The Meaning of Work - Aronowitz on Schooling in a Time of Crisis

On Tuesday I had the good fortune to attend a seminar (in NUIM) by Stanley Aronowitz - he is Professor of Sociology at City University in New York and has written extensively on many topics to do with knowledge, education and economy.

His ideas are radical and challenging and yet timely.

He presented his analysis of this "first truly global crisis" based on his experience (in the US steel industry) and many years as an author and teacher. Aronowitz posed critical questions that challenged our conception of labour in developed economies. He pointed to the structural changes in industry evident since the seventies when high numbers of workers were employed in big industries such as steel production. Faced with the challenge of a militant, frequently striking (US!) workforce and a troublesome trade union movement, the response by industry was to reduce labour through mechanisation and to move labour by a process of outsourcing and financialisation (build now pay later).

Aronowitz sees our current predicament as the inevitable outcome of US economic policy and the globalisation of the industrial model for developed economies. His outlook is gloomy – there will always be a struggle – they will always want more (government and employers).

Don't worry - so the current rhetoric would have us believe - in Ireland we live in a Knowledge Economy. Our economic future is pinned to a belief that knowledge is a sure thing and our most recent strategy for growth is called Building Ireland's Smart Economy.

We’ve never really had a large industrial base, little reliance on steel or automobile manufacturing. Our ‘new’ economy is built on software, internationally traded services and high-tech-brought-in manufacturing like HP and Intel.

Well I am worried!

Not just by Aronowitz' analysis but also by our collective acceptance of an illusion - the unsubstantiated but soothing notion that all we need to do is to be smarter than the Chinese and we will build our future by design; design of goods and services to be manufactured elsewhere in places like Mumbai and Beijing. What arrogant rubbish!

At best, we may experience a temporary opportunity for wealth generation by positioning our competences higher up the manufacturing chain. However, this fragile position of advantage will quickly be undermined as the fluidity of global manufacturing economics inevitably takes effect.

If there is real competition for smartness, I for one, would not like to take on the wisdom of the East or the passion and commitment to education in places like the Philippines and Jordan. I have visited both of these countries and as a result, I will always challenge that, equally unquestioned, myth proposing that education in Ireland is especially valued and our recent, short-lived, economic boom was a consequence of our highly educated workforce.

What then is the alternative? Aronowitz hints at new possibilities – shorter working days, time to participate in democratic structures, a renewal of learning. These are just ideas – developed outside the current orthodoxy – nothing clear-cut or strategic. That’s probably his point – the current system is not working we need alternatives and in seeking these alternatives we will need to extend our thinking. I agree but it’s hardly grounds for hope.

Aronowitz titled his talk Schooling in a Time of Economic Crisis and we had to wait until near the end before he addressed the issue of schooling. Schooling is not education. His use of the term schooling extends through kindergarten to further and higher education. Aronowitz regards schooling as an instrument of the state - a means of extension of the dominant ideology in our case capitalism.

What is the function of schooling? One might say - to prepare people for work. This is the great myth. The notion of middle-class investment – schooling now for quality employment in the future; all the more sensible when we consider ourselves as living in a Knowledge Economy.

Who should control schooling? Obviously, one might think, as we are concerned with our economic well being, we should look to employers, economists and policy makers for guidance on what skills we will need for the future. This is the real danger and it will lead possibly to future despair – not success.

Education is about learning for life, not necessarily paid employment. Yes we should be concerned with learning for the future but the question is - how best can we prepare for the future? John Dewey, a great American philosopher and educator suggested that in order to prepare people for the future we should teach them how to experience the present to its fullest extent. I take this to mean that we should be critical (questioning) of the world and that we challenge all our assumptions especially our interpretations of what we need to learn and how best to secure our future prosperity.

I suggest that we should direct our scrutiny at the current discourse on knowledge and economy and we open our minds, in the present, to ideas such as tabled by Stanley Aronowitz.

The Skillful Teacher

I came across this quotation from Confucius many months ago
and I have been waiting for an opportune time to include it in my blog.
Please forgive Confucius for his use of the term 'man' only in his description
of the skillful teacher.  The most skillful teachers I know are women. 
When a superior man knows the causes which make instruction successful, 
and those which make it of no effect, he can be a teacher of others. 
Thus in his teaching, he leads and does not drag; 
he strengthens and does not discourage; 
he opens the way but does not conduct to the end
without the learner's own efforts. 
Leading and not dragging produces harmony. 
Strengthening and not discouraging makes attainment easy. 
Opening the way and not conducting to the end makes the learner thoughtful. 
He who produces harmony, easy attainment, 
and thoughtfulness may be pronounced a skillful teacher.

– Confucius,Book XVI – HSIO KI (Record on the Subject of Education)

Isn't it remarkable how Confucius seems to capture all that we would now
call best practice in teaching others.

She leads but does not drag
Most learning practitioners would agree with this - for adults the mantra
is adults learn what they want to learn and what they find useful.
One can facilitate, encourage and lead people in the pursuit of
learning outcomes but there are few situations where compulsory
learning is successful.

She strengthens and does not discourage
Positive affirmation and feedback when matched with realistic goals will
enable learning.

She opens the way but does not conduct to the end
without the learner's own efforts
This is wonderful advice.  To 'open the way' could suggest something like 'scaffolding'
a term used in constructivist approaches to learning.  What is suggested here is that a teacher
may provide just the appropriate level of support for learning but in the end the
outcomes will be achieved by the learner's own effort.

Leading and not dragging produces harmony
Yes! 
Strengthening and not discouraging makes attainment easy
Absolutly!
Opening the way and not conducting to the end makes the learner thoughtful
and willing to invest the mental effort
She who produces harmony, easy attainment, 
and thoughtfulness may be pronounced a skillful teacher
I know many who fit this description.

Cardiff and the Rugby Grand Slam

This weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Cardiff and watch the Irish Rugby Team beat Wales to win the Six Nations Tournament and the Grand Slam. We were thrilled to be labeled as champions of the six nations. For those of you who may not know the six nations are England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France and Italy. These are the countries in the Northern Hemisphere where rugby is played by a significant section of the population.
Have you ever asked why is rugby played in one nation and not in another? Even withing countries, it is even the case that rugby is associated with different social and cultural groups; the Welsh regard rugby as a working class game whereas in parts of Ireland, rugby is considered as an elitist game, associated with mainly private schools.
I grew up in the Phoenix Park in Dublin and went to school in CBS North Brunswick Street. Our inner city school was run by the Christian Brothers and rugby was not encouraged - it was considered a foreign game. In fact, in school we were only allowed to play the games of our 'nation' - these were hurling and Gaelic football - known as gah (after GAA - Gaelic Athletic Association). Of course our game was soccer - this was (and still is) the street game for inner city Dublin. We often played football in the school yard and whenever we broke a window we would try to get back the ball and then start playing gah - we knew we were in trouble but the sanction for breaking a window playing the nationalist game of gah was going to be far less than that for playing a foreign game like soccer.
When I went to university (UCD) I became more aware of how different games were associated with different schools and social backgrounds. I even played a bit of rugby - very badly - but I enjoyed it and have, ever since, had a keen interest in the game.
We often distinguish between the terms of 'nation' and 'country' - a nation is a people and country is a land, a nation signifies a common cultural identity, a country (for example the US) can be made up of many nationalities. One might therefore expect that the Six Nations Tournament is so-titled because it is a competition between six peoples or cultural identities.
This is true to a certain extent, Scotland, England and Wales compete as three nations - in the Olympics they compete as Great Britain (or, more precisely, the UK of GB and NI).
Strangely enough (or perhaps its not strange at all) the situation is more complicated in Ireland. The 'Ireland' that presented itself on the field in Cardiff on Sunday was a united Ireland - representatives of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland play on the same Irish team. We even sing a special song, Ireland's Call, instead of our national anthems.
Actually, the Welsh too wouldn't dream of singing God Save the Queen - the UK National Anthem - they use the awesome Welsh anthem Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. Believe me, when you hear 70, 000 of them singing this in Cardiff before a match its one of the best displays of communial singing one could experience.
So we have two teams, two nations, one in green and one in red - bringing together the working class Welsh with the posh people of South Dublin (fast being challenged by the vibrant rugby playing communities of Navan, Boyne, Naas and Barnhall), the tribes of Munster (definitely not posh!) and the men of Ulster (Ulster not Ireland!). For eighty minutes all these peoples unite for one purpose -to play rugby, to watch rugby. Across the six nations many millions watched on TV - they gathered in pubs and in houses, community halls, sports clubs - they wore their colours, their nation's colours and they participate in the game.
In common with the southern parts of France, the slopes of northern Italy, the lowlands and borders of Scotland the valleys of Wales and the public schools and communities of England - we play rugby. We could say their were no nations - just parts of nations or we could say there were many nations - many more than six. In the end I think the six nations works fine - I am still happy, very happy that we grand slammed the other five.

लीर्निंग फ्रॉम स्लुम्दोग Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire - Official Movie Site

This was a super film that pushed and pulled at your emotions throughout -the direction, editing, photography and acting all combined to create an absolutly absorbing experience. I think great films live on in your head after you've seen them and this was the case with Slumdog.

What of the story! Without giving too much away - the basic premise centres on the Indian version of the TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. People (especially the police) do not believe how the young tea boy from the Mumbai slums can answer all the quiz show questions. He must be cheating! How could he know all this stuff? We find out that he really does know the answers because each question connected with particular events and experiences in his life history.

This film is a good example of important connection between experience and learning. Some people describe themselves as not having much learning and yet the may have many years experience in work or other areas of activity. This experience counts for learning and for anyone thinking about returning to learning it's a good idea to think about all of your experience as a strong foundation for any course you intend to undertake.

If your interested look out for a follow up posting on constructivist learning theory.

Storyteller's Concert in Lough Rynn Castle

So we were down in Leitrim for the weekend and didn't we discover as we arrived that this was the most interesting of weekend's to be in Mohill. The Storytelling festival and the horse fair were both on. Maire and I went to a storytelling concert in Lough Rynn castle and it was an enthralling experience. What struck me above all was the manner in which we become mesmermised by good stories and how the craft of storytelling is still very important in the modern world.
Coincidentally the previous day we had a Friday lunchtime seminar on learning and teaching in the College and the importance of stories and good case studies was emphasised. The role of narrative as a vehicle for learning has always been important -it is perhaps the oldest way of education.
Often I come across instrumental approaches to teaching -the idea is to break up the content and to distil the important points and 'give' notes to students for later reproduction. We then seem baffled when there is little retention or deep level learning. The stark presentation of abstract concepts is of little value to students grappling with these concepts for the first time.
Old wisdom was handed down through generations embedded within the stories of the time. These stories act like egg yoke providing nourishment to the knowledge and ideas buried within the narrative.
Of particular interest was the genesis story as told by Clare Muireann Murphy which she attributes to a fellow story teller from Spain. In that story God creates man and women and makes them blind and set apart across a river in huts surrounded by noisey leaves so that He could hear if they got up to anything. Inevitably lust plays its part and they are cast out and as in other versions we have woman as crafty instigator and man as mindless instinct.
I believe that genesis stories are archetypes describing the nature of human learning and development. A kind of 'curiosity killed the cat'. Except that the place where Adam and Eve start out Eden -a garden or as in Clare's story a hut by a river is usually portrayed as nice but empty. Something is missing? And surely what's absent is inquiry, questioning and curiosity -in the Spanish story the two participants find their eyelids covered over by skin. When they release their eyes (which were always underneath) they get up to devilment. But its pleasurable and compelling and eventually they are cast out of the place of tranquility.
This is the human prediciment -we strive to change and progress and with these strivings we bring risk upon ourselves. But this is what we do -this is what we've always done and for all the Edens I prefer to take my chances with curiosity and spend my time out here outside the garden.

An Organic Approach to Teaching and How Digital Media Make it Possible

In recent years the trend in digital media design has been toward extending the natural reach of human capacities.
Digital cameras for example are not just getting smaller and lighter but they are becoming easier to use. Background technologies now compensate for low light levels, camera shake, poor composition and other errors. All the user needs to do is point and click.
The irony is that increasingly complex technology often gives rise to simpler and more natural functionality. Give a camera to a six year old and watch what happens.
The same trend can be seen in other designs -technologies such as the wii controller, voice recognition and intuitive Internet interfaces are helping to hide technology and foreground functionality. Ironically, these advanced digital technologies are becoming more transparent and users take them for granted. These designs give rise to new possibilities in teaching and learning.
Traditionally, we've organised much of school teaching around the development of essential skills the so-called 3r's -reading, writing and arithmetic. There are few who would deny the importance of these skills for the modern world and because they are important we can't wait to get our children up to speed as early as possible. The progress of children in learning these skills is constantly measured and we've developed standards such as reading age -we can even compare these standards with those of children in other countries.
Our school system has an end point -the Leaving Certificate for most. Once again there is much measurement and comparison at the output stage. This sorting and grading process helps decide who will progress to what courses in higher and further education.
Why is our education system structured in this way? It is a combination of multitude of factors and influences historical, cultural and practical. Class rooms of today have changed little in the last one hundred years both in the layout and in the activities that take place within.
This is not to deny the great advances that have been made in terms of pedagogic innovation, the professionalism of teachers or the excellent work of the numerous bodies associated with educational reform and continuous improvement. However, relative to other areas of society schools and specifically the craft and science of teaching has not been permitted to achieve it's full potential in preparing our children for a future where the only certainty is that it will be radically different from what we know today.
I argue that just like modern farming we have over-engineered our education system, we have over-relied on fostering narrow skills, we are obsessed with measurement, we continuously intervene in learning, we confine the site of learning to the classroom and we strive to make people homogeneous in their thinking. All of this leads in the end to economic and social perils.
Just like farming we need a new approach and what I call for is a kind of organic movement in learning and teaching.
We need to recognise that learning is a natural process, that all people are curious and have a desire to be competent and connected in society. We need to appreciate the inquiry cycle of ask, investigate, create, communicate and reflect. Above all we need to provide children with the tools that help them learn the world through inquiry.
Why has this not happened before and why is it possible now? The answer is simple about a hundred years ago we removed the site of learning from the lived-world and placed it within the confines of the class room. While many students cope by acquiring there understanding of the world through the abstract processes facilitated by the 3 r's -many others are left behind. Without the essential skills they are left out, unconnected and disengaged.
Until now that is. Well designed digital technologies afford connection, engagement, expression, creativity and learning. They facilitate these transparently -without the need for complex prerequisite skills. Children now have access tools that extend their natural capacities to communicate, participate and make meaning of the world. In the classrooms we've observed as part of the Digital Literacy in Irish Primary Schools (DLIPS) research project we've seen this process in action. Like the example we witnessed of inner city 8 year old boys working in groups making banana splits and recording the process -a role for each child one on the camera, one peeling and slicing, one sloshing on the cream and one writing down the process. Later their picture story set to music, projected and replayed in celebration of all that had been achieved and most significantly achieved by all.
And at last, either now or in the very near future, teachers can get on with what they do best -making learning happen. These teachers who harness the natural conditions of learning will better prepare students for the future.
And yes we will still have the 3r's but they'll stand for something different -R for real questioning, R for relatedness to community and R for reflection on practice. This will be organic teaching made possible with digital media. Watch this space.

Great Music and Quick Fingers

Had a call from Tom with an out of the blue to join him and his son Shane at a gig in town -part of the Ireland Guitar Festival. Josco Stephan and his band and later joined by Tommy Emmanuel were the bill for the night. I have to confess that I had not heard of these before and was not sure what to expect. As the small theatre filled up (The Suger Club) I was convinced that everyone attending was a guitar head and was a little worried that the show would be my taste. How wron I was! These guys were brilliant! and one of the freshest sounds that I've heard in years. Technically the musicians were awesome but more than that they lived every note and made the music meaningful engaging. Have a look at the you tube videos and see what I mean and watch out if they ever come your way. Afterwards Tom, Shane and I had a really interesting conversation over dinner on whether music and art were historically situated in culture or more fundamentally rooted which minds me to point the reader toward this podcast from Benjamin Zander http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.htmlwhich addresses the same issue.

Ed Tech 2008

Attended EdTech 2008 held in Dundalk IT (DKIT) and presented my own paper on Conceptions of Digital Literacy posted on slideshare. Quite an excellent conference and a good blend of practical and research content. Of note the GOAL project on adult learning http://www.belfastmet.ac.uk/goal/index.asp
and the extensive use of www.screencast.com in other institutions.

The Web and the Unconscious

Most psychoanalytical models of the human mind use a depth metaphor to suggest the division between the conscious and the unconscious. Typically Jungian approaches use the idea that the mind is like an island jutting out of the sea with only so-much showing above the surface. The visible component represents the conscious, the tidal zone the personal unconscious and the zone below the collective unconscious.
A sense of depth is itself a value laden construct. We envisage the bottom of the sea with ugly fish and black darkness. That's a scary unconscious.

There is another way of looking at this what I think is a more useful metaphor.

Look at the following system -the Internet. We could, metaphorically, view this as a form of cognitive consciousness. Alongside this we have individual and societal processes that build, shape and grow the Internet system. This other system is not overtly evident on the Internet it is only accessible through the symbol system of the net. If we were to imagine an alien species that had no way of contacting humans but by some fluke of science could find access to the entire Internet we could ask -what way would they 'model' human beings from the evidence available to them? How accurate would this be?
In the same way we do not have direct access to our unconscious and we rely on language and symbol systems to model it.

Storytellers

We are all storytellers and we are the stories we tell

The above is a quotation (in fact it's the opening line) from a book I'm reading called Identity and Story Creating Self in Narrative by McAdams Josselson and Lieblich (2006) APA Washington.
Why do we tell stories about ourselves?
There are always at least two people involved the storyteller and the listener. I like to think about a self-story as a type of connection between two points in time and place. A bridge between two sets of events the narrative and the present -the moment of telling.
Self-stories are constructed in the telling and they are an important fabric in the perpetual process of self-identity formation.

Jacques Lacan

1901-1981
French psychoanalytical theorist who' s influence continues today most notably advocated by Slavoj Zizek.
Lacan in turn, reinterprets Freud and in particular, the difficult concept of the unconscious. Lacan links language and the unconscious and suggests that the unconscious is structured like a language. This resonates with some of Freud's ideas as articulated in Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious and his earlier work on The Interpretation of Dreams.

Lacan is also known for his theory of the Mirror Stage. This occurs in infants who at that stage develop a capacity that is evidenced by their reaction of recognition when they see their own image in a mirror. What is this capacity? It is a conceptual act, the establishment of 'I' (the ego) and an essential foundation for social functioning and a precursor to language. (Why do we use language? To communicate with others!)

Lacan proposes that reality for humans is comprised of a trilogy of levels the Real, Imaginary and Symbolic orders.

I see these as registers of the mind ways of knowing.

Zizek provides a useful analogy - consider the game of chess: at one level, corresponding to the Symbolic, we have the rules of the game, at another level we have the representation of the pieces as, for example, a knight or a pawn, this is the Imaginary and at the third level we have the actual game itself, all aspects of it, including the thinking of the players , the physical surroundings etc..

Language works at the level of the Symbolic and it is always influenced by the big Other.

Language is not a passive exchange - when we communicate we operate within a frame of reference (a concept from Mezirow in turn from Habbermas). Lacan reifies this as the big Other - he gives it a form that recognises how we think. For example, a religious person may process thoughts as what God would like me to say or do, or perhaps a person has a strong ideological framework as with communism - this will shape all that is uttered.

What then of the Real and the Imaginary?

The Real is usually recognised by an absence rather in the same way that we respond to a disequilibrium. We don't perceive it directly but rather through our responses.

So here's an example of my own making that gets at what I think Lacan was attempting to point to. I met a colleague recently and I said "Isn't it terrible what's been happening in Limerick yet another gangland murder yesterday"

He responded "Shocking when will it ever stop".

This is just a small part of a typical verbal exchange that takes place between people every day. Look at the levels or registers, or as Lacan would say 'orders' of the discourse.

There is the Symbolic order this comprises the words exchanged and our shared cultural understanding of, for example, what we mean when we say 'gangland' and further our shared collection of connotations for Limerick.

I would describe the Symbolic order as a form of literacy.

The next level is the Imaginary order. When I say "Isn't it terrible I am referring to a specific recent murder the most recent in a spate. I have a way of imagining a murder it's certainly a very sanitized format.

Let me call it a visualization but note that the perception may not all be visual in nature. This visualization for me is tame, very tame for a murder. I leave out a huge amount of detail - so my imagined form is constructed by me in a way that I can use it and not get too upset by it. Notice, that the Imaginary order is not a complete picture, such a picture would be unworkable in everyday life.

Now consider the Real order. This is everything that is not part of the Symbolic or the Imaginary. I call it the inconceivable. What's our way of knowing this? We indirectly detect by imbalance or absence-as in when we use the phrase 'the breakdown of law and order'. There's lots left out - the fragility of life, the sociological crisis in areas of Limerick, injustices, capacity for evil.

This is as far as I will go for now with Lacan.

There is a link to a good web site on Lacan above.

Jung

Some notes Carl Jung and Motivation

Jung and others emphasise the unconscious.
The suggestion is that we need to question the contribution of the unconscious to motivation. Jung uses the terms psyche and psychic rather than mind and mental.
Jung sees the unconscious aspect of the psyche as different but complimentary to the conscious. Jung sees the psyche as a dynamic system, in constant flux and self-regulating . He calls the psychic energy libido acting out a form of opposition and compensation. Forward (progression) and backward (regression) movement of the libido -think of adaptation (to one's environment) and accommodation (change in mind). Some idea of flow between the conscious and the unconscious. And by the way regression (which often gets a bad press) is not a bad thing.
Jung also talks about symbols and signs. A sign as a substitute or representation of a real thing while a symbol is a wider representation.

The conscious aspect of the psyche may be compared with an island jutting out of the sea. The island could be seen as the ego the bit above the water. Now there's lots of stuff that we either forget, have repressed or suppressed; all of these occupy the personal unconscious. The island metaphor places the personal unconscious as just beneath the surface theoretically recoverable.

What lies deeper still is the collective unconscious.
The tendency to experience the world in a manner shaped by the collective past history of mankind is what Jung called archetypal and archetypes are a form of human blueprint for intuition.

A complex is a type of grouping of ideas around a basic nucleus.
There are dispositional and environmental contributors to complexes. Complexes can arise in the conscious and unconscious. Unconscious complexes can appear to act or drive independently of the ego.

So what is the drive through life -the propulsion?
Jung found the answer to this question gradually evolved itself during years of work with patients, and borrowed the word 'individuation' to describe it. There were, he found, a relatively large number of people who, while cured in the ordinary sense of the word, either persisted in continuing their analytical treatment, which he defined as 'the dialectical discussion between the conscious mind and the unconscious', people were seeking a goal, something like a quest for wholeness.

Conscious and unconscious do not make a whole when one of them is suppressed and injured by the other. If they must contend, let it at least be a fair fight with equal rights on both sides. Both are aspects of life. Consciousness should defend its reason and protect itself, and the chaotic life of the unconscious should be given the chance of having its way too -- as much of it as we can stand. This means open conflict and open collaboration at once. That, evidently, is the way human life should be. It is the old game of hammer and anvil: between them the patient iron is forged into an indestructible whole, an 'individual'. This, roughly, is what I mean by the individuation process. 15

15. 'Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation' (C.W., 9, i), pars. 522-3

The Question of Psychoanalysis

I face a challenge every time I engage with psychoanalytical theories and theorists. I'm never really sure as to the substance and value of the approach. I remain detached and skeptical and tend to apply a higher degree of critical appraisal. On the other hand I sense that there are some very important ideas in this field and that part of the challenge is the complex and intimate nature of what's being studied.
In this series of blogs I propose to review psychoanalytical thinkers and their theories and to work through their ideas to see what stacks up in. To begin with, I intend to look closely at three of the founding theorists Freud, Jung and Lacan and to provide an overview of their main ideas and work.

No Country for old Men

Went to see No Country for Old Men http://www.nocountryforoldmen.com/ with J. Quite a good film typical Coen brothers. Lots of open country and murders. Yes murders!

But what of the plot. Well quite a story really and a puzzling ending. We talked about it afterwards always a sign of a good film.

What else can be done on a wet day.

What about the ending. I think it’s courageous for a box office type movie to take on such a creative ending.
The sherif Bell tries to sort out his world as he begins his retirement. Here is a section from the script:

LORETTA (CONT'D)

... How'd you sleep?

BELL

I don't know. Had dreams.

LORETTA

Well you got time for 'em now.

Anything interesting?

BELL

Well they always is to the party

concerned.

LORETTA

Ed Tom, I'll be polite.

BELL

Okay. Two of 'em. Both had my

father. It's peculiar. I'm older

now'n he ever was by twenty years. So

in a sense he's the younger man.

Anyway, first one I don't remember so

well but it was about meetin' him in

town somewheres and he give me some

money and I think I lost it. The

second one, it was like we was both

back in older times and I was on

horseback goin' through the mountains

of a night. Goin' through this pass in *

the mountains. It was cold and

snowin', hard ridin'. Hard country.

He rode past me and kept on goin'.

Never said nothin' goin' by. He just

rode on past and he had his blanket

wrapped around him and his head down. *

And when he rode past I seen he was *

carryin' fire in a horn the way people

used to do and I could see the horn

from the light inside of it. About

the color of the moon.

And in the dream I knew that he was

goin' on ahead and that he was fixin'

to make a fire somewhere out there in

all that dark and all that cold, and I

knew that whenever I got there he

would be there. And then I woke up. *

Black

By the way although the book is by Cormac McCarthy the title is obviously a reference to the poem Sailing to Byzantium by WB Yeats.

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees -

Those dying generations - at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

-- William Butler Yeats

Adult Learning

Adults learn what they want to learn and what they perceive as useful to them;
Internalisation involves the construction of new meaning based on passed experience and new stimuli;
Learning can be understood as always involving cognitive, psychodynamic and societal/social aspects;
Communities of practice embody all three of these aspects and as such are powerful drivers for adult learning;
Engagement in critical discourse is a likely outcome of successful adult learning in the long-term the reverse is also true adult learning is the inevitable outcome of critical discourse.
Transformative learning can arise in adults where appropriate conditions exist for questioning assumptions, critical discourse, reflection and restructuring of perspectives.

Behaviourist and Cognitive Theories

Cognitive theories of learning have evolved from experimental psychology and find their roots in the study of behaviour. The early emphasis was on measuring responses to external stimuli and the so called behaviourist approach was the dominant paradigm up until the latter part of the last century. Much pioneering work in experimental learning psychology was based on observing results from animal and human experiments typically involving the quest to understand relationships between stimuli and observed responses (Hilgard & Bower, 1966; Mackintosh, 1997; Travers, 1967). These insights into learning focused only on external observable behaviour.

Early work
Early exponents of behaviourism such as John B Watson, Edward L Thorndike and B. F. Skinner have contributed much to our understanding of some of the basic characteristics of learning. They achieved this by focusing almost exclusively on the observable interaction between the learner and the external environment. Behaviourists limited their enquiry to what could be measured or recorded by experiment. They considered the internal workings of the mind to be beyond the bounds of observation and therefore disregarded it. This was later seen as a severe limitation. However, viewed in the context of the knowledge and technology available at the time it might also be seen as a very practical approach. In contrast, today’s cognitive theories are based on models of the internal processes of the brain and are usually referenced to advanced experimental and computer modelling techniques. Both behaviourist and cognitive approaches largely ignore the emotional and social dimensions of learning.

Task analysis
Some useful instructional principles derive from behaviourist approaches to learning. Let’s consider what these theories can contribute to the specific case of Peter. Suppose the challenge for Peter is one of learning a new task for example using a dictionary to find the meaning of a new word. Probably the major contribution of the behaviourist approach is the concept of task analysis (John R. Anderson, 2000: 383) -the instructional strategy of decomposing the task into constituent sub-tasks and categorising these. In this case the task of using the dictionary to find the meaning of a word would be decomposed into sub-tasks such as understanding alphabetical order and scanning the word lists to find the target word.

Specific Objectives
The notion of specifically identifying and naming learning objectives also originates in behaviourist theory (Leigh, 2004; Reiser, 2001). Tenant (2006) includes a useful discussion on the value and limitations of behavioural objectives in instructional approaches. He notes that objectives are frequently cited in terms of observable and measurable outcomes. This is a common practice in e-learning whereby specific objectives, including pre-requisite or enabling objectives, for each unit of instruction are stated at the outset. Tenant questions the validity of using such a structured approach to instruction. He provides an example of mastering the complex skill of playing the piano –in this case, for different people, learning can proceed in a multitude of different directions such as posture, finger position, notation, scale drill and so on. The key to mastery is how these skills come together to form an integrated whole and following sequentially arranged specific objectives will not ensure mastery as this happens at different times and in different ways for different learners. Instructional analysis such as tabled by Gagne (1977) is based on the assumption that learning outcomes can be deconstructed into specific types of objectives and that instructional strategies should be matched to the characteristics of the objectives. Later theoretical approaches became more concerned with recognising individual learner characteristics.

Problem Solving Approaches
Cognitive science has been supported by new experimental techniques the relevant area of inquiry has moved beyond observable behaviour to deal with the internal processes of thinking and learning. A key foundation was the work of Newell and Simon (cited in John R. Anderson, 2000; , 1972) who proposed a model of learning based on problem solving and drawing on the emerging fields of computer simulation and artificial intelligence. Newell and Simon’s learning paradigm was encapsulated in what they called the General Problem Solver or GPS. The process involved applying a means-end analysis to a given learning task in a sequence of logical steps. For example applied to the dictionary task above if Peter wants to find the meaning of a new word –this is the goal. Peter selects some action that reduces the difference between his present state and the goal –this action is described by Newell and Simon as the ‘operator’. In this case the operator is ‘look at word description in dictionary’ and if this can be applied then Peter applies it. If the operator cannot be applied, then the next step is make a new goal to enable the operator –in this case find the word in the dictionary -thus dealing with alphabetical order becomes the means to the primary goal. Newell and Simon’s approach is the foundation for what is often referred to as an information processing model of learning. From this several new theories of cognitive architecture emerged and the scientific study of mental processes has evolved.

ACT-R
An example of one such cognitive approach is Anderson’s adaptive control of thought –rational or ACT-R theory (John R. Anderson et al., 2004; John R. Anderson & Lebiere, 1998). ACT-R and its derivatives are examples of cognitive models they are attempts to describe the internal architectures of the mind and in this way contribute to an understanding of the learning process. ACT-R theory is based on a complex model of human thought and is often represented as a computer simulation. It is in fact a theory of cognition rather than a learning theory.

Declarative and Procedural Knowledge
An important underlying concept is the distinction between of two types of knowledge -declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge (John R. Anderson, 1982). Declarative knowledge is knowledge of factual information, for example Dublin is the capital city of Ireland. Declarative knowledge is also explicit in that a person is aware of what they know. Procedural knowledge is knowledge that may be displayed in behaviour but one is not conscious of it -it is implicit knowledge often connected with how to perform tasks. Procedural knowledge often specifies how to bring declarative knowledge to bear in problem solving. In using a dictionary Peter, like many people, may use declarative knowledge of alphabetical order –simply reciting the alphabet while flicking the pages until arriving at the relevant letter. Others, who regularly use sources that are arranged in alphabetical order, may have procedural knowledge –quite simply they know that P comes later than L and before R and they have no need to recite the alphabet. ACT-R describes declarative knowledge in terms of small primitive units called chunks and procedural knowledge in terms of rule-like units called productions. The cognitive model also includes goal structures similar to Newell and Simon’s goals and sub-goals.

Skill Acquisition
Anderson (1982) relates the transition from declarative to procedural knowledge with the development of a cognitive skill. He proposes three characteristic stages in the development of skills (John R. Anderson, 2000: 310). The first stage is the cognitive stage this is followed by the associative stage and the third stage is the autonomous stage. During the cognitive stage the learner often works from instructions and commonly represents the knowledge verbally –as above when Peter recites the letters of the alphabet. The associative stage indicates a transition from slow and deliberate use of knowledge to a more direct representation of what to do. The example that Anderson gives is learning to use a conventional gearbox for driving –at the associative stage verbalisation of the task is reduced or dropped completely and the actions remain deliberate. The third stage is the autonomous stage –at this stage the skill is increasingly automated and often a person even looses the ability to verbally describe the skill.

Relating ACT Theory to Learning
Anderson and Schunn (2000) discuss the implications of ACT-R learning theory for education. The model allows for the acquisition of declarative knowledge in two ways either in a passive or receptive mode. These are respectively encoding from the environment or storing as a result of mental computations. To go back to Peter’s task of finding the meaning of a new word; he could be told the meaning of the word directly by a person or through a dictionary, this is passive or receptive mode, or he could work it out through deduction and this would be active or constructive mode. Interestingly according to ACT-R theory there is no inherent difference in the memorability of the knowledge generated from the two types of acquisition.
Procedural knowledge is gained through the generation of production rules and enhanced through practice. As practice continues toward a particular skill there is a gradual and systematic improvement in performance that corresponds to a power law. This assertion is an outcome of the ACT-R model and experimental results.

What then are the implications of cognitive theories for Peter’s learning? Overall they describe the processes through which a person can acquire new skills. There are useful insights into the stages of skill development and the power law of improvement through practice. It would seem desirable that learners such as Peter are aware of, indeed well informed of, these insights should they choose to embark on a process to acquire a new set of skills.


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