Learning About Learning

The fourth view of education, and the one I propose as the most basic and far-reaching, is to see Learning as Growth. This view has four components: insight, mastery of cognitive tools, skill development and transformation.

The first aspect of Learning as Growth is development of insight. Insight, which goes beyond simple comprehension, is the essential foundation to learning. When we have insight, we “get it.” There is a thrill involved here which transcends ages and cultures. We are able to understand a problem or principle, and we can understand how to extend this understanding to similar or derivative issues. Education without insight development is robotic rote learning, a mind-numbing spirit-killer.

The second aspect of Learning as Growth is mastery of cognitive tools. Mastery of these tools, through strategic storytelling, can lay the foundation for insight. The cognitive and cultural tools that Egan (following a line of thought from Vygotsky - read more here) focuses on are the really basic ones of the 3 Rs: reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic. Egan’s full concept is more sophisticated than that, but it does begin with the basic tools of language, of mathematics, of scientific concepts, and of a sense of historical development. The genius of Egan’s perspective (read more here) is centered on this essential and basic content of education. But the means of transmission is equally vital: imaginative storytelling. Our children and youth must recapture the adventure of exploratory learning, and they do so by experiencing the saga of cultural and historical development in literature, in math and science, and in the great lessons of history. As long as we do not kill the spirit of this wonderful series of stories through analytical detachment and dismemberment into subsidiary drills and mind-numbing “exercises,” we have a very good chance of passing on the adventure and challenge of learning, of helping learners to master the basic tools of language, invention and logical thought. We must take great care in how we teach, and in this aspect, we are in debt to one of the central emphases of the Progressives, reborn these days as “critical inquiry.”

Followers of Jesus Christ have a powerful heritage, a metanarrative which holds all else together. Familiarity with the biblical stories, the faith that produced them and the communities of faiths that they have produced, forms a set of key spiritual tools which complement and fulfill the cultural tools we provide in a rounded education. Understanding and insight grounded in faith are indeed powerful tools that will enable our youth to be ready for the world of next week, next year, next decade, and the rest of their no-doubt challenging lives. There are other powerful metanarratives in other faith traditions and ideological systems, sometimes overlapping. What great and grand story pulls everything together for you? Whether you know it or not, whether you make it conspicuous or not, your understanding of the metanarrative of life and existence (or the lack of a cohesive one) will color how you teach and interact.

Storytelling can once again become a powerful force for education. It was used of old and can be recovered in this age of computer and DVD. But the themes we address in our storytelling must be noble, deep and worth our keen attention, not the mere formulaic drivel of most storytelling as entertainment. In mathematics and science there are fascinating stories behind each of the principles and discoveries, and we rob ourselves and our heritage when we define education in each of its constituent element as divorced from its developmental context. This is a key tenet of situated learning, which grew out of the brilliant observations of Vygotsky.

The third aspect of Learning as Growth is skill development (read more here - Romiszowski’s Psychomotor Learning Perspective). Learning a subject or skill must continue until “automaticity” is achieved, in other words, until it is mastered, and the mastery is shown in an automatic response that requires no deep pondering, but has become part of one’s identity. Romiszowski’s insights tie in well with those from Vygotsky and the Community of Practice perspective.

The fourth and culminating aspect of Learning as Growth is transformation. (read more here) Because of its intimate connection with mentoring, transformation is key to insight development and thus to lasting change in values and behavior. This is done in Christian circles through “discipleship,” and insights from the Community of Practice perspective are very helpful in understanding many of the processes. I believe in an Author of all truth, who enlightens everyone. So these principles are universal, as far as I can see.

View 3: Learning as self-actualization - In the tradition of Rousseau, Dewey and “progressives” in educational circles, there is careful attention to the needs of the individual, to his or her learning styles and developmentally appropriate activities, to the discovery of basic principles and their application, and to a great deal of student autonomy. The teacher is a facilitator, manager of resources, and coordinator of cooperative learning on the part of the group of learners.

So what’s wrong with this view? This view is fundamentally a reformist one, seeking to correct the emphasis on rote learning and the over-regimentation of the “factory model” of education (see for example the posts on The ‘Official’ Theory of Learning, Key Trends in the History of Education and Traditionalist Philosophy of Education). There is much to admire and preserve in this view. However, it has some basic flaws in the way that education is conceptualized, or more often, in the way that its practitioners carry out progressivist education.

Dewey, one of the primary reformers and “saints” in the progressivist movement, felt toward the end of his life that the movement to which he had devoted his life had in large part missed the point of what he and other progressivist pioneers had been seeking to do – to energize education with the dynamism of authentic, relevant learning. (Examine a quote by Cohen concerning Dewey) The goal had been missed because each person in effect became the measure of whether or not learning had occurred. If View 1 sees social roles and functions as being the central determinants in designing learning, and View 2 sees content as king, then View 3 has come to define learning by the individual. If the heritage of the progressive movement in education can be summed up in self-actualization, then precious essentials have been lost.

One measure of self-actualization is that it helps you find and develop the “real you.” There are logical and practical problems with this perspective. How can we help you find the “real you” if you don’t know who you are? Or what if we do help you find the “real you,” but the “real you” is a lazy degenerate who only wants to gamble and drink? Or, more charitably, could there have been a “better you” if you had been challenged and enabled to go beyond yourself to become someone that neither you nor your teachers could have quite imagined? Self-actualization is good as a by-product, but not as a fundamental goal of education.

Kieran Egan, the professor of education mentioned earlier, points out some of these basic conflicts in a startling book, Wrong From the Beginning:

“The academic commitment to shaping the mind by teaching disciplined forms of understanding isn’t compatible with the belief that the minds of different people can be optimally developed by knowledge chosen to suit their particular style of learning, kind of intelligence, needs and interests. One cannot have two masters, especially when both mandate different things. We can’t construct a coherent educational institution using radically different criteria.

But, of course, that’s precisely what we require of our schools today. We require that they acknowledge, and accommodate as far as possible, different styles of learning and different ends of the process for different people. “Education” for one child may have a quite different character from that attained by another; quite different “potentials” might be developed and each be an example of successful education. We require also that the academic ideal be acknowledged, which recognizes education only in the degree to which minds are shaped by progress in understanding the range of disciplines. The result, of course, is not a coherent curriculum, but one that tries to accommodate both conflicting principles. The result, also, is perpetual strife by adherents of the conflicting principles, fighting about which should have greater influence over children’s education.”

Thankfully, Egan helps us to solve this puzzle. The fourth and last view that we will examine next will contain integrating principles that will help us form sound and effective educational goals.

“You haven’t taught until they have learned,” cautions Howard Hendricks, a famous author and teacher at Dallas Seminary, echoing the best of the progressivist tradition. This down-to-earth measure of effectiveness is sobering. We are called on as mentors, instructors and facilitators of learning to motivate learners as well as to convey information and to cultivate skills to them. This single sentence is one of the most valuable insights from View 3: “If they haven’t learned, you haven’t taught.” I didn’t hear that sentence until I had been a “teacher” for over 15 years, and it rocked me to my core. This is the heart of what is valuable about the progressivist tradition of Dewey and the reformers.

There is much to be treasured and preserved from View 3, but as it stands it cannot be the sole or primary determinant of educational goals.

View 2: Learning as knowledge acquisition - students have a specified, preferably uniform curriculum which will not only prepare them for societal roles but enable them to extend their knowledge, share it with others and improve both their own lives and society in general. Again, the teacher is an authoritarian figure–a subject-matter expert. The key figure in this philosophical tradition is Plato.

So what’s wrong with this view? The biggest problem is that “knowledge” keeps increasing steadily. There have been many attempts to define “core knowledge” necessary at say, middle school or high school levels. These days that attempt is ongoing but fairly fluid. State standards for education define educational goals and usually provide textbook publishers with very specific guidelines and objectives. Any parent looking at a student textbook today and comparing it with one used 25 or 30 years ago will doubtless be shocked at the level of detail covered. Math doesn’t change in its fundamentals, but the illustrative problems do. Science is the most difficult to keep up with, obviously, with new discoveries and developments being made constantly. But even history and literature classes experience a constant struggle to engage students by providing questions and exercises which will help them see the relevancy and applicability of what they are asked to study.

A second problem is a little more subtle, but nevertheless quite cogent. A “knowledge-based” approach to schooling and to life sends the wrong message about what it means to be educated, to be prepared to take an active and productive role in society. It has long been a staple of literature and entertainment that a student or recent graduate believes that he or she knows what to do and how to do it. Of course, without experience in applying their knowledge, or in even knowing what parts of their knowledge base is applicable to any given situation, any “newbie” is a stock figure to be laughed at a bit. When knowledge is the lynchpin of education, more and more passive receptivity is encouraged, rather than active engagement. When we define education by knowledge rather than by what can do with the knowledge, we actually rob the learner of an essential educative process. More on that later…

A third problem is a sociological one – “better-educated” folks tend to set (usually unconscious) social boundaries which exclude those who have not had the same educational privileges. More than twenty years of criticism leveled at the college-prep SAT exam have revealed its “classist” assumptions in choice of test material in the form of vocabulary and reading passages. An inner-city youth with a very sharp mind often simply doesn’t know the “inside” words. Given the chance, such a student could (and does) excel in college. But they may not know the magic words to get there. We could call this “knowledge snobbishness.” As Paul points out, “knowledge puffs up.” (I Cor. 8:1)

So the key question for this view is one that will be re-addressed in the fourth view: Who determines what knowledge is necessary for the learner to master?

The parts of this view worth preserving are ironically the obverse of its weaknesses. There has been such a great body of effort over a hundred-fifty-year period to systematize “knowledge,” to analyze, categorize it and break it into bite-sized chunks, that accessibility of knowledge has become an assumption. MIT has recently made a bold effort that clarifies key issues here. Through their OpenCourseWare initiative, they have sought to “Provide free, searchable, access to MIT’s course materials for educators, students, and self-learners around the world.” This doesn’t mean that they have decided to give away a “free education” equivalent to any of the degrees they offer. What they have done, in essence, is to give away the access to the information on which their degrees are based. How to evaluate and use that information, in the context of a relationship with a teacher and fellow learners, is now the basis on which they grant their degrees. In doing so, MIT has demonstrated that they believe that education is more than “knowing stuff.” They have helped the rest of us understand clearly that it is more about doing stuff with what we know, in a community of fellow learners and doers.

View 1: Learning as socialization - students are to learn what society expects of them, the skills and information necessary for their jobs, and to be good citizens. The teacher is a representative of that society, informing and enforcing the societal rules and expectations. The teacher is an authoritarian figure who must exercise control. This philosophical tradition is at the core of traditional teaching and many current neo-conservative emphases in education. It has combined with the following view to create the strongest and longest-lasting of our educational perspectives both in Europe and the United States. Anthropologists or sociologists such as Emile Durkheim describe this mechanism in tribal societies and industrialized ones as well.

So what’s wrong with this view? There are several problems with this view of learning and education, but the main one is that the joy is taken out of learning. Institutionalized or formalized learning comes to feel like a straightjacket. Roles become fossilized. Free exchange of ideas, including the challenging of ideas on the part of the student, is sacrificed to the structure, the rules, the course of study. Individuality and self-initiative are squashed. Historically, this view of education has been used oppressively, often to “keep people in their place,” prescribing set social roles and proscribing any meaningful change. We need to recognize that most people have not had access to higher education, or even a high school education until the post-WWII era. (See the article at right: High School Graduation rates)

Another major danger lived out for the past 400 years of education is that peer groups and school satrapies can be overly corrupting and/or coercive. Socialization is not an unmitigated good unless the social matrix defining it is also good. This is almost never purely the case.

The parts of this view worth preserving are twofold: preparatory and structural. Young people do need to be prepared in practical ways for their future roles in society. Education does not exist in a vacuum, bereft of societal expectations. Part of the history of public education is that society in general has insisted that children attain standardized minimal levels of proficiency in subjects agreed upon by societal leaders, whether parents agreed or not. Some parents have resisted such standards, wanting their children to be part of the workforce from an early age. Part of this essential preparation also includes children being reconciled to fit into larger social structures, obeying when they don’t wish to do so, “fitting in” to a social matrix that approximates in miniature the society they will be joining as adults. Selfish human beings need to make sacrifices and adjustments in order to become producers and participants, to contribute to society and become more than self-indulgent consumers and spectators.