A. Objective: What have you learned from reflecting on this particular quote? What has caught your attention?
To be honest, the first thing did when I sat down to explore this quote was to google ‘learning society’ to get a general vision of what the term referred to, since besides the brief reference to it in our textbook, I have no academic understanding of what it really means. I’d like to share with you the path of my surfing around this concept that then took place, as it always amazes me how one thought or idea leads to another and another, and you never know quite where you are going to end up.
So in one afternoon, I travelled from Wikipedia to John McClellan’s ‘Envisioning Learning Societies Across Multiple Dimensions’, to The Club of Rome, to Dante’s Inferno, and back to settle on a link to Shikshanar and their wealth of publications on learning societies by ‘The peoples Institute for Rethinking Education and Development”. My first lesson from reflecting on this relatively simple quote is that once you begin to seek understanding of a concept, it can take you down a path that can lead in many different directions. My understanding of what a learning society is may be different than someone else’s, who perhaps may have focused on the World Bank’s philosophy, which positions largely education as the key to a nation’s economic development – an economic development that, of course, fits within their agenda, which is committed to the promotion of foreign investment and international trade and to the facilitation of capital investment. (World Bank, n.d.).
What struck me immediately when reading the introductory paragraph to John McClellan’s paper ‘Envisioning Learning Societies Across Multiple Dimensions” (2000), was just how significant the notion of a learning society has become to current political, economic and humanitarian discussions and policy formation.
“The development of learning societies is THE issue of issues of the 21st century. Every social issue — such as poverty, peace, justice, development, the environment — will necessarily require collective learning for solution. The better we understand the process of collective learning the more able will we be to address our collective problems. Collective learning about collective learning is high-order learning and should be our first priority” (McClellan, 2000).
McClellan’s conception of learning societies on a matrix was enlightening. He describes two dimensions: Individual vs Supra-Individual, and Parts vs Whole. (See diagram)
McClellan has coined the term for a society that grows from collective wisdom a ‘koinosophic society’ from the Greek ‘koinos’ or ‘common’ and ‘Sophia’ for ‘wisdom’. “No individual can be expected to find wisdom’s guidance alone; individuals need the wisdom distilled from generations. A koinosophic society increases its wisdom by the continual reflection on and integration of its shared lesson set” (McClellan, 2000).
McClellan references the Club of Rome as an example of an organization seeking to develop our humanities collective wisdom as a learning society. This peaked my curiosity as it sounded to me to be an organization straight out of Dan Brown’s current bestseller ‘Inferno’, seeking to curb the world’s population growth. The Club of Rome is a global think-tank, founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy, and they are described as being a group of world citizens, sharing a common concern for the future of humanity (Club of Rome Wikipedia, n.d.). Members are current and former Heads of State, UN bureaucrats, high-level politicians and government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists, and business leaders from around the globe. From the Club of Rome website, their stated aims are: “to identify the most crucial problems which will determine the future of humanity through integrated and forward-looking analysis; to evaluate alternative scenarios for the future and to assess risks, choices and opportunities; to develop and propose practical solutions to the challenges identified; to communicate the new insights and knowledge derived from this analysis to decision-makers in the public and private sectors and also to the general public and to stimulate public debate and effective action to improve the prospects for the future” (Club of Rome, n.d.). So, according to McClellan, this is what a learning society, functioning at the level of a ‘koinosophic society’ looks like.
B. Reflective: What did you realize about teaching as a result of this quote?
Initially exploring the notion of learning societies, the concept only seemed like a very good idea that would not be too controversial, and an easy vision to help inform my teaching in the 21st century. However I came to realize the complexity of the concept, the many definitions and views of how and why it is a good idea, and the multiple ways it has been co-opted by governments, world organizations (UNESCO, World Bank), industry, and yes, education systems, often to further their own agendas, and according to some authors, at the expense of others. While the motivation for the development of a learning society involved creating more flexible institutions and finding ways to solve complex problems collectively, some feel that that vision is now being perverted with narrow, market-dictated goals.
“The same people who control the school system, control the prison system, and the whole social system, ever since slavery. Know what I’m sayin?”- lyrics from dead prez, “they schools” (album, lets get free).
This quote is from an essay by Manish Jain, titled ‘In Search of Learning Societies’ from the Vimukt Shiksha Special Issue April 2001 ‘Unfolding Learning Societies: Deepening the Dialogues’ (Jain, 2001). At the end of the essay she delineates a number of highly relevant questions that must be asked about our pursuit of learning societies:
“How do we go about undoing/unlearning the damage already done to us by the culture of schooling? What kinds of specific capacities, feelings and information sources do local communities need to face external challenges such as globalized exploitation?”
“What should be the role, if any, of the State, Market, International Donors, NGOs, Media, etc. in creating a generative environments for learning societies to unfold? What kinds of fundamental attitudinal shifts and operational changes do they need to undergo? How do we dismantle their monopoly of power?”
“How do we go about re-examining and replenishing traditional knowledge systems, social relationships, media, wisdom frameworks, etc.? How to prevent these from being co-opted by the State-Market nexus?”
“How should ‘Western’ notions of progress, democracy, science, development, and human rights be reconceptualized in the context of learning societies?”
“How do we negotiate the tensions between equality and diversity, between freedom and responsibility, between creativity and stability in the context of learning societies?”
I realize that as a teacher, I am necessarily part of ‘the system’, which is not also not necessarily a good thing. I need to be careful to realize that I see learning and learning societies through, according to Jain (2000), the tainted lens of ‘school-colored glasses’ and therefore as I teach I must make every effort to try to understand my reflex perspective and to think outside that box, to reflect and critique my assumptions and beliefs and stay open to other perspectives and ways of knowing and learning and doing.
C. Interpretive: What was your Aha! moment when you read this quote? In what way(s) did this quote change your mind about being an adult educator? What was one key insight that you now have as a result of this quote?
When I first read about learning societies as a ‘new’ concept, an initial thought was that it sounded like new terminology, but haven’t all human societies – and maybe others? – always been ‘learning societies’? Isn’t this an aspect of how we have evolved and adapted throughout the centuries? My Aha! moment came when I read “Learning in Villages Today: Remainders or Reminders?” by Anuradha Joshi in the document “Unfolding Learning Societies: Deepening the Dialogues” in Vimukt Shiksha Special Issue (April 2001):
“Despite the vicious onslaught of modernization, many of India’s villages still give us deep insights into what authentic learning societies could look like. Their indigenous belief systems, local knowledge systems and social relationships comprise diverse and rich learning spaces, rooted in and evolving with local culture and environment. For the local people, their village societies offer opportunities for them to identify challenges and provide solutions, which are relevant to their local context and consistent with their values of interdependence, diversity, cooperation and collective participation.
Unfortunately, our Indian ‘educated’ people and educationists have been unable to think beyond the Western promise of schools and their own ‘expertise’ to understand these essential human values and how they manifest themselves in villages. Not only have they failed to see the rich learning opportunities that pervade all aspects of life in villages, but they have also actively contributed to the weakening of village learning societies. In the name of science, progress, poverty eradication, environmental awareness, fertilizers, medicine, rights of women and child, information technology, etc., they have marginalized and de-valued the rich knowledge systems, languages, relationships, media, etc. that local peoples possess. In the process, they have demoralized both individuals and whole communities.”
This failure to recognize and respect indigenous learning, and the arrogance it is based on, is a direct critique of how the concept of a learning society could be perverted by organizations to address agendas which often have more to do with politics and economics, than what is best for the society at hand. I am reminded that as a nursing lecturer at UBC Okanagan, and as a committee member of the International Women’s Health Committee of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, I have been in a position of being among western ‘experts’, participating in global outreach efforts to improve nursing, midwifery, health care and education of target populations, largely through adult education in one form or another. I am cognizant of the fact that however well meaning these activities are, if not done right, they have the potential of undermining the efforts and achievements of the very population we are trying to help.
D. Decisional: How has this quote and the insight you have gained from reflecting upon it, influenced your notion of teaching or how you will teach in the future?
Demographics, globalization, and technology are having a huge impact on nursing as a profession. To function and thrive in our future world shaped by learning societies, nursing education must keep apace. I believe as a teacher, as articulated by Jani (2001), I need to recognize the diverse potential of every learner and their different learning styles/paces, intelligences, creativities, meaning-making systems, etc., and as a teacher, I need to allow space for these to bloom. At the same time, I need to encourage the development of key skills my students that will need to thrive in the future, such collective learning, interdependence, collaboration and dialogue. I also understand that in a learning society, everyone is a teacher and everyone is a student. This fits with my current philosophy of teaching.
Much of my reading on this topic has come from a think tank organization based in India. This is particularly relevant to me, as I am about to embark in my role as a clinical lecturer at the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. Indian nationals are the largest immigrant and expatriate population in Oman, and the majority of the faculty in the School of Nursing are Indian. Being aware of the prevailing dominant schooling philosophy in India, as well as the socio-political movement to re-think education and development (led by such organizations as Shikshantar) should help me to dialogue with my colleagues in a more informed manner.
References
Club of Rome (n.d.). Retrieved August 13, 2013 from http://www.clubofrome.org/.
Club of Rome Wikipedia (n.d.). Retrieved August 13, 2013 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome.
Jain, M. (2000). Editors note. In M. Jani (Ed.), Unfolding Learning Societies: Challenges and Opportunities Vimukt Shiksha Special Issue, March 2000. Retrieved August 13, 2013 from: http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/ls1_intro.htm.
Jain, M. (2001). In Search of Learning Societies. In M. Jani (Ed.), Unfolding Learning
Societies: Deepening the Dialogues, Vimukt Shiksha Special Issue April 2001. Retrieved
August 12, 2013 from: http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/ls2_intro.htm.
McClellan, J. (2000.). Envisioning Learning Societies Across Multiple Dimensions. In M.
Jani (Ed.), Unfolding Learning Societies: Challenges and Opportunities, Vimukt Shiksha
Special Issue, March 2000. Retrieved August 12, 2013 from: http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/ls1_intro.htm.
Merriam, S., Caffarella, R., & Baumgartner, L. (2007). Learning in adulthood: A
comprehensive guide (3rd ed.). Josse-Bass: USA
World Bank – About us. Retrieved August 14, 2013 from: http://go.worldbank.org/D6IEM83I10