Re: Emergent Learning LO2067

mbayers@mmm.com
Wed, 12 Jul 1995 19:50:12 -0500

Responding to Michael McMaster in LO2028 . . .

>I think we need to distinguish information, learning, knowledge and
>education in these dialogues.

Yes, I think that Boulding writing today would choose his words
more carefully (because of different connotations for those words)
than he did in 1965.

>Did she increase here knowledge? Did she learn? Did I teach or
>educate? (I use the word coaching - in this instance largely
>non-verbally.)

Perhaps your physical actions called attention to physical
impediments preventing fluid play, such as overly tight shoulders.
Perhaps your physical actions diverted attention from 'over-
intellectualizing' the music and allowed physical sensations to
respnond to the feel of the music.

>I didn't transmit anything that I knew. I used something that I
>knew. But what she got was not what I was using. Nothing was
>transmitted. Knowledge is not about transmission. Neither is good
>education primarily about that.

I think that something -was- transmitted, and she has something
which she did not have before. Perhaps not explicitly or even
consciously, but your coaching may have permitted her to acquire
a technique which will prove useful in the future. I agree that
knowledge is -not- about transmission -- rather we can suggest that
it is about assimilation or internalization, and about making new
assocations with what we already had.

>I agree about the cliches and buzzwords (and think that they are
>largely the mechanisms of metanarratives) but not with the idea that
>we should spend time to say "just what we mean". It's impossible to
>do. What is wanted is to have what you mean communicated. That may
>not involve saying just what you mean. It will involve dialogue.
>What I consider worth doing is generating a dialogue that goes beyond
>what any one of us means to what meaning we can develop together that
>we didn't have individually before.

I think that we -can- say just what we mean. Indeed, don't we -owe- that
to the people with whom we try to communicate? (Okay, so maybe we are
limited by our vocabularies, but we can come very close, can't we?) Of
course, it may well occur that you do not have the same meanings for the
symbols we use in communication (a la Humpty Dumpty). That brings us to
the value of dialog, and two-way communication to try to validate that we
have achieved a common understanding. And your last sentence is dead on
-- we want to achieve not simply the exchange of bits of information, but
the overall enrichment of our understanding.

--
Michael Ayers
mbayers@mmm.com        (612) 733-5690      FAX (612) 737-7718
IT Education Svcs/3M Center 224-2NE-02/PO Box 33224/St Paul MN 55133-3224
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