LEARNING: An Arabic Lesson By Bruce Reid
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Today's conventional education milieu depends upon techniques that have at their foundation a single basic constituent, the alternation of tension and relaxation, which in turn supports the necessary repetitions for the implanting of the 'ring the bell and salivate' compulsions that are the fashion and fancy of the day.
Commissioned by Congress a study was made of the Korean War defectors and published in 1959. What is perhaps more interesting than the report itself is the pervasive 'conditioned reflex of denial' exhibited by the people who would benefit the most from the report's findings. The education industry rejected the report out of hand and without comment, the report was shelved and remains forgotten.
Here is an excerpt from the reportís conclusions, "It is taming. It takes possession of both the simplest and the most complicated nervous patterns of man ... The administer wants first the required response from the nerve cells, then control of the individual. These are not new methods, but a variety of tried and tested methods, employed by educators everywhere."
Though it is not the case, one might expect the Alternative Section of the Education Industry (including home schooling) would consider this Congressional report important and essential, yet as one observer has said, alternative education 'took (conventional) school concepts to the kitchen table without recognizing that "experiential learning" cannot be taught with a preplanned curricula.'
Forty years have passed, yet we have not begun to benefit from the many expensive lessons learned from the Korean War. At the very minimum, we have failed to develop the means-where-by to verify our children's teachers are free of the bias their conditioning imposes upon their mind - which is clearly the minimum or beginning prerequisite when a person presents himself as a student in the studies that will qualify him to teach children.
Teaching is not processing and learning well no learning has occurred if what has been acquired is the product of mind engineering. No child is born a Buddhist or Navajo, Valley Girl or Bushman, such outcomes are the consequence of a foreign object that has been inculcated into the very fabric of the child's mind at a time when the child was too young and inexperienced to resist the intrusion and functions independent of whether the child benefits from the invasion or not.
In the early 1970s my family and I established our home in a southern Algerian village, 600 miles south of the Atlas Mountains in the Sahara. We became close friends with the local schoolteacher and for many months we spent our pleasant desert evenings asking and answering a wide range of interesting questions.
My friend had received his teacher training in France and his approach to teaching differed little from the conventional western approach. One day, in passing I asked, 'Don't you have doubts about the usefulness of turning perfectly good Bedouins into a poor facsimile of a Frenchmen?'
From one point of view my question was rude and did not deserve an answer. From another point of view, words alone cannot convey the answer, which can only be known after the questioner has undergone certain experiences.
Allowing several weeks to pass my friend asked if I had noticed that, 'What Bedouin children needed is faithfully supplied by those who are competent in such matters. This accomplishment is not altered by what my classes offer. I am here because the Bedouins lack certain information: I am here because the Bedouin desires to be competent in today's world.'
Well, one thing leads to another and I asked: 'What is the Bedouin way of instruction?'
He explained, 'Most Bedouins (though not all) teach a child how to learn how to learn before they try to teach a child what to learn. They believe that when the skill to learn is in place, only then can a child learn a particular subject: adding, because others have attended to this first step, my job is to teach a child particular subjects that his own society, for the moment, is not competent or equipped to teach.'
He continued, 'Perhaps you have never noticed? In the west, no one teaches a child how to learn how to learn, how to learn.'
He waits, looking for a sign of comprehension to cross my face, but I disappoint him, I did not understand and was wondering to myself: 'Why three learns? Why not six or ten: one learn' should be enough?
He continues, 'In the west, you are the experts when it comes to indoctrination, and this efficient expertise compels you to believe all learning is indoctrination. Indoctrination is easy compared to the messiness of learning how to learn. Due to necessity, how one learns to learn must await the right moment when such skills can be taught. It would be a rare event if you could schedule 'learning to learn, how to learn' for Tuesday at one o'clock in classroom seven. Because of these and a host of other requirements and limitations the people in the west imagine that learning how to learn, how to learn is unnecessary, besides being inefficient when compared to inculcation.'
At the time, I assumed I understood what he was suggesting. I knew the meaning of every word, the logic was not feeble, but in reality I did not have a clue and did not know, I did not know.
Some time later in a desert village near the Tunisian Algerian boarder on the Mediterranean coast we were driving to market when we passed a thin muscular, near naked man, walking robustly. The sun had turned his skin to a uniform dark mahogany; a loincloth his only article of clothing, a knife and other unrecognizable items hung from a thong belt accenting his beautiful elegant nobility, he knew exactly what he was about, his obvious good health and purposeful energetic walk was striking. A number of young children trailed behind him skipping excitedly, trying to keep pace with his animated amble.
Later, we were haggling price with a shopkeeper in the market square when the strange man arrived, followed by a mob of children. In the ordinary course of events nothing can stop the market day activity, yet his presence brought almost everything to a standstill.
When we asked the shopkeeper what was happening, he waved his hand declaring, 'Watch!' Maneuvering for a clear line of sight we moved out from the stall.
In the open space where donkeys are off loaded, our man stood stark still, not a muscle moved. From every corner children were emerging, scurrying to sit near him: the excitement was contagious and felt by everyone.
One of the braver boys calls out to him. Soon others joined in, each trying to elicit a reaction from him. After an extended period he asks a question and all the children loudly respond. Without looking around, his matted, tangled mass of hair falling, splitting his shoulders he remained completely still.
Sitting still was impossible for the children and seemed to deepen into exaggeration, propelled by his mesmerizing stillness, a study in relaxed focus.
The butcher joins us and we ask, 'What is happening?'
Smiling he commands, 'Watch! Do not miss anything. The traveler is extending his teaching to our children.'
The statement made no sense at all. The strange man was doing nothing, standing there in relaxed stillness.
The children quieted somewhat, then without a preamble he asks a question reanimating the children, all talking among themselves and shouting to others across the crowd. For not reason I could discern, I expected something special to happen. Everyone is talking, all at the same time, dying down only to swell up again.
Unnoticed he begins to speak.
The butcher informs us he is telling a story.
Among the hundreds of stories in a storytellerís repertoire there exists a set of stories that corresponds or harmonizes with each individual listener's level of understanding; this is not a 'one story fits all' sort of thing. The correct story set starts at the exact spot where the listener stands. One could say, 'The listeners' personal set provides a mirror, a reflection of themselves upon which development can build, the individual's next step or level vague but visible.'
Through perception, a storyteller knows when a listener would benefit from a particular story, yet the art is in the story choosing the listener and is one of the active ingredients of the knowledge.
On this day the children are too excited, remaining still is impossible and our storyteller in mid-sentence falls silent. A child asks him to continue and he turns to the boy declaring, 'You are too stupid, you will not understand.'
From a long string of imperatives, the Butcher picked a few snippets to translate as our storyteller continued: 'Teaching you is a waste of time.' Expressed in rhyme.
'Where are you spending your attention?'
'Your attention is being wasted - stop!'
'Draw in your attention, take it back this minute.'
'I do not need your attention, I have my own.'
'Greedy giving is still greed.'
'Nothing can be done for the stupid - nothing.'
'Raising the dead is easy - curing the stupid is impossible.'
And so on! All these demands were spoken with the appropriate inflections to accent the imperative and pauses to allow time for the demand that fits to register.
While delivering his demands our storyteller held the children still with his glance as they sat there around him filling every open piece of ground. After a prolonged silence and without warning, he stepped over the children and when clear, assumed his purposeful stride, disappearing from view.
We found many informants, but as hard as we tried, their answers to our questions made no sense and for the time being we had to let the event pass without further thought.
A week or so later the storyteller strode into the square.
Like before, the girls and boys began to gather, however this time very few children exhibited excitement, a stark contrast to the last meeting. This contrast made the new found relaxed self-control noteworthy, for excitement was in the air, felt by everyone.
Without waiting for the children to be seated, he began to recite a story. Every child in the square extended its complete, undivided attention. Their attention was so absolute the children had assumed a stillness that paralleled the harmony of the storytellerís attention. Nothing, not even the bustle of off loading donkeys could distract the children from their purpose. Each child was exercising a new skill, an as yet undeveloped, newly emerging capacity.
Even without a translation we knew we were in the presence of a master teacher practicing his art, right there before our eyes - skill, timing and his perceptions of his student's needs seemed flawless as he taught by means of stories how to marshal and employ their immature developing attention with conscious intent in order to learn something.
Later, I was told, "For most of the children this was their first lesson - the first of many."
It was also my first lesson and represented one of the many ways the process is extended to those who are willing to receive it - a living presentation of what my schoolteacher friend in the central desert had tried to explain and could not. How do you explain the taste of an orange, to someone who has never tasted an orange? Or in this context, 'You have to experience before you can understand how these things work.'
In the olden days, before the word civilization existed, a special technology was developed for the purpose of awakening the learning capacity. Lacking cash value, this technology is no longer held to be an art and its application has fallen into disuse.
Those who know how to preserve the technology, of necessity, must wait until current clever innovations have worn out. We will recognize that day, teachers will by means of perception, grasp portions of the design for employment in their art. (The term, employment misses the mark by a wide margin. It is the poverty of English that no other term conveys what occurs.) Fortunately, when students present themselves for instruction there are people who have protected the technology.
This field has its own requirements and limitations and is pursued by means-of itself. If some one has to ask, 'Do I know how to learn, how to learn, how to learn?' the answer is no. Any attempt to answer yes, will also include the, 'When and who taught me? PS 69, third grade, Mrs. Abernathy's class, every Tuesday at 1:35' and I hope you know your are putting me on - if you are not putting me on, and though you may not agree with me, I assure you, it does not happen that way.
It has been my experience, few people posses the personal strength to answer no, but in that rare individual where no is the answer, such people are also gifted enough to ask, 'How might I prepare so I do not arrive in class - so to speak - empty handed?'
What passes for education today focuses upon getting or giving something - to fulfill education's function, focus could usefully be extended to not loosing something. In the equation of learning, among other things, attention is a nutrient - the how and when this is the case is the subject for another time. In the mean time, we serve ourselves well if we remember, humans are easier to train than dogs and such training is neither teaching nor learning.
Learning: what it is and is not
Learning: what it is and is not
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© Copyright 2000. Bruce Reid - All Rights Reserved.
