Hi David and colleagues,

I’m not sure knowledge construction requires reflection – even if conscious knowledge construction might.  Nor am I sure of the applicability of Bateson’s levels of learning here – certainly when used to talk of higher levels when Bateson is clear they are not a progression.  However I am clear that what babies learn is transformational – and it is highly likely that they experience higher degrees of transformational learning than we do as adults. 

And, while embodied learning is important, I’m not sure that is sufficient as a description of learning as formation; as emotional [some would say spiritual] and intellectual growth.  Again, I would argue that I am constantly learning but am often not capable of putting what I am learning into words [cf. these emails as an example!].  Its seems to me that such articulation only comes later, after reflection and the search for meaningful models.  For example, I don’t find it unusual to have a feeling that an argument or idea is wrong well before I can work out how to articulate my objection to it.  Much of higher learning seems to me to be the search for better and better models, ideas and language that help us express the way we understand the world; to allow us to discuss, debate and hone our understanding with others.  Again, a teacher can be very helpful with this - that may be by introducing new models or encouraging us to keep on with the struggle to express what we already know – but we also learn just through the act of living, by trying to express ourselves to others, and by debate, clarification and challenge from colleagues, students or anyone else.    

Cheers

John

John

In order to talk about knowledge construction and understanding I would suggest that you are talking about a level of learning requiring reflection and awareness, a higher level of learning (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268381863_BATESON'S_LEVELS_OF_LEARNING_AS_A_CONCEPTUAL_FRAMEWORK_FOR_WORKPLACE_LEARNING) which I think it is difficult to ascribe to babies – change is there, but learning, and at what level?

I think embodied learning is very important, but do not think that as an adult I can go back to learning without language, and also recognise that some learning is unconscious – but that does not make it non, or pre-linguistic – in fact much of studies in hypnosis is around how the unconscious is linguistic, even if you don’t do as far as Lacan (the structure of the unconscious is the structure of language).

David

Sorry Ray – but I can’t let that pass!

Babies learn vast amounts before they can speak see, for example, Gerhart (2015) Why love matters. And I don’t think many people would accept that this is not knowledge just because they can’t yet put words to it.  They learn at a tremendous rate across the whole spectrum of experience and knowledge.  For example, they learn who loves them, the difference between day and night, not to bang their head on the wall, where their food comes from and how to get it by the right combination of smiles and cries.  There is a great deal of knowledge construction and understanding there. Yes, language is transformative but it is not everything.

Equally, the dichotomy between ‘Kierkegaard’s transcendental take on knowledge and the role of teaching, and the 'maieutic' ('midwifery') mode of Socratic dialogue where understanding is 'drawn out' from the learner perhaps ought to be a ‘not only but also’ rather than an ‘either/or’.  I have certainly often had the experience of being ‘taught’ something only to find that I ‘knew it already’ but that the teaching gave me a new way of thinking about it and articulating it.  Is this midwifery or transcendence –or might it just be both?  Teaching is a powerful way of supporting learning but learning also happens all the time, without needing teaching.

This may be why we have come to put learning first – because teaching, by definition, requires that learning happens, it is reliant on learning. Whereas learning can happen both with and without teaching.

Cheers

John

Dr John Peters

Head of Academic Practice

Newman University

Tel: +44(0)121 476 1181  Ex: 2626

Academic Practice at Newman

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JDpeters63

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