Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
September 9 - September 14, 2020
Of course, not all learning is positive. Some learning experiences can be quite negative, even in the presence of connection and relationship.
The theory focuses on learning that occurs within a social context and that people learn from one another; however, the theory adds a social element. It proposes that people can learn new information and behaviors by observing other people. Thus, the use of observational learning, imitation, or modeling explains a wide variety of human behaviors using social learning theory and approach.523
Does this diagram portray the old Great Divide controversy?560 The answer is most certainly not.
Ong and others proposed a dichotomy—literacy versus orality.561 These quadrants, along with the possibility for many Cartesian coordinates, display a situation far more complex than one dichotomy. Many options lie along each of the horizontal and vertical axes.
Papacharissi maintained, “Orality is used to describe forms of storytelling and knowledge sharing that characterize every epoch. . . . Orality describes the form, the texture, the tonality that communication takes on.”564 I would, however, maintain connection or relationship and connected learning more clearly explains this phenomenon. Schrage, in his Merrill Lynch Forum blogpost, made an astute conclusion in relation to learning in this quadrant: The biggest impact these technologies have had, and will have, is on relationships between people and between organizations. The so-called
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Each quadrant of this diagram serves to contrast the learning in various lifeworlds or cultures. The lifeworld in the second quadrant values sacred print delivered through sacred people, while the one in the first quadrant values learning through people in face-to-face encounters, a culture of primary orality. Those in the third quadrant dwell in the academic world with a penchant for print and expertise, and the lifeworld in the fourth quadrant depicts that of the many modern learners who value connection and knowledge gained through technology. Learners in each quadrant desire connection and
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Neurologically, infants are already prepared to learn early after birth. They learn socially and observationally by watching the face of mother and father. A delicate, synchronized dance begins between the loving gazes of mother and child—one that creates an intense feeling of attachment,566 the genesis of connected/social/relational learning.567 Aragon et al., in researching the brain’s ability to mirror the actions of another, disclosed, “We have neural systems that support this connection and understanding.”568 Children learn through observation and imitation for some time. For some of
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Thigpen summarizes the development of human epistemology. Her proposal explains that difference in learning preferences is cultural.
Imposing literacy and formal schooling can sometimes be seen as harmful. In fact, Montandon called for abandoning the formal, informal, and non-formal labels because they make schooling the ideal form and foster hegemony.588
Perhaps formal learning should be referred to more specifically as “institutionally-directed learning” and other forms “learner-directed,” as most people engaged in formal learning cannot direct their entire learning process. ALFE did have more control over theirs as far as initiating learning projects.
The apostle Paul in the New Testament urged believers to imitate him (1 Cor 11:1; 4:16). There is something to be said for the merits of this kind of mentoring relationship especially for ALFE.
Turning to consider connected learning, Ong pronounced previously, “Language . . . is paramount.”611 By contrast, according to the participants in this study, relationship or connection with people was paramount. Ong majored on the study of communication and seemed to neglect the communicators, the vehicles driving the process. For the participants and their lifeworlds, the contrast was not between orality and literacy, between oral communication and text, but between learning from people and learning from print. Learning from people involved watching, listening, then talking.
For instance, a “non-literate” Ugandan man in Openjuru’s study expressed a desire to learn to repair vehicles or drive a car—not by attending vocational school and not by becoming literate but rather through apprenticeship, learning from a person by observation.624
Likewise, Furniss asserted: “The oral is a set of communicative conditions apparent in all societies and it is the implications of those conditions which have been obscured by the focus on the so-called ‘advances’ purportedly engendered by ‘writing.’”626
Additionally, Luong et al. defined socialization as involving “processes through which individuals internalize experiences from their social world in ways that alter their behavior, beliefs, health, and emotions.”630 Clearly, this resembles what ALFE did during their connected learning efforts.
In traditional or primitive societies . . . the actual process of learning was rarely, if ever, subject to careful and informed scrutiny. Learning in such societies is embedded in socialization. That is, the learning of skills and attitudes has not been functionally rationalized in segregated institutions; it takes place in a network of personal relations based on the paradigm of kinship. . . . Formal schools in primitive societies would be as strange and as repugnant as jails. Primitive learning, on the contrary, is an instrumental-cognitive-affective enterprise . . . a process that never
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Paradise and Rogoff called this process “a panhuman phenomenon,” “an integrated learning tradition,” and “a cultural tradition of humanity.”633 They commented on the process as follows: What is called informal learning is often taken to be learning that everyone engages in “naturally,” by virtue of being human; its grounding in sociocultural practices and their social institutions goes unnoticed. Although it is not simply prefabricated in “human nature,” we believe that is it so compatible with everyday cultural life in a wide array of family and community settings that it tends to become
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Ventura et al. in their study of Portuguese learners, noticed: Given that unschooled Portuguese people also seem to adopt a holistic style, our results suggest that this style does not derive from socialization within an Asian culture. One may tentatively suggest that the “default” processing style is the holistic one.635
Unfortunately, just as shown in Figure 11, “socialization and education are in competition”
The fact that students also learn the hidden curriculum of formal schooling shows the power of socialization enduring seemingly by stealth throughout life. This behind-the-scenes expectation to perform, behave, and dress in certain ways causes conflict with the worldviews of those who do not seem to require formal education.640 Life and school become at odds with one another, and in many instances, life wins.
It would be interesting to conduct this study with ALFE in individualistic-oriented cultures, such as in some parts of the United States. Past research examined earlier, however, has already shown that these adults also preferred a relational approach to learning.
Basing their work on older studies in the area of high and low context cultures, DeCapua and Marshall believed there are two types of cognitive thinking . . . “pragmatic” and “academic” orientations . . . for members of HC [high context] cultures with a pragmatic orientation, the meaning of messages must be embedded in context. The concept of “knowledge for knowledge’s sake” has no relevance because “knowledge” in an HC culture entails immediate relevance and/or application.646
What is shameful in one culture might not be in another. Along these lines, Bartlett taught: While the concepts of psychological and emotional capital certainly have their utility, my work reveals that they are somewhat limited. . . . As anthropological studies of emotions have demonstrated, emotions are utterly cultural and social. . . . People learn feeling. . . . Socio-interactionally produced emotions like shame play an important role in the cultural production of inequality.653
Samson experiences some shame when realizing he would struggle to teach in a lecture format or in guiding discussion about written material.
Finally, Brown defined shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging,” adding that shame also involves “the fear of disconnection.”657
This cultural, social, and psychological lack of honor, dignity, “worth or value of persons both in their eyes and in the eyes of their village, neighborhood, or society” was pervasive for many of the learners in this study.658 As Kaufman explained, “Shame is the principal impediment in all relationships.”659
In agreement, Peristiany felt “honour and shame are the constant preoccupation of individuals in small scale, exclusive societies where face to face personal, as opposed to anonymous, relations are of paramount importance.”661
This negative self-concept affected all of life and any further learning attempts. Because of failed attempts in formal schooling, the participants in this study found no desire to return to anything that remotely resembled that arena.
When we think of learning, we often default to cognitive understanding. However, the kinds of learning in which Cambodian ALFE were involved included other dimensions, including physical processes and the senses.
There is so much involved in learning that is not oral, that is connected to dimensions other than hearing or speaking, especially the physical and other senses. Learning can be somatic or embodied,676 the kind “that transpires from the ‘doing’ of the task.”677
Arrington found the Lisu hymn singing, a precious event in that community, to be “participatory performance,” a “communal activity” that also created “a sense of belonging.”683 She maintained this kind of participating “through sound and motion” resulted in “inclusiveness, social bonding.”684
Connected learning was also a redemptive process, learning highly connected to one’s faith as a source of purpose, hope, and assistance. ALFE could be strongly influenced by the positive aspects of hope and purpose in their learning—especially in the spiritual domain.
A relevant and practical process, ALFE learning is highly connected to context and culture and is very experience-based. Everything ALFE learned had to be relevant—of necessity. With limited time and resources, they did not possess the margin to learn anything extraneous.
Learning directed largely toward amassing work skills in context and by experience. However, this endeavor was accomplished in ways connected to culture and the ways of learning espoused by Cambodian ALFE. For instance, if rote learning or recitation worked best, that method prevailed. If observation was traditionally used, that method was chosen. The idea of learning for learning’s sake was completely foreign for Cambodian ALFE. Their learning seemed pragmatically connected to some purpose.
Hvitfeldt, in a “microethnographic study of the classroom behavior of Hmong adults in an ESL program” ascertained that the “learning paradigm” of the Hmong seemed in conflict with that of formal schooling—even if they were literate.693 As we saw earlier, learning had to be relational and it had to be “immediately incorporated into daily life.”694 Literature in adult education clearly points to relevance as a core factor in adult learning.695
This type of learning contrasts with formal education, which can be decontextualized and detached from practice.696 As Brown et al. noted, “Learning methods that are embedded in authentic situations are not merely useful; they are essential.”697 Adult learning must be authentic, purposeful, and connected to life. Merriam698 and Merriam and Kim also described non-western learning and knowing as “communal, lifelong and informal, holistic.”699 Fanta-Vagenshtein et al. added: Traditional knowledge systems are integrated and holistic while modern knowledge systems are reductionistic. . . . Learning
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Denny remarked, Western thought has only one distinctive property separating it from thought in both agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies—decontextualization. Decontextualizing is the handling of information in a way that either disconnects other information or backgrounds it.701
Studying a fishing community in Nova Scotia, Corbett discovered, “Many informants viewed formally educated people as lacking life skills.”708 They viewed school as “a pale shadow of life, an unreal place where one was infantilized and where ‘nothing really happened.’”709 Ultimately, Corbett observed: Rural schooling sought to do the “missionary” work of cultural elevation in a “backward space.” Yet dropout rates remained high, resistance was common, and people remained committed to staying where they were and to gaining practical knowledge about places at hand rather than theoretical knowledge
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“For many literate Hmong, the printed word is an inadequate mode of communication, a poor substitute for the oral, experiential learning of the traditional society.”711
Additionally, Malicky and Derwing discerned that Cambodians transplanted in the United States were also involved in “mastery learning,” needing to completely absorb every aspect of the lessons they were taught.712 Learners assumed every detail was equally important, equally relevant, and none could be omitted.
example of lack of perspective. this suggests decontextualizing via written learning makes developing perspective difficult.
As I observed the learners in our certificate course, beyond an affinity for community with others, they also seemed to have a preference for the use of visuals and stories. They did not seem to be able to reproduce or re-teach other content lacking these visuals and narratives.
this observation is supported by other advocates of oral forms in missiology and my own experience.
The stories or narratives of which missiologists and those who teach on orality716 are so fond function as vehicles of connection, with characters that draw us into identification with them. “Storytelling is a universal human activity, found in all cultures.”717 According to neurobiological research, stories actually create a connection between the listener and the narrator, called brain-to-brain coupling.718 Similarly, “previous studies have shown that during free viewing of a movie or listening to a story, the external shared input can induce similar brain activity across different
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support for the power of narrative in learning
In the past, I believed the key was telling stories when, in fact, the need was greater—it was connecting, connecting in every area of life.
understanding why stories are so powerful helps us refine the quality of the storying and the related strengths of other oral forms--perhaps even biblical theology.
Figure 11, displaying the Learning Quadrants, illustrates two important concepts in adult learning—the chosen means of learning (either people or print) intersecting with funds of knowledge or the seat of authority. Do the learners trust print and formal credentials or do they rely on trusted relationships? The resulting quadrants display various lifeworlds, diverse ways of connecting, from primary orality to secondary orality, to academia, to scribal cultures that do not necessarily read but have reverence for sacred texts.
good summary of the significance of Fig. 11 and the ways connection is made depending on the culture.
As Shinil discovered, there is a distinct difference in the schooling perspective versus the learning perspective, a distinction between formal education as opposed to informal and non-formal education.723 One seems to dominate most thinking and research. That exclusion and disproportionate emphasis saddens me. Shinil concluded: “Learning . . . is oriented to develop connectedness in whole life.”724 And this dominant form of learning embraced by the majority needs to be promoted, according to ALFE.
Moon considered the differences in oral learners’ and print learners’ preferences in the categories of dialogue, oral art, experience, holism, mnemonics, and participation.725 One can see these categories more clearly in the connected learning schematic. Without the foundation of connection as opposed...
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695. See Knowles et al., Adult Learner; MacKeracher, Making Sense of Adult Learning; Merriam and Bierema, Adult Learning.
learning. Cambodian adults with limited education learn through social and relational connections, a holistic process that resembles socialization, begins at birth, and continues until death. This theory of connection is the core or foundation of how Cambodian ALFE learn—not merely by oral/aural means, as the term orality might suggest.
wisdom would conclude orality is an unfortunate misnomer masking other principal ways ALFE truly learn and the global and holistic ways incorporated in connected learning.
Having found connected learning is reflexive in regard to the self as learner, connected to self and self-image in all of life’s dimensions—cognitive, affective, and physical, for example—wisdom would conclude ALFE require learning settings that promote self-efficacy, honor, dignity, and validation, settings in which they are not shamed, in which they do not lose face or fail due to poverty, stigma, or learning disabilities.
Finally, having observed that connected learning is learning that must be repackaged or packaged differently from print learning, that connected learners need accessible technologies and other portable vehicles of connection, such as stories, parables, metaphors, drama, art, and the like, wisdom would conclude companies and institutions should work to provide appropriate technologies and foster research to make media that do not exclude this important majority.
As a result of this study, I would consider it unwise to continue to muddy the waters with the term orality without redefining it.
