Learning Communities,
Teaching Communitiesby James N. Rose
The earliest years are when self-esteem becomes established, when sensations of competence versus inadequacy are encountered and recognized, and personal behavior choices are formed and guided. Wanting to learn, being enthusiastic to learn, desiring the opportunities to apply what is learned - all through life - begins with the foundations laid down in the first years ~ every moment of them.
The inborn skills and abilities to learn are nurtured and honed in every environment and situation, not just the formal one labeled "school". What later environments - where specialized knowledge is highlighted and available - are good at is enhanced by the experiences, priorities, and modes of learning skills available only in preceding situations. The greatest "learning" is in no unimportant way instilled and nurtured during the outset of life. From those experiences of passage come the personal knowledge that we contribute to our own learning and competence, which ever after leads to our impacting the world, as much as it affects us. Learning as a Tradition of Life
"Creating learning communities" isn't so much a new idea in the schema of human experiences as it is the recognition that that's what we have been doing all along, and are now striving to do better. Every life embodies wisdom. Every life embodies a competence. Every life has a "voice" with the potential to contribute something creative to the whole of humanity even as everyone creates his or her local life. The questions come then, How can society organize itself to ensure that every voice, no matter how young, is sought, honored, and valued? Can we balance 'social efficiency' with respect for the carefully considered thought? And can we value style and design as much as we do pragmatic outcomes?
One of the most important things about life is having a sense of place in the world. We humans have an extended capacity to learn and share learning, to relate to the world and our companions in truly amazing ways. This ability comes from our being thriving, adapting organisms, part of the universe's process of evolution. In the broad view of things, we might even say that evolution is a kind of living "organism" more than some observed "process." Life in its full richness is a "learning creature" - and we are conscious members within and of that expansive life.
The 'creature' called Life does more than adapt. It learns, and through its learning transforms its parts into new ones, perpetually changing itself in the process of exploring and responding to the world's fullness and deep meanings. And humans reflect, in very direct ways, that extraordinary ability to mold and transform. We are born neither fully realized nor mentally restricted. It is as we grow individually and together that we adapt through learning, transforming ourselves and our world in the process. All and One: Learning and Teaching The foundation of my views on education comes from an idea called the "integrity paradigm"1. This view of the world says that the essential dynamics of learning are present even at the most basic levels of existence, and therefore learning is an ever present part of every moment of every day of every life. Then, just as evolution requires a world of energy, information, and encounters to explore and fulfill all its potential, so each human thrives on what she and he experiences. Every complex organization, entity and organism exists reliant on communication - "else-knowledge" that becomes internal and therefore - "self-knowledge". The knowledge may be different, the architectures unequal, but the relationships are the same. Individually and as groups we are ever and always learners. From the moment we begin and all through our life. Learning is our essential act of existence - the essential act of being human. A Learning World, a Learning Community of People
What does this mean for us exactly? It means that to become competent learning communities we need to become teaching communities. Every member, every person, must be an "educator," available at a moment's notice to share knowledge, wisdom, skills, and perceptions with those in need. So the responsibility falls on each of us - whether fully matured or not, whether "formally" trained as educators or not - to "teach." This requires that we come to appreciate teaching as something every person does for everyone else, and then ultimately, what every person accomplishes for themselves : self-directed learning.
Self-directed learning is an important part of the learning sequence: transmission, transaction, transformation, self-direction (Miller) (see “Philosophies of Learning Communities” in this book). Human beings are extremely intricate, involved with our environments and with each other. We are social creatures who communicate and form societies, commercial groups, belief communities, and so on. We are artistic creators who continuously add new dimension to our ever-involved lives. Human networking is so complete that learned "personal knowledge" is often immediately available as "collective knowledge." The responsibilities for learning and for teaching therefore are sublimely meshed together. And wonderfully, it is not beyond any of us to be both educator and learner, teacher and student. How to Do It
There are none more needy, more hungry or ready to learn, than our infants and our children. Their hunger - our hunger - is the open mind and body, ready to encounter and accept all information and experiences offered. Learning takes place where the body and the mind are - within the family and community environments, where "home" is an idea. It includes the world we ourselves learned about and grew into, our shelter, our families, as well as the contributions we made in transforming our first worlds into something new and enriched.
The place where each newborn's adventure of life begins may be similar to what existed years or only moments before, but it is also different, special and unique. It is constantly being changed by the community and the child in wondrously subtle, creative ways. What was old and as constant as the hills is available to be learned anew. What is malleable and current and local is available to be learned too. And importantly, the skills and confidence to be a creative member of the human family are there, to be nurtured and promoted.
Learning and styles of learning begin with the very first breath. Each new life, in that instant, begins to build a relationship with the world. And we need to diligently be there for the building process.
At that point, learning is strictly somatic ~ visceral, simple, physical ~ but the lessons remain for a lifetime. Sentience lives here, deep and thriving, gathering, absorbing, and evaluating. Learning what it can rely on and what it can't. What it can control, and what it can't.
It is here that the mind begins being part of a dance that never ends, the flow of signals and sensations, breath and air, touch and pressure, sensations that are pleasant, soothing, rough, uncomfortable, cool, warm, loud, mellow. Signals, skills and sensations are the stock in trade of the alert minds of infants and youngsters, as they/we establish learning techniques to absorb, appreciate and value what will affect our selves, our world and our self-in-world. And who are better guides for these fresh and deserving minds than us, the people who have gone before, learned what it took, remembered what we ourselves required, and are here to make their journeys smoother because of the knowledge and skills we gained. Especially using the key of human life : intricate exquisite "language." The linguistics expert Benjamin Whorf portrayed language as a kind of relativity 2. Experiences become memes ~ recurring mind patterns. Memes then join with sounds and bodily gestures which, as markers and signals, become "experienced" as events themselves, on a level equal with the phenomena they track and trace, represent and refer to. The instant a word or thought, sensation or memory flashes into your voiced mind, you are not only the thought's creator, you are also its first experiencer.
What seems static or patiently quiet inside of us is really a world constantly being created, invented, made new again with each thought, experience and stream of impressions. It is ideas and thoughts testing the responsiveness of the world to us, and us to it, all the time and all at the same time. As this is true for adults, it's just as true for our young ones. Now to Do It
The first educators in a child's life typically include its mother, father, or other nurturer. These people have to appreciate the abilities already there in this new and special person. An infant brings "needs" into the world, but more importantly it brings skills. It will accommodate to feeding routines, to sleeping schedules, to good and bad sensations, to being warmly held and snuggled, to being free to flail and touch, smell, sense, explore, where the hunger for nurturing experiences is just as strong as the hunger for sustenance.
An infant is experiencing, learning, acquiring, reacting, acclimating, testing, seeing, prompting, and communicating ~ all of this accomplished at every moment. Sensations are coordinated with sensations, infused with and evaluated for meaning. A baby takes everything in, from the most complex environment to the simplicity of upturned cheeks - smiles.
Children learn earlier than we traditionally gave them credit for. Through interacting with our children even at the earliest stages we are laying the foundations for them for future life encounters, for lifelong learning and expectations, long before they are introduced to their first formal classroom. So we must empower adults to see themselves as very real "educators." And the task becomes providing a framework to guide competence in that work as excellent educators and nurturers of learning. Realizing What You Already Know
The first thing you must realize as a parent or a care giver is that "reporting" is not the gauge of learning in infants, the way we depend on it for older learners. Unfortunately, we are so used to the formal presence of testing and evaluation processes that we assume the reverse situation. We assume that if there is no testing mechanism present, then no learning is taking place. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A child is taking in and permanently remembering all its encounters. If any "testing" is going on, it is the child who is accomplishing it internally, and we can only wait for later results. Seeing a child apply its learning to the perfection of motions, of coos and sounds that ~ practiced ~ become language, and to repetitive play-backs of the sensations of its own body, that become coordinations and successes, provides confirmation that learning went on. (For early learning situations, "perfection" should be appreciated loosely and simply, as: adequate to secure the concept or skill and repeat it in a purposeful way. In the child's world, "close enough" is "good enough." Fine tuning is left for later.)
To be a good educator you have to know all this and applaud, encourage, and give positive feedback to every accomplishment, even the smallest. Because to the youngest of minds and bodies, nothing is insignificant. Everything either means something or has the potential to mean something. What works is good and even what doesn't is stored for comparison later against other things and situations. Time is a free running stream of experiences and all things are considered.
There is a process that toddlers typically go through that shows this. Often youngsters trip and fall. A younger child might react in ways that can be interpreted, "Unexpected event ... Oh, I should cry and be upset!" But for toddlers something more wonderful happens that gives us an insight about learning. In the instant after the fall, when the body is self-sensing itself for true injuries, there is a pause before committing to tears or complaint. If the child realizes that he or she is not seriously injured, or if the child is encouraged by an older companion to perceive itself as unhurt, sometimes this phenomenon occurs: the child will re-enact the fall several times. The child isn't trying to injure itself. What's happening is that the child is studying the event in a more controlled way, being aware of it ahead of time, and re-staging body sensations, conditions, where and how it was moving or where things were in its path. It is going back and accounting for future use the factors it wasn't aware of in the heat of the first event. Besides learning and fixing these factors in memory, this acting out also encourages and reassures the child that the shocking situation was survived successfully.
This acting out usually doesn't last too long, maybe a minute or so. Just long enough to figure out what happened and to make a mental note, to either prevent it or cope with it again. Then the child usually runs off to play where she or he meant to in the first place, with maybe a quick word or hug of sympathy requested from you. Importantly, moments like these are windows into the personal and social psyche of learning. When they happen in our presence, we are involved participants, supporters of young evaluation skills and opinions.
When a child throws a spoon full of food across the room, its not thinking about "mess." It just wants to try "throwing" and to "make things happen." It's the adult world that has chosen which "throws" are preferred (ball outside the house versus spoon full of food inside) and which "things to happen" are acceptable or allowable. Even handed encouragements about our behavior preferences (and the consequences of making a "mess") are the way to react. In wisdom and awareness, it's ourselves we have to constrain as much as the infant. The child can learn about throwing, messes, fun, anger, and responsibility for actions all at the same time, depending on the calmness and substance of our educational reactions.
Situations and events aren't always crisp and singular. Many how's, what's and why's are involved. What we focus on may not be where the child's learning or attention is concentrated. So don't be surprised if children learn more than you intend, or surpass your expectations, sometimes in areas you didn't even realize you were "teaching." Human hunger for learning is more powerful and active than imagined. It can be a lot to keep up with. Just stay with it and do your best. Focusing Your Teaching Skills
Just as every day is an opportunity to learn something or teach something yourself, so is every moment of a child's life. It ought to be done in proportion though. You never know when a "teaching moment" will occur, so you have to be ready all the time. But neither should you push too hard to see learning accomplished. Incorporating ideas and skills requires time, and we who aren't inside the brain of the learner have to give her or him the freedom to encounter and the important time to digest what is being learned. What the child is consistently exposed to will make up part of its life-space and thought repertoire whether reported or repeated to you or not.
Think of the ground or floor. It "talks" to children all the time, and children "talk back." This is true for all of us actually. We respond by learning muscle control and body comfort and useful positions to act out ambulating skills ~ balancing, maneuvering, stopping, going, falling, rising, and so on. We learn as children and then continue through the whole of our lives to "converse" with the floor and the gravity field we live in. It's a "conversation" that never stops.
We are always involved with that pervasive ongoing "conversation" and we quickly become premiere accomplishers of up-right walking. Can you imagine the levels of competence we can achieve in attitudes, thinking, reasoning, reading, recognition, joy, communication, and so on, when exposure to those things are as consistent and reinforced and encouraged in regular ways from the earliest moments of being? The achievements can be extraordinary. These are things that every parent and care giver ought to be aware of.
Constant exposure is the key. Building complex associations, verbalizing textures, colors, uses, situations, feelings, sensations, and attitudes, gives a voice, a word, a place in the world for everything the child is coming to know. These connections-building-on-connections become the heart of the learning process we use throughout our lives. Context and diverse associations are what make things meaningful, and become what we make value judgements on as we mature. They become more intricate and subtle ~ almost intuitive ~ as we get older and more skilled at taking things in. But it is a process we have with us from the very beginning, waiting only to be encouraged and helped along.
The key is helping infants, toddlers and all growing minds to use all their newly developing skills, as they are acquired and practiced, so that the learners can identify their environment and world for themselves. We need to continually share our associations and hopes. Children will learn what we offer. The more consistent the offerings the better the chances for being retained and used later on. Beyond that, children's own self reliance and honed abilities become the invaluable foundation for continual self-education. Confident enablers are successful "personal skills" conveyers
We need to be enablers of our young. The most upsetting thing in life is to feel dis-empowered. And what more upsetting situation can there be than if you can't communicate all that you have inside you? Why else do you imagine the "terrible twos" got that reputation? It's the time in most children's lives when they have all this internal "knowing" bubbling about inside them and few words or communication skills to make that internal world known, their desires and needs understood. In perspective, the early ways of learning are often the best - practical, tactile, transcendent, and real. And the best adult learning comes when we re-open ourselves to those early ways. Value and trust, skills and confidence, meaning and pertinence. They aren't just cognitive, they are visceral. They are valuable in every encounter, every situation, and every role we experience and engage in. Not just momentarily, not just in local applications, but plurally, together. The integrity of society is as important as the integrity of each member. The integrity of the whole is the integrity of its members. Success, as the Integrity Paradigm states 3, and E.O. Wilson has pointed out using the notion of 'consilience' - relies on balancing all integrities, as best as possible, all at the same time 4. Integrity and competence – separately and together.
We have – all of us – to become educators of our young. Especially, educators of our youngest and most promising potential. The issue isn't what to teach, but that we teach, continually instilling a love of learning, a love of what's learned, and love of the teaching process, accomplished through the sensations of success and connecting with meaning.
Parents and educators should be committed to the happiness and competence of all children - as individuals and as members of our communities - where each child deserves the opportunity for living a fulfilling safe life, as part of a supportive society of an ever unfolding learning adventure of our created, creative universe. References
1. Rose, James N. (1998) "Concept Rhymes", essay, Ceptual Institute, Internet.
http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/nuc/nuc_com012.htmRose, James N. (1992) "Understanding the Integral Universe", Ceptual Institute, Miami, Minden, Internet.
http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/uiu_plus/UIUcomplete11-99.htm
2. Whorf, Benjamin Lee. (1956) "Language, Thought and Reality", ed. John B. Carroll, MIT Press, Cambridge.
3. See #1 above.
4. Wilson, Edward O. (1998) "Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge", Alfred A Knopf, New York.
Photo1: Infant in seat/carrier.
(© copyright J Rose 1983)
Even during the 'non-language' first year, every infant tests the verbal waters - including appropriate body language. If you respond to them as real attempts at real communication, then that's what they will become: real. And at a very early age.
Photo 2: The author working with first-graders.
(© copyright J Rose,1999)
Pronunciation and word recognition practice is interspersed with asides and conversations about things not in the book. Ideas and pictures are tied to things and events in the child's life and experiences. Alternative connections, parallel associations. Expressive 'voice' is encouraged over precise enunciation. Several skills reinforced at the same time. A 'panorama approach' to teaching.
