Learning is often associated with ‘knowing facts?. You may associate this sort of learning with what you did at school where you might have thought that you had to learn lots of facts associated with a subject in order to pass an examination. Evidence of learning is sometimes linked to building up an increasingly impressive store of such facts. TV quiz programmes tend to make us think that learning is about knowing more facts than other people.
Figure 8 The audience waits to be impressed by how many facts the contestants knowLong descriptionCharles Dickens portrayed the facts-obsessed schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind with little sympathy in his novel Hard Times:
(Dickens, 1854/1989, p. 1)Now what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them … Stick to Facts …
Figure 9 Thomas GradgrindThis unit does not see facts in the same way. You have already come across the suggestion that we learn things ? that we acquire knowledge ? as a result of the experiences that we have. Facts themselves are of little value unless they help make sense of some aspect of the world that is either important or interesting to you.
Usually this interest would be reflected in the content of a course. So if you had an interest in an aspect of history, you might take a course that presents you with more information about this topic. As you will have realised by now, this unit is rather different. It does not give you additional facts about history, economics or maths. Instead the focus is on developing your own understanding of yourself and, in particular, how you can use this learning to plan for personal change.
To support you in doing this, Learning to change does offer ideas about learning and suggests techniques for approaching change. In that sense, we hope that you will develop your knowledge or, as it is also known, your understanding. You may even feel that you have learned some additional facts along the way.
The next two activities ask you to focus on your qualities as a learner. By looking at these qualities, you are really looking at how you approach knowledge. They are also important because they relate to ‘skills?, the focus of the section which follows these activities.
To get you started, watch the videos below.
Then note down your answers to these questions in your Learning Journal:
Shehnaz Part 1Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it.Transcript Shehnaz Part 2Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it.Transcript Shehnaz Part 3Interactive content appears here. Please visit the website to use it.Transcript Shehnaz Part 4
Shehnaz talks about learning in relation to her work with schools. It seems clear that she has used learning to develop her career but she also finds that she has to go on learning while she is at work. She seems to see learning as very important in the changes she has made, and plans to make, in her life. Shehnaz seems to have increased in confidence and suggests that she relates her academic learning to other aspects of her life. She seems to demonstrate great persistence and a reluctance to give up. Did you think that it was hard to identify any less-than-positive qualities?
It may be that you have found points of similarity between Shehnaz?s story about being a learner and some of your own. We also hope that you can see how Shehnaz has been able to use learning as the basis of personal change ? and that you noted that this has happened despite some of the barriers and negative thoughts that she had to cope with.
If you are finding that you can identify, at least to a small degree, with the case study you have just been discussing, then you might find the next activity slightly easier. If you feel that you have not very much in common with Shehnaz, do not worry ? remember that we are all unique as a result of our particular combination of qualities, knowledge and skills.
Think of something you know about. This can be anything at all. It might be how to cook a particular type of food or it might be how to repair a bicycle tyre. What is important is that you feel reasonably comfortable or confident about it.
Note down your example and try to explain how you learned to do this. This might include whether you were taught by someone else, whether you found out by reading about it, or whether you picked it up as a result of a process of trial and error.
This first part might look something like this:
My example is learning to drive a car. When I think about it I learned to do this in many ways. I had a driving instructor who told me what to do. I also had written information about things like where the pedals (the accelerator, brake and clutch) were placed. My father also took me out in the family car. He told me things about driving ? these were not always the same as the instructor, so I had to decide which was more helpful. Practice during lessons and with my Dad was important.
Now try and answer these questions in your Learning Journal:
This activity should help reinforce the ideas that you have already been introduced to earlier in this section. It has already been suggested that learning is a fundamental aspect of being a human being. In brief, being human requires almost constant learning. If this is the case, then we should all be very skilled learners because of the amount of practice we get! Thinking about the way you have successfully learned in the past should help you remind yourself that you are not just a good learner but someone with valuable personal qualities and knowledge.
However, much of our learning can be described as ‘everyday? learning. This should not be seen as playing down this learning. Indeed, it can be argued that this sort of learning is the most important as it helps us to negotiate our way through all the real life situations that we encounter on a day-to-day basis. Yet strangely there is a strong tendency to see other sorts of learning as having a higher status. In particular, learning that is associated with an institution like a school, a college or a university is often held in higher esteem than ‘everyday? learning. Such learning is often marked by being part of a ‘formal? unit which is taught by people with professional qualifications and is taken by people with a view to passing exams or gaining qualifications. The high status accorded to this small proportion of learning can make us think that the other learning we do has little significance. We hope that Learning to change will help you to challenge this way of thinking.
Copyright © 2008 The Open University
