Re(2): Chapter 3-learning/unlearning

From: Diane Hodges (dhodges@ceo.cudenver.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 25 2001 - 06:10:46 PDT


xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>Diane writes
>
>>whoa.
>>
>>i guess i am still unclear about the understanding of 'learning' - for
>>example, let's say an African in Ghana understands literacy to be an
>>option connected to labor within the state. to learn to read and write,
>>this person must first UNLEARN the idea that literacy and
>>bureaucracy/corruption are the same.
>
>Diane, is this not a double bind of sorts- to learn or unlearn?

...isn't it? to learn something new, and in the example i was thinking of
contradictory knowledge - not the literacy itself, but the associated
beliefs that surround literacy - so there is a work of unlearning a
belief, or challenging a personal belief, confronting the belief _about_
literacy in order to even consider learning to read and write. unlearning
is about undoing, unravelling, disconnecting beliefs, - in order to learn
something, i mean, learning itself contradicts 'knowledge' doesn't it?
>
>
>
>>once this person can be convinced that reading
>>and writing are not forms of political corruption, he or she will
>>participate as a motivated learner,
>
>Diane, it would seem that to get to this point would require the
>development of something like Wartofsky's tertiary tool to break out of
>the
>bind. I would interpret your notion of "unlearning" learning by
>expanding.

i guess i was too vague - what i was suggesting is the attachment that we
all have with what we "know" -the process of identifying with what we
'know' - to learn something that we don't know, we have to come to terms
with the possibility of not identifying with what we are learning, and
with having our attachment to what we know contradicted, yes? expanding is
a interesting idea, but there is also the _loss_ of what we know - so much
learning engages contradiction - that's why, i think, in the example i
offered, there is a question of unlearning - letting go of a particular
belief about reading and writing - it's that belief that directs the
possibility of learning - not the ability to learn to read and write - but
the ability to question oneself in-relation to what is unknown...
>
>> and then the learning is - basically -
>>his or her own process of engagement.
>>so, ?
>
>As I interpret this chapter, learning is not just the process of
>mastering
>literacy. Evidence of the real learning is later when the person takes
>her
>mutation of what was learned and applies it, in a social meaningful way
>in
>collective activity.

- of course, there is no mastery in literacy anyway. i am wondering about
that initial step between knowing something and being willing to
contradict it - or have it contradicted - by an other understanding.
learning is always an encounter with unknowns, with "i don't know" and so
on.
in adult education, this is usually the most profound obstacle.
diane

"Grade me! Please! Oh I'm ever-so smart...!"
Lisa Simpson
*********************************
diane celia hodges

Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu
hodgesdiane@hotmail.com



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