I'm not sure well I am articulating this concern, but here goes:
Any model of learning has to contain within it an element of development. In
other words we have to talk about how we learn more than we knew before
and/or how we learn differently than we did earlier. As YE points out, for
many learning theorists, particularly Gagne, development is cumulative
learning where new learning is based upon prior learning and higher forms of
learning are derived from simpler forms. For other theorists, we learn
qualitatively different things in qualitatively different ways as we
develop.
I wonder how helpful the horizontal/vertical metaphor is when talking about
learning by expanding. We all appreciate that metaphors can highlight
certain aspects of the phenomena being compared, but also obscure or perhaps
misrepresent other aspects. Is difference or development best expressed as
higher or lower, broader or narrower? YE seeks to avoid "rigid one
dimensional sequences being imposed on social reality" but are two
dimensions any less rigid? Development takes place in time, some things
happen before others (duh!). The issue then is whether some things are
pre-requisites for others. The notion of pre-requisites is clearer in the
vertical where higher order skills are built upon a foundation of lower
skills, stage 2 is built upon the foundation of stage 1, etc. It is less
clear to me that pre-requisites play a role in the horizontal dimension. Is
greater breadth, increased use of "general processes of formation of
particular functional systems", evidence of progress? YE denies that there
is any fixed order of progression or end point, but is there no culturally
universal or, at least, typical sequence? "Increased use" of general
processes suggests a quantitative difference. Are there qualitative
differences as well? If so, do some things have to happen before other
things or is order irrelevant? How then are we to judge progress? YE says
that "People have to decide where they want to go, which way is up". Up from
what? And was it important to be down?
djc
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