Page 39 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

Therefore, this does not mean the learning of reading and writing of someone with six historical generations of readers and writers is half the capacity of someone who has twelve generations in their genealogical history. The compounding nature of genetic advantage is not a simple additive exercise. There are many more variables at play here. This is only one of the variables that impacts our capability to learn via rote.
Learning via rote takes place when we must remember discrete facts (knowledge), or a sequence of actions that are processed only in our mind (such as solving an abstract mathematical problem), or a sequence of non-related elements that may have no discernible pattern of progression.
In this emerging model, the brain appears to have unique memory systems for each of our four major learning systems. Sensory and rote-learned memories are referred to as episodic memories, which can be stored either as temporary, short-term or long-term memories.
The Lack of Equity in Rote Learning
However, it is no wonder the distribution curve for success in reading and writing is considerable, while the distribution curve for sensing our world, speaking and listening, forming ideas and concepts and being creative are minor in comparison. There are many variables that affect the inherited component of our capacity to read and write but the variation in the distribution curve is significant, primarily because we have only been doing intense rote learning for a relatively short amount of time when compared to our other four learning systems. This short time frame has simply not been sufficient to genetically improve this (+1) learning system significantly. Small numbers of generations making incremental genetic improvements in this learning system results in it being an extremely inefficient learning system.
The table below provides us with some clues as to why our rote learning system is so inefficient and so inequitable when compared to the efficiency and effectiveness of our other four learning systems that we have been applying for tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. Learning to read and write takes somewhere between 2000-4000 hours of learning to create a significantly variable distribution curve of success.
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Learning Systems
Timeframe we have been applying this for
Equity of application
sensing our world
Millions of years
Extremely high
sequencing for speaking, listening & apprenticeship learning
60-200,000 years
Very high
ideas & concepts
50-80,000+ years
Very high
creativity
40-60,000 years
Very high
sequencing for learning via rote
2-300 years52
Extremely poor
Resource 13: Relative equity of each of our learning systems 52 An optimistic ‘average’ with a number of exceptions