape. Most
of these children have crossed the Vaalriver at many places along its
meandering course in its flat landscape. But suddenly they experienced how
the river rushes down this gorge, forming beautiful alternating pools and
rapids. The whole gorge has an extremely ancient feeling to it, almost as
ancient as the "Vredefort Dome" which opens up this gorge. The next day
some of the children took a walk in the relic of an ancient forest with
some gigantic trees older than a thousand years.
I am sure that the surprise of such a great change in the landscape so
familiar to them opened them up for changes between them other than that
which they were familar to. These authentic "mitsein" changes helped them
to emerge into a learning organisation.
That class kept on functioning as a LO even after I had to leave the
school after the following year, coming to Pretoria. But teachers during
their last two years at school often told me what a priviledge it was to
teach this class. They never gave the teachers any opportunity to drive
them as slaves or scold them as delinquents. In fact, these children
almost succeeded in making their teachers feeling obsolete, as if they are
able to manage their learning without the help of the teachers.
>My main problem is that it is very difficult to find the balance
>between attention to the whole group and the whole process
>on the one hand, and the attention I like to give to the individual.
>This needs an alertness and needs all my senses at the same
>moment. And the teacher also should have senses for the silent
>and quiet pupils in the class. So I should also be sensitive for
>the non-signals. I never realised that this job is such a learning
>experience, but also very tiresome. In the short moments of
>reflection, it inspired me enormously.
Thank you Leo for describing so exquisitely the complex task of a teacher.
It reminds me of last Monday evening. Jessica's school presented a
Christmas carol for parents (and grandparents!) She is in form 1.
Hundreds of children from form 1 to form 7 participated in this carol in
three acts. She, even as form 1 kid, played a prominint role in last act.
She is very sensitive to and serious about her "mitsein" role in life.
Just after her part, the school choir consisting of form 6 and 7 kids
began to sing with a teacher singing the lead role. He had a rich baritone
voice going into the tenor register. But the most fantastic of the whole
performance was the incredible "mitsein" harmony with which they did it.
Many parents in the audience began to cry spontaneously -- me and my wife
also. The hall was filled with the spirit of a learning organisation.
People were so stunned that for a while they forgot to clap their hands
after the performance.
Afterwards Jessica said to me:
(Afrikaans with an interlinear English translation)
Oupa, jy het nie gedink dat ons dit kan doen nie.
[Grandpa, you have not thought that we it can do not.]
It summarises the learning spirit of these kids. What they do with their
"mitsein" creativity seems to be unsurmountably diffcult problems for us
thinking in terms of "dassein" creativity.
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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