Subject: Re:belonging
From: Bill Ellis (tranet@rangeley.org)
Date: Fri 14 Apr 2000 - 11:15:13 MEST
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 09:15:13 +0000 Subject: Re:belonging From: "Bill Ellis" <tranet@rangeley.org>
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Gavin and Ania dosuch a good job of analyzing by concept of "belonging" the
most basic of human needs that there is little I can add. But I do add a
couple of comment below.
From: Ania Lian <ania@lingua.arts.uq.edu.au>
On Mon, 10 Apr 2000, Bill Ellis wrote:
> isn't the root of learning something much more satisfying than [power]?
> [...] I don't see that reading Poe or Shakespeare gives us power any
> more than walking in the forest, listening to birds or watching a sunset
> has anything to do with power. There is a deep feeling of belonging
> that comes from such experiences.
> A feeling of awe, wonder, and participation in a
> great mystery. This is what Einstein called his cosmic religion. It too
> comes from knowing; from comprehending and understanding the cosmos.
> Isn't that what drives our curiosity, our motive to learn? Just knowing.
AL:
It seems to me that sensations like curiosity and wonder, and sensations
like that one knows something, are not independent of the power mechanisms
BE:
If you want to define power as the cultural norms in which we are emersed
and which becom part of our psysche from birth, your point is well made.
But as Paulo Friere so well articulated the goal of education whould be to
remove our cultural blinders and instill a sense of being part of, and a
force in, a continuing evolving culture. I would call that reduction of the
power over us, and an amlification of our sense of "belonging."
AL:
the concept of power may not refer to blind
assertion of one's ability to UNDERSTAND....it cannot be the KNOWLEDGE ...It
has to be something else which is more personal while at the same not
divorced from reality,
BE:
It seems that this reifies KNOWLEDGE. That is, it makes it something that
is an end in itself and is satisfying. But is it the knowledge per se that
provides a sense of 'belonging" or value? Isn't it the fit of that knowledge
with one's need to feel united with Gaia (nature and all living beings.)
Isn' it much more the context in which one learns -- the home, the
community, and nature? Learning just to learn is not only unfulfilling, it
is impossible. One has to first have the feeling that comes from that walk
in the forest, or of solving a problem, or of undersanding one's own cosmos
-- the curiosity and the sense that the knowledge will help you "belong."
AL:
Does on-line fix our problem automatically? Or to
put the question differently, if we were given a chance to make education
better, would we tell the government that the problem is that not everyone
is on-line?
BE:
The strength of cyberlearning is not that it is a technology, but is that it
provides a tool for nonlinear learning. We can now let our curiosity, and
desire to belong, lead us through the ideosphere to whereever we want to go.
We do not need to be confined in schools in which KNOWLEDGE chosen by
someone else is crammed into our heads at the choosing of time, place and
method made without regard to our unique and indifiual minds.
Nonlinear learning is how our brain is built. Having a computer can be a
valuable in providing the option of learning what our brain will absorb
when, where and how it is ready. But just being on-line is not an
automatice solution to anything.
Bill Ellis
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