The Unlearning Organisation LO9562

Matzdorf, Fides (F.Matzdorf@shu.ac.uk)
Wed, 28 Aug 96 19:28:00 0BS

Replying to LO9421 --

Hello again -

now here's an example that illustrates beautifully what I meant earlier:

Jack Hirschfeld says (in the thread 'Management Fads'):
>Not long ago I attended a session with Peter Senge where he expressed the
>view that *unlearning* the "intuitive" ideas about balance, angular
>momentum and system dynamics which we learn when we learn how to walk is
>the hard part of learning how to ride a bicycle.

In this example, we don't really *unlearn* our ideas of 'walking' balance,
but we add new ones about 'cycling' balance. In fact, this new learning does
not render our old learning completely invalid - nor does it just get tagged
on either: the intuitive 'walking' balance is still there, but the it is no
longer exclusive. So if the 'walking' balance ideas were the only ones we
had about balance up to the point where we learnt how to ride a bike (of
course they _weren't_, this is just a simplification!), the 'exclusive' bit
of that changes to 'there are different ways of keeping my balance', plus
the new 'cycling' balance ideas.

I think that's the point I wanted to make earlier - it's clearer to me now:
'unlearning' sounds as if we're taking something away. Which in the above
example is not the case. We transform some of the old bits and add on new
bits.

My two Pfennig's worth...

Fides

Fides Matzdorf
Research Assistant
Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield, UK
Tel. ++44 (0)114 253 3892
Fax ++44 (0)114 253 3553
E-mail F.Matzdorf@SHU.AC.UK

-- 

"Matzdorf, Fides" <F.Matzdorf@shu.ac.uk>

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