Learning is a core skill that forms the foundation of all kinds of personal and non-personal growth. Broadly speaking there are three main types of learning we need to be aware of (I am aware of many more but I shall concentrate on three). The first is Learning by Rote or put simply learning through study and gaining knowledge through the repetitious memorizations of ‘facts’ found in text books. I personally call this kind of learning ‘surface-level’. For example, when I was school they made us memorize our times tables by heart. Two times two is four, four times four is eight and so on. That is, learning this way is so easy it really only scratches the surface of what learning should be all about. It fails to engage with the deep issues of topic and scraps the surface superficially. My pet Chihuahua can learn things by rote like ‘sit’ by treating them with a reward. The Chihuahua is less than likely to turn to me and ask ‘Why do you tell me to sit?’ certainly not when I have a piece of meat in my hand. It will do it because it will be rewarded for pulling up surface level learning from its brain: “When I sit I get meat”.
Aristotle for example, developed systems of logic that we all know and use in our mathematical induction and reasoning. This kind of knowledge generation or learning is based around the idea that all of our learning capacity as human beings takes place in a logical fashion or by rote. In this case, if one is to trace the history of philosophy (something done better in many different texts on this subject ) there is a clear pattern of embedding logical learning patterns into rote forms. To put it simply, this kind of learning requires you to find the pattern, follow the rules and everything will be alright. If we are learning to screw in a light bulb – technically there is only one way this is going to get done. Screw it in by following the pattern. Such a technical issue requires no textbook exploration or real world conjecture to make it work. Put it in. If the light bulb was fine and you screwed it in ok and it still doesn’t work then there is something electrically wrong with the light bulb. A deeper level of learning is now required.
Conditional Learning
I now need to find someone who knows something about electricity. There is a complex electrical wiring system in the roof that took some planning and understanding to install. If you go into the roof without any knowledge or experience on how that works then you are going to be in trouble. Moving on from this I need some conditional learning that I can use to fix this problem. Now this kind of learning requires me to be able to learn what I am taught and apply to my problem. Returning to our electrician example, I can apply my knowledge to fixing your electrical systems because I have been conditioned that way through teaching.
When I learned what I needed I asked my instructor questions, I tried knew things and eventually learned how electrical systems work. Each wire, I placed in the ceiling I did so according to what I have learned from my training and the experience (rich or poor) that I have at this stage. When your light bulb won’t switch on, there goes your rote learning experience, your problem now has presented with you with a bit more complexity than before. I, as an electrician for example, might climb into your roof and examine the cause of the problem. I am now applying both what I was conditioned to learn (at electrician school) and what I have learned from being an electrician. In short I can fix the problem because I submitted myself to training that allowed me to become an electrician. The same thing is taking place inside universities. You want to be an accountant you have to submit yourself to the conditions that make that possible in order to become that accountant. Conditional learning gives me theories to test out and apply so I can become something predefined. In essence at university you don’t learn something mystical or new, you get fed what they think you need to know. This is predefined by academics who think they know what you need.
I am not being conspiratorial by saying this but you are being conditioned to doctrine. Why? You have exams to pass, a degree to obtain and more than likely a job to get. You had better condition yourself to the theory or else you may never become a professional! Such learning requires an understanding of concepts rather than just memorization. You need to explore ideas a bit here and move within certain boundaries of thought. To put it simply you are gaining theoretical knowledge which is predetermined by the teacher for you to learn. Learn that, and you will do well. Move outside the acceptable boundaries for your conditional learning and you will be in trouble.
An example of conditional learning in Business Schools is the idea that all students must learn statistics in their first year. It’s taken as given that most students need to know statistics because they are going into a world of cold hard facts. This may be true by why make it mandatory? Why condition students to make excellent regression equations when in reality unless they are really, really interested they are more than likely never going to use it. That’s conditional learning. I had the misfortune of teaching statistics for a while at a college and invariably the poor students (those that were there would remember my ineptitude suffered greatly) asked me why are we doing this? After a while I ran out of lies to tell them my standard response was, ‘well you have to’. Why? It’s deemed important by those who run the business school being the “objective” world of business and all. Conditional learning asks no questions tells no lies. Conditional forms of learning, given to us traditionally through our educational systems are largely based on a simplified version of life. Such learning is good when gaining understanding in the basic skills of life but is unfortunately lacking in broader context of the real world where the rules change constantly and very little actually stays the same.
Experiential Learning
A third type of learning that can help us, is learning by experience. Typically this kind of experiential learning relies on the ability to gain new insights into situations through the application of knowledge based on experience. Graham Hancock writes about a harsh experiential lesson in relationship to poverty:
In was in such a fashion, through guilt, that Europeans at a particular moment in history, came to see foreign aid as a vehicle of restitution, of righting past wrongs, of buying pardon.
At some point they had realized, what they did was inhumane – so as the author theorizes – they tried to fix a past wrong. Surface level rote learning never questions why things are the way they are, neither does conditional learning. You don’t see electricians reinventing electrical systems everyday. They don’t have to reinvent systems like that to make it work properly; they just have to apply their learning. Granted conditional learning requires a lot more thinking and is much more subjective (open to opinion and different forms that rote learning) but it’s still limited. Experiential learning on the other hand is simultaneously the most dangerous form of learning and the most interesting.
To learn by experience, requires three key things to work properly. The first is a person with an open mind. Learning only ever takes place when the person learning is willing to open their mind to understanding the thing they are studying. We can learn what they call ‘general knowledge’ by reading and rote learning. If the learner closes their mind when they are trying to gain insights into something they are interested in learning about they will not learn a thing. On the contrary, they will learn what they have preconditioned themselves to learn. A closed mind sees the end from the beginning and does not rest in the process of learning.
The point of learning is to gain new insights into something of interest so how can new insights be gained you already know what you are going to find? Learning by experience shapes the understanding of a situation as a potter shapes the clay because the learner is the one gaining not losing in this situation. With an open mind, the learner can explore the answers and form ideas of what works on the way to finding the knowledge they seek.
Having an open mind
Having an open mind allows the learner to see the possibilities and they will try things the close minded won’t. How many people are told you ‘can’t’ or ‘don’t’ by close minded individuals. Having an open mind automatically gives the learner the opportunity to learn even before anything has started and it gives the learning process a head start. This is because when you want to know how something works, you have to understand it by not only having the theories about it in your mind but also you need to understand the way in which it can be used. A failure to use knowledge in this way produces acceptance of concepts with no ‘proof’. The open minded learner is going to see what works or what doesn’t not blindly but by building on an established set of ideas. What closes our mind is our ideas about certain things and our worldview. This is because it makes us think certain things and contains hidden assumptions that can poison our learning experience. That is another post for another day!
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