What can be done to improve our ability to learn.

Aesop

"Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting." Aldous Huxley

"Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

By evolution not revolution. If we are to become learners rather than educated, the idea that we all need to be taught the same thing at the same time has to be, eventually, abandoned. This in turn implies that such essential social structures, such as examinations and a fixed curriculum, must also be eventually abandoned. However, this does not mean that we should expect, or want, such things to disappear any time soon. Learning is change in what we know and believe, and how we learn is dependent on what societies know and believe about how we should learn. To change society we first must change ourselves and what we believe. To change how we learn, we must change what societies know and believe, and to do that we must change what we believe about learning. It is a catch 22. If our individual ability to change what we know and believe, is not easy to change, then the ability of societies to change what they know and believe, must be horrendously difficult.

John Holt has this to say:

"The things we know and believe are part of us. We feel we have always known them. Almost anything else, anything that does not fit into our structure of knowledge, our mental model of reality, is likely to seem strange, wild, fearful, dangerous and impossible. People defend what they are used to even when it is hurting them."

Slow but steady improvement. The sudden dramatic change that comes with revolution almost never has the kind of permanence that revolutionaries would hope. This is because revolutions cause change in every part of a society at once, so that nobody is sure what he is required to do or whether he should do anything. In other words everybody is off balance, upset and feeling insecure. Every revolution has been a failure to some extent, even the U.S. revolution. The beginnings of democracy, in the French revolution, is the most spectacular failure of all. Likewise to talk about the Russian and Chinese revolutions is to talk about travesties of horror. South America has so many revolutions but nothing seems to happen there. It is of no great surprise that one of the best systems of democracy is that of the United Kingdom. Democracy in the U.K. came much more slowly than in France though with some revolutionary elements. Ideas can only grow slowly as people come to believe in them. Even in science, where we would expect revolution to be easy because experiments can be duplicated, change is still slow. In science change certainly does not happen immediately as we would expect from revolutionary theory.

The problem with learning is, the ones mostly doing it, the young, have no power in the world, and by the time they become old, their beliefs have changed or modified and have no fire. So in each generation only a few lucky learners are allowed to direct their own learning, and we can only hope that they manage to change a few more in the next generation and so on. We would hope this goes on until enough people who are old enough to do something to effect real change, are in a position to do it. This is a process of evolution not revolution.

Karl Popper, in his defense of democracy in "The Open Society", shows that things change for the better bit by bit as we try to alleviate the most pressing horrors. This is all we can hope for with change; to take things as they are and try to improve them. There is little to be gained by imagining a utopia and trying to move the world toward it. For the moment we move toward it, we see it must be modified to deal with problems we did not consider. Still, it is helpful to wonder who can change what, and furthermore, how they might go about it. A plurality of scenarios of what to do and how, will be more helpful than any plan. But as to who can do something, surely the answer is everybody. As Seth Godin says in his little book "Tribes" we are all empowered these days, by the incredible tools provided by the internet, to become leaders or followers in changing the world.

Talking to others but listening to ourselves. Part of the problem for changing schools, governments and all the other institutions and groups of people concerned with learning (the most important of which are listed below) is a kind of 'either or' attitude. We are all guilty of this polarizing, for it is embedded deep in our culture. We do not think twice about a government that has an opposition party to keep it in check. The whole idea of argument and debate make it difficult to find common ground in ideas, and the idea that two seemingly opposing ideas might both be correct or incorrect is totally foreign to us. This polarizing of ideas actually prevents listening. We listen only so we can find ways to counter what the other is saying. Our concern is with being the one who is right, rather than discovering what is right. Yet there are other ways of doing things. The Japanese idea of bringing many ideas together with many people and discussing them till a consensus is arrived at, is both more logical and more likely to bring realistic and harmonious result.

Are schools changing for the better? Despite the truth described above, it would be nice if a change toward child self directed learning in schools was making a little more progress than it currently seems to be making. Also it would be nice to have some idea about what should change and how it should change.

CHANGE. What should be changed and how should it be changed?

1. How schools can change.
2. How teachers can change.
3. How parents can change.
4. How government can change.
5. How the internet can change.
6. How programmers can change.
7. How libraries can change.
8. How television networks can change.
9. How psychologists can change.
10. How business can change.
11. How students can change.
12. How learners can change.

Learner Directed Learning.

Effective learning. This is what we know. For each child the initial reason for learning is to make sense of the world, to make the world predictable for themselves, to bring the world under their personal control. This is what Popper meant by the need for discoverable regularities and discoverable structural invariants of the environment. We also know that another important reason for this need is so that each child can satisfy all their other human needs. Also, Maslow informs us, that as each of these needs are satisfied, they become weaker allowing needs at a higher level of Maslow's hierarchy to become more insistent. We also know, that what makes children unique individuals, is their interests, and that these interests in turn are what allow the development of their innate capacities or potentials. Learning then is all these things. It starts with curiosity about the unknown and culminates in what Maslow meant by self-actualization. 

Intrinsic motivation, autonomy and competence. Learning does not come from without, rather it comes from these inner needs which are intrinsic motivators within each child. Without these motivators learning is not possible and they depend for their existence on each child acquiring the skills necessary to satisfy each of these needs him/herself. Each child has to grasp the initiative to take over satisfying each need him/herself and that this can only take place through the lessening of each child's dependence on others. Learning then requires the growth within each child of their personal autonomy. All learning is therefore about the enabling of this autonomy and ultimately the competence that is its byproduct. Needs and interests can only be truly satisfied, when the learner satisfies them himself, and not when they are satisfied by others.

Independence, interdependence and synergy. To some extent each child learns also in order to become independent of his parents. Similarly at school the learner learns in order to become independent of his teachers. This is what Maria Montessori meant when she talked about the need for independence in the child. Maslow's hierarchy has at its low levels what Maslow called deficiency needs where the individual grows through separating him or herself from others, through satisfying needs for competence and autonomy. However, at the highest level of the hierarchy, meta-needs take us to a place that requires cooperation, and synergy between the individual and others. This requires a further change, where the person is no longer dependent yet no longer independent. Rather the person becomes autonomous without being independent, better described as being interdependent. A confidence that comes from feeling competent in satisfying the deficiency needs, enables children to then put their trust in others and recombine their selves with others to become groups comunities and societys that can act together as one.

Learning then is not easily simplified. While there is important reasons why children should direct their own learning there is in the end a need for a support system that will help them to do this efficiently. There is also a need for teachers not to teach but rather to be the main pillars in that support system.

"All of the top achievers I know are life-long learners... Looking for new skills, insights, and ideas. If they're not learning, they're not growing... not moving toward excellence." Denis Waitley

"Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future." Brian Tracy

"We all learn best in our own ways. Some people do better studying one subject at a time, while some do better studying three things at once. Some people do best studying in structured, linear ways, while others do best jumping around, 'surrounding' a subject rather than traversing it. Some people prefer to learn by manipulating models, and others by reading." Bill Gates

Adult prejudice. Adults tend to have a problem with children learning both by themselves and in groups. There are many reasons for this but perhaps the most important is the fact that we tend to see children as frivolous and irresponsible. We do not trust children to learn by themselves. We tend to believe that they are lazy and will goof off if they are not directed. Also we are prone to believe that there is some basic knowledge that everybody needs to know and while we understand what that basic knowledge is children do not. All of these beliefs by adults adults are just plain wrong. 

Children need to know. It can be shown that most children, despite having been subjected to all sorts of unpleasant experiences with many subject matters by schools, if left to their own devices, will recover and develop many many areas of interest. They will not be lazy nor frivolous nor irresponsible. The intense burning curiosity they showed as infants will tend to be revived.  

Adults out of date. As for adults knowing what everyone needs to know, the fact is, that adults grew up and learned about a world that is at least twenty years out of date. Children are growing up in a new different world and require a different type of learning. Not only that but what was basic before may now be irrelevant. 

Basic knowledge. Not only that but the whole notion of basic knowledge itself is very difficult to pin down. Sure some things can be learned more easily if you have learned something else previously, but it is difficult to know in advance what you need to know now if you do not know what you will need to know in the future. Before the enlightenment and the invention of the printing press most people in the world got bye without knowing how to read. Reading is of course now an important or basic skill we all need today, but it is less so than it was. Why? This is because now so much knowledge is in the medium of video and other non text visual media. Also, although text is still used in much of this media, it tends to be used more and more sparingly. Mental arithmetic that seemed so essential a few years ago seems unimportant in a world filled with calculators. Is writing or spelling important in the new world of computers and spelling checkers? What about public speaking and debate? What do most people need to know now at a basic level so that their learning will be easy in the future? It is hard to know what is needed, but it is clear that the people who have the best chance of guessing what it is are the natives of this new world. They are the children who have been imersesed in this new world from their first moments.

The problem. Of course there is a problem with self direction in learning. Many children have been so disengaged from their own curiosity and interest that they have an aversion to any sort of learning they associate with school. This is indeed a problem to overcome. But it will not be overcome by forcing children to learn against their will. It can only be fixed by making learning in school enjoyable or at the very least not unpleasant. 

Self directed learners. Why should children be trusted with directing their own learning? This site holds that there is little choice but to allow children to direct their own learning. Firstly it is good practice for what they have to do later in life. Secondly only the learner is truly in a position to know enough about him/herself to realize his/her own potential; only the learner knows enough about his/her inner world to make it predictable; and he/she can do these things, only if he/she is free to choose and does not need guidance. Also the young child growing up in the new world is in a much better position than his/her parents or teachers in predicting what might be important to know in a distant future. None of this is possible if the learner does not control or direct his/her own learning. The moment somebody else tries to decide what should be learned, the learner effectively stops learning, or the learning becomes ineffective. 

Learners have a knee jerk reaction to perceived control that activates resistance. The only kind of learning that makes any sense, in view of this, is learning in which the learner has choice. Only learner directed learning can be shown to be truly effective in terms of memory and usefulness. Thus this site advocates learner directed learning where the learner chooses when, where, how, what and why he will learn.

Teachers. If students direct their learning and choose what etc. to learn, are teachers then obsolete? Answer, certainly not. Teachers are more essential than ever before.The old idea of what teachers should be to help self directed learners was that they should be facilitators and this is still an important part of teacher function with self directed learners. As facilitators they would pay attention to changes in learners interest and curiosity and react to provide resources, opportunities and encouragement to facilitate each and every interest and exploration. This, is by no means, is the full extent of teacher function with self directed learners however. Other important functions for teachers can be found in the 12 keys to knowledge and are the following:

Society has somehow managed to get all this wrong and needs to get it right. Abraham Maslow probably explains this as well as anyone can in his book "The Father Reaches of Human Nature" as follows.

"In the Ideal College, there would be no credits, no degrees and no required courses. A person would learn what he wanted to learn... The ideal college would be a kind of educational retreat in which you could try to find yourself; find out what you like and want; what you are and are good at. People would take various subjects, attend various seminars, not quite sure of where they were going, but moving toward the discovery of vocation, and once they found it, they could then make good use of technological education. The chief goals of the ideal college, in other words, would be the discovery of identity, and with it the discovery of vocation."

Why is the Evidence Ignored? The scientific evidence, as presented elsewhere in this site, is so clear that traditional methods of teaching are harmful in almost every way to true learning. It seems therefore very strange indeed that traditional methods of teaching are still being used. This is especially so, when we realize that every time some move has been made toward student directed learning, it has been overwhelmingly successful. Maria Montessori, A. S. Neil, to name just two were able to perform virtual miracles with children who had been forgotten, discarded or given up on.

Why is Changing how we Learn in Schools so Difficult? Certain ideas are deeply embedded in our culture. One is the fear of doing something wrong and making our children's learning or life harder. Another is our preoccupation with normalcy. We know what to do, but we are afraid to do it, because there is a slight possibility, in doing so, that we will make our children less able. Thus we are unwilling to do anything. More profoundly, however, we want our children to fit in and not be different or abnormal. We fear this word abnormal when we should love the word uniqueness and use it instead.

Piaget knew well about this difficulty in changing how we learn. He had this to say in his book "To Understand is to Invent":

"Most practitioners of the new kind of education have gone through the same experiences; it is the parents who are the greatest obstacle to the application of 'active' methods. There are two combined reasons and they are easy to understand. The first is that if one has confidence in known methods in usage for a long time there is some worry at the idea that one's own children might serve as experimental subjects or "guinea pigs" (as if every change in program, book or teacher in a traditional school were not an "experiment" as well!). The second is that the main preoccupation of parents on all levels of education and even of preschool familial education is that their offspring not turn out to be 'backward'. A baby must know how to walk at x months of age at the risk of becoming knock-kneed; a small child in the nursery school must know how to read and count up to twenty at x years, while everything warns against artificially rushing, and advises the dedicating of this beginning period, precious to everyone, to the establishment of the most solid foundation possible."

"Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from." Jodie Foster

Darker and more sinister reasons for adults resisting change. There are answers to this problem that are indeed darker that have their roots in the average person, the ordinary person, what is called by newspapers, the silent majority. These people resist changing the way we learn in schools because something happens to them in their lives, caused by how they learned, that takes the joy and pleasure out of everything they do. When people do not have the benefit of taking pride and joy in what they do, it twists inside of them and their goals and beliefs, which they in turn project on to their children. John Holt in his book "Teach Your Own" puts it like this:

"In a nutshell, people whose lives are hard, boring, painful, meaningless - people who suffer - tend to resent those who suffer less than they do, and will make them suffer if they can. People who feel themselves in chains, with no hope of ever getting them off, want to put chains on everybody else.

In short, it was becoming clear to me that the great majority of boring, regimented schools were doing exactly what they had always done and what most people wanted them to do. Teach children about Reality. Teach them that life is No Picnic. Teach them to Shut UP And Do What Your Told. Please do not misunderstand me on this. People do not think this way out of pure meanness. A man writing, sympathetically, to a radical newspaper, about life in small towns in Iowa, where in order to pay their debts many full-time farmers have to do extra work in meat-packing plants - as he says, 'Shoveling Lungs' - says, 'The work ethic has been ground into these folks so thoroughly that they think anyone who doesn't hold down, continually, a full-time painful job is a bum.' They don't want their kids to be bums.

Back To The Basics for most of them, is code for No More Fun And Games In School. Most of them don't care particularly about reading, as such. They read little themselves - like most Americans, they watch TV. What they want their children to learn is how to work. By that they don't mean to do good skillful work they can be proud of. They don't have that kind of work themselves, and never expect to. They don't even call that 'work'. They want their children, when their time comes, to be able, and willing to hold down full-time painful jobs of their own. The best way to get them ready to do this is to make school as much like a full-time painful job as possible."

There is something in what John Holt has to say here. Certain adults (not all adults) do seem to almost resent children. They will say that they have worked hard or fought in the war so children can live in a better, happier world. Yet, when they see children living in that better world and having fun, they frown and comment about how easy children have it, and how they have done nothing to earn it.

A brief explanation in terms of cognitive dissonance. What these people cannot accept; what makes student directed learning so hideously frightening for them, is the possibility that the harsh brutal life they have lived, has no meaning, and that they need not have lived that way. The idea that they might have had an easier, enjoyable life, must be wrong. The idea of 'student directed learning' must not only be wrong, but a trick to bring unsuspecting students off course. They know that when they were young that they were no dammed good (everybody told them so endlessly) so kids in general must be no dammed good.

A vicious circle. In this way, it appears that humanity is stuck in a vicious circle. The more people that experience a traditional authoritarian education, the more likely it is that people will insist that their children be likewise subjected to this traditional authoritarianism. If, however, more people experience progressive learner directed education, then more people will demand learner direction for their children and escape from the vicious circle is possible. Is it a catch 22? Let us hope not.

Disillusionment. John Holt in his book "Teach Your Own" shows that he had become very disillusioned with school reform. Although he had tried to help reform schools for most of his previous working life, he had come to the conclusion that it could not be done. He points out in that book, that the majority of people just do not want it to happen. They are unhappy about the few miserable changes that have happened so far. While I do not wish to imply that what John Holt went on to do was unimportant, I do think he was wrong to give up this fight. In our lifetime we have seen many remarkable things, but none more remarkable than the change that has turned smoking cigarettes from a symbol of high status and masculinity to that of a pariah. A smoker must now go outside, because he smells and brings disease in the form of cancer. If such an amazing thing can be done with smoking I must believe there is still hope to reform the schools.

Why We Must Continue. This site wishes to suggest that although the road is difficult and though the pace of reform is slight, with much backsliding, that nothing is more important than continuing the fight to reform schools and liberate learning. Children, whether they know it or not, are suffering now, and an effort must be made to help them now. A better, more intelligent world, is being withheld from us, but with our help our children could build that world, not for us, but for themselves. This site holds that the reform of schools must come. It must be understood however, that we cannot expect that the majority of parents or even of students, will be glad to see those reforms come. We can be sure that even when those reforms are in place, that many people will be hysterically outraged by their existence, and work with great tenacity to see them revoked.

After all, reforms have come mostly through the efforts of the privileged, and not through the efforts of the oppressed. Ask any slave what he really wants and you will find he wants to be an overseer or even a slave master or owner. Only people who have been free can conceive of the possibility of freedom, so only they can help others to find a need for it. Only those who have never felt the yoke around their necks never want to feel the weight of it, and only they can help lift it off others. Those of us who have been least touched by the school system, who have best renounced the worst parts of the protestant work ethic, have both an opportunity, and an obligation to try and free others from these chains. We must save them from themselves. Remember everybody is a victim of this school system, students, administrators and teachers. Perhaps the final word on this is expressed by Ken Macrorie (Professor of English at Western Michigan University) in his book "Uptaught".

"At moments I look at all professors, including myself with understanding. We are no less victims of the system than the students. In the schools we were brought up as slaves. Someone or something opened us up to the possibility of becoming overseers. We submitted to the required trials, said 'Yes sir,' to the professors in graduate school and moved out of slavehood. But we did not escape the system. That was not presented as a possibility. So we stayed with slavery, as overseers. Some of us acted more decently and liberally toward the slaves than others, but like the best slave owners - Thomas Jefferson, for example - we perpetuated a system which robs young people of their selfhood."