Page 36 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

24
Learning to speak and listen involves deciphering sequences that are a pattern in a singular context rather that a pattern that can be applied to multiple contexts which would constitute a concept and allow for predictions of sounds. The reason for this logic is the lack of patterns in speaking when it comes to the words that are associated with specific nouns, adjectives, pronouns etc. The word elephant does not sound like an elephant or provide us any hint as to what that word could represent. The word is ‘random’, so we must learn the sound via association with the picture, object, action etc.
However, we must not confuse spelling the word elephant with the making the sound elephant. To make the sound elephant, we sequence the mouth movements of our primary caregivers, siblings and friends. We have been using this sequencing process for tens of thousands of years and with all that genetic refinement this is a very efficient learning process. This is why babies learn to talk without attending school!
Over millennia, humans have leveraged our learning of sequences to achieve manual tasks with numerous outcomes, whether that is making swords, creating medicines, crafting homes, throwing things, making meals, dancing, fighting, and so on. The process of sequencing tasks in a specific order, is referred to as the ‘apprenticeship learning process’. Apprenticeships always involve a sequence of practical knowledge and ideas that are usually limited to a single context.
This process is not analogous to learning via rote but rather an application of our sequencing system, which is also used when we learn to speak. The difference between the two is subtle but important. In a sequencing process, there is a set procedure to achieve a specific result, which usually requires the learner to develop a sequence of ideas.
The critical nature of complex language acquisition and our resultant ability to talk with self and others has enabled us to think in incredibly complex ways and reason with ourselves by way of seeing ourselves from an external viewpoint. This ability to see the self from a third-person perspective, allowed us to develop morals, ethics and values (character), as well as attitudes, qualities and values (principles).47
Resource 11: Our Changing Brain
47 For more on this see chapter 29.
48 Sofroniew V & Vinters H. (2010) ‘Astrocytes: biology and pathology’ Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2799634/
Our Changing Brain
percentage of cell type
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10
The Changing Brain
Astrocytes
Neurons
10 20 30 40 50 60 70
school years
age
We have already seen that neurons are largely responsible for our brain to perceive the world outside our skull via our senses as well as our ability to learn to speak via our sequencing learning system. The successful establishment of our oral literacy appears to trigger a change in the brain, instructing it to significantly increase the numbers of neurons that morph into glial cells, with most these becoming astrocytes. It is also known that the gyrus in the brain also creates astrocytes.48