pcapper@actrix.gen.nz, in The Unlearning Organisation ] LO9411 said:
>My working definition of learning is that it concerns the processing of
>information about the environment or context to produce useful knowledge
>>which assists us to be more effecively instrumental in the environment in
>>order to satisfy needs. ...
>For learning to occur the first requirement is that there be a
>needs state - that is a perception or understanding that our current mode
>>of working within the context is sub-optimal.
IMHO, this is a mechanistic input-output model: that's not how we as
organisms work; we don't process information, we create models which we
test out; we project a model out on to the world, searching for resonance.
[see my recent posting on autopoiesis for some background to this idea]
Human learning is much much more complex and far less 'rational', than
detecting a simple sub-optimal input state and correcting it.
>When we use the term 'unlearning' - or, even worse, 'organisational
>>forgetting' - we seem to imply that we should discard old learnings.
> It is not the ability to discard historical knowledge which is the key to
>>knowledge based learning, but the ability to retain in, draw on it, and
>>recast it to aid our understanding of transformed contexts.
Oops, a little slide here, from 'discard old learnings' to 'discard
historical knowledge'! IMHO, they aren't the same. For me, it IS about
unlearning something, letting go of something: but that something is the
old pattern, the old schema, the old set of connections between bits of
knowledge . Which is not the same as throwing away knowledge. The brain
doesn't erase memories, it changes the connections, renewing some, letting
others fade away, under a form of selection. When we remember we recreate
memories, based on those strengthened or weakened connections. In order to
recast our knowledge, we have to throw away the old pattern.
--------------------
Joan Pomo- The Unlearning Organisation [Was Management Fads] LO9415 said:
"to unlearn, one must first discover what knowledge must be unlearned.
This is an individual issue and each person subjected to the old knowledge
will have a different set of whys and hows."
How can you say that, and then say that:
>The >teacher must disprove and answer each how and why of the old
>knowledge to the satisfaction of each person. The teacher must then
>provide the new knowledge complete with compelling common sense whys
>which prove beyond doubt the verity of this new knowledge.
If my knowledge is individual how can anyone, teacher or not, tell me
what's right and wrong about my knowledge ? Just as 'everything is said
by someone', everything is true, under some conditions, sometime...
"Being able to ask penetrating questions and listening carefully to
responses turns out to be crucial skills, ones in which many teachers
lack proficiency."
IMHO, as long as teachers acquire those skills, rather than helping
everyone to have them, so we can learn and unlearn together, we'll be stuck
in non-learning organisations...
--from Arthur Battram, organiser of the LGMB project 'Tools for Learning', which helps local authorities to apply complexity concepts to learning. apb@cityplex.demon.co.uk "complexity is in here... and simplicity is out there...if we want it to be..."
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>