(posted on 16-Mar-2000)
[After reading one of Bernie's messages, Amy felt compelled to tell him that she learned a lot from him. That inspired our Miami herald to write yet another gem.]Shucks, Ma'am, 'twern't nuthin... But thanks anyway, Amy!
But now I got to pull a Wizard of Oz on you: remember how he told them all at the end that the things they all wanted (courage, knowledge, etc.) were right there in them all the time and they just didn't know it?
Well... all the same with you, and me, and everyone else that ever "learns" anything. Actually, it is there all along you see. There are no "teachers" anywhere and never have been! There are only "performers" (we sometimes call them "subject experts": they are a natural consequence of the Gaussian distribution for any known human skill or knowledge) and then there are "learners"!
Let me see if I can put this all anecdotally...
Many years ago I fell in with some behavioral psychologists (doesn't everyone?). And we wound up starting a business in the then so-called "programmed learning field." (This had nothing to do with computers and "programming" a different sense of the word altogether a prior sense in fact.) This was back in the sixties.
We developed and sold behavioral modification techniques to business, industry and the military. And to the education field. Schools! Whence my doubts which became a certainty about "teaching."... You see "to teach" is not a verb that really describes any such thing as it is commonly held to do. The whole idea of teaching traces back to Aristotle really, who thought he knew the hows and whys of presenting material and all and he believed that the master must reveal it to his pupils in the well-known paradigm of "a beginning, a middle, and an end". This, along with other of his views, was eventually adsorbed into Church doctrines and comes down today as virtually an article of faith with most people why of course! There are teachers. I had one in my school! (lol).
But what behavior do the teachers of this world perform? They perform whole sets of other behaviors ... which they love to call "teaching". What kinds of behaviors? Things like calling the roll for instance. Or reciting long lists of things to do or memorize: lists of the succession of English Kings perhaps, or how to decline a French verb. But this is only talking and their pupils already know how to talk! Well, teachers adjust blinds on the windows and they frequently set the thermostat. But adjusting the shades is not to teach anything at all! It is to perform yet another behavior at the window of a room...
And so it is with "teaching": it is a bogus notion that does not correspond to anything in reality. The best that might be said for teachers is that (some) of them maybe set the stage or get the juices flowing or whatever so that what really happens another verb, called "to learn," can effectively take place!
For learning is not like teaching: learning corresponds to detectable, real world changes and all - both overt and covert and these may be tested for and seen to be occurring and to be noted as performed.
For you either "know" something or you do not!
And what you know is largely already in your repetoire as an evolved member of the species of homo sapiens! The Germans have a saying: "What man has done, man can do". This describes the behaviorists' idea of learning. Almost everything that any human can do is within the reach of any other human did you know that? Maybe 90% of all behaviors are the common "inheritance" of all! I am not kidding. The challenge (in schools!) is not to "teach" (we have seen this is a bogus notion anyhow) a vast amount of unrelated and superflous material but rather to concentrate on the 10% that is missing and impart that! Then all will have "learned" evreything and we may all go home (or back to Kansas!).
We used to illustrate this with the simile of a Marksman at the rifle range. He steps up to the line, picks up his piece, "lock and load", sights in and BAM! bullseye 300 yards down range! Oh everyone says I wish I could learn to do that! But they almost already can! Even the least among them. Look what does the rifleman DO? Well first he picks up the rifle. Very well so he does. And so can you or any other human brought up to the line. We don't have to teach you that! You have been picking up brooms and sticks and things all your life. The transfer of that skill to a rifle is almost automatic.
Next the rifleman picks up a cartridge from the box. But you can do that, too! No need to teach you that subset of behavior: you have been picking up "things" between thumb and forefinger all your days. Next he slides the cartridge into the chamber...again inserting things into holes is no news to you. He grabs the bolt handle and closes the breech. What? You have been closing doors and twisting and turning knobs all your life. The transference to this situation is minimal you see. Who needs a "teacher" for all this anyhow?
He sights down the barrel at the distant target. But you have been playing pool all your life and sighting down cue sticks, etc. Lining up on the target is really not an alien thing here and does not require to be "taught" . He squeezes off his round. But you have been squeezing lemons all your life and so on.
Actually all that requires to be done here is that a trained metheticist observe ever more closely this "expert" rifleman in the chained sets of behavior as he fires his rifle and note only those he does that differ from or reflect refined movements, etc. from what the uninitiated would do. Those miniscule adjustments (the less than 10 %) behaviors are all that need to be imparted to the trainee population!
Like learners everywhere, and Dorothy and the Tinman and the Lion and the Scarecrow they all had it mostly all in themselves to begin with all along! And so did you believe it or not! You must congratulate yourself!
Good Learning!
bernie