Re: Emergent Learning LO2165

Gary and Lilly Evans (100451.3477@compuserve.com)
20 Jul 95 09:57:58 EDT

Replying to LO1989 --

On July 7th Tobin Quereau wrote:

> In the eastern spiritual and healing traditions, one learns by being
_with_ a Teacher, not "from" a Teacher.

This sentence reminded me of the conundrum I noticed in my friends and
relatives when speaking in English (my mother tongue is Serbo-Croat).
With monotonous regularity, they would say :"Let me learn you ...." when
they meant: "Let me teach you (or show you)". For a long time I took it
to be just a lack of appropriate vocabulary.

Then I started to read David Bohm and his book "Wholeness and Implicate
Order". Suddenly, the above infliction became quite obvious. You see, in
Serbo-Croat there is a single root from which words like "learn", "pupil"
and "teacher" derive - the word is "uci" and means "learn". So, the
teacher is the person who enables learning ("ucitelj"), pupil is the
learner ("ucenik"), and textbook is the book you learn from ("ucbenik").

Hence, when my friends were talking about teaching someone, they were
unconsciously starting from the position of it being a "learning" process.
In English, the distinction is well established between both the words for
teacher and pupil and their respective roles. The learning does not get to
be mentioned at all. No wonder one has to consciously think about the
role of the teacher.

Cheers

lilly evans

PS. Did you know that Alexander von Humboldt was a pioneer in global
thinking at the turn of 18th century? He was a teacher who inspired
people to come and spend time with him. Goethe was among his admirers.
He is reputed to have used his vast genius to apply it to a new way of
life, linking knowledge to feelings and helping people to think about the
world in a different way. What do we know about his life and work? What
can we learn from it?

--
_________________________________________________________
Lilly Evans	 	100451.3477@compuserve.com

" When individuals have looked beyond their familiar surroundings, when they have learned to read and travel, they have discovered that many strangers share their emotions and interests." Theodore Zeldin