I appreciate being supplied by the direct quote from Jan. The
initial phrase of that quote is one that I think bears serious
challenge by this list.
"If we define learning as the detection and correction of error..."
is such a narrow, I'd say linear as well, definition of learning that
a focus on that area is likely to inhibit or kill the kind of
learning that is possible for human beings and their organisations.
(I am not rejecting this kind of learning. I'm suggesting that it is
a very narrow part of the spectrum.)
Einstein has said that learning doesn't come from experience. Many
from Semiotics and related schools of thought would also say that
learning comes from what precedes experience. Information theory
suggests that theory provides information from experience and not the
other way around.
If learning is to be a generative and creative process, it cannot be
a mere identifying and correcting of mistakes.
I consider learning at its larger level to be a matter of exploring
spaces of possibility rather than "learning from mistakes". In the
field of exploration of possibility, we can't know beforehand what a
"mistake" is. And what appears to be high quality work at the level
of identifying mistakes might turn out to be a "mistake" when a
larger field of possibility is explored.
My experience with "learning from mistakes" as a fundamental approach
to learning is that it leads to relatively mechanistic approaches
which tend to lead to "right/wrong" conversations and the life and
interest goes out of the learning process.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk