I am learner.
Just as no one can see the colours I see, just as no one can hear the music I hear, just as no one can feel what I feel when I hold something in my hand, and just as no one can sense the world as I perceive it around me, no one can teach me.
No one can teach me.
I am learner.
I am not taught. I learn. I am human and a social animal, so I learn with others. I do learn from others, but what I learn is rarely, if ever, what is taught to me, and rarely, if ever, what others learn at the same time from the same teachers. Often I learn entirely alone.
I am learner.
I perceive. I use my senses to know the world around me. I discern patterns. I shape my understanding through metaphor and analogy. I seek to create purpose in my life. Sometimes I conceive purpose where there is none; often I accept others’ conceptions of purpose in life, others’ conceptions of purpose in the universe.
I am learner.
I build a universe in my mind and I live there, a universe that changes constantly as I learn. All people, including the people I love, live alongside me in this constantly shifting universe. I see only glimpses of the lives they lead, because, just as they are players in my world, I am a player in all the universes created by every other person alive.
I am learner.
I connect. I connect with people and ideas in the physical and virtual worlds and discern no boundary between the two worlds. I learn in, across, through, with and from the networks in which I live, work, play and interact. I continually extend my own potential through my connections. I make connections between what I have already learned and what the world chooses to present to me through my own interactions with the world and through the interventions and actions of others.
I connect therefore I learn.
I am learner.
I am able to recite facts, echo the opinions of others, assume the attitudes of so-called authorities when urged to do so, but I prefer to seek real knowledge of the changing world in which we live, genuine understanding of the realities of the human condition, authentic insight into our intrinsic dependence on one another. My need to know for myself is stronger than my need to recite from or imitate others.
I am learner.
I imagine. I reach beyond the reality of my senses and there I build my own dreams and visions; sometimes I welcome others’ wishful thinking and create my own place in their fantasies, accepting the values they place before me, filtering and refining them to fit my universe. Often, by accidents of time and place and birth, I am conditioned by those around me to accept their social, moral, religious and political values. In these circumstances, I still create my own truth but I struggle to do so freely, constrained by the strictures imposed on me by others.
I am learner.
I listen to stories from others; I tell my own stories, to myself, to others; I participate in stories, mine and others’. I determine who I am through a prism of dramas, tales, myths, histories, lies, assumed truths, rituals, games and a complex and intricate narrative that I weave around the realities of my life. I live and learn from the drama of the now and I recall and learn from the narratives woven out of past dramas.
I am learner.
I am not taught.
I learn.
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A plain text version of I Am Learner can be downloaded here.
Technorati Tags: i am learner, learning, teaching, education, philosophy
A profound set of observations, John. A timely manifesto that deserves a wide audience.
Ian
Lovely work John. Deserves a better comment than this one.
Nice work John — writing an essay just now for Stirling Uni on the nature of Professional Growth in teachers — might just quote some of this. Been reading lots about adults ‘learning’ and much of what you have written fits in — the idea that you can teach — but what people ‘learn’ will be dependent on so many different things — their experiences, values, perceptions, senses etc etc
I love this sort of post. I agree with a lot of it, but while I can’t explain it, my instincts are to disagree “no one can teach me” angle. A first shot would be that I think, by contrast, everyone has something to teach me.
Anyway, I will have an enjoyable Sunday pondering this. Thank you!
Thanks, Piers.
I suppose it depends on our interpretation of ‘no one can teach me’. For me it has to be taken in the light of the following couple of sentences ‘I am not taught. I learn’
People, of course, have lots to teach us. My point is whether what they teach is ever actually what we learn. That does not detract from the power and value of teaching, or of teachers, but i do think it should give teachers pause for thought when they think that there is a simplistic process of knowledge transfer happening when they teach.
John Hattie has written a book “Visible Learning”. In it he cites some compelling research (Nuthall 2005) about your thinking John — teaching does not equal learning.
Yes, Piers, people have lots to teach us however without the ‘consent’ of the learner, little happens. In the end learning is a choice. The variables that Charlette mentions that shape ‘what’ people learn are critical. However what John is suggesting, and I agree, the issue does not begin with ‘what’ but ‘if’; if the learner chooses to learn. Charlette’s factors are a part of the attempt to interest the learner in learning.
Just because a learner is ‘actively engaged’ does not mean that he/she is learning; hands on does not guarantee minds-on.
The history of modern education in North America (and Asia) has focused on the teacher and the teaching as teachers see it and not on the learner and learning as the learner (and the human brain) sees it. There are efforts in education to try and switch the order because learning as the learner views it, MUST inform teaching. Differentiated Instruction and other ‘reforms’ such as ‘brain-based’ are trying however these attempts are still missing the mark. Reconceptualizing what it means to be a teacher is most likely the biggest issue in teaching today.
This is beautifully written John and incredibly powerful. Thank you for your insights. I am going to use this in my workshops and I will let you know what happens.
I have John Hattie’s book, Susan — recommended to me by my good friend, Greg Whitby, who cites it often in his own work leading the schools in Parramatta, Sydney.
You make a very important point about the ‘consent’ of the learner. And I agree that the very definition of what it is to be a teacher has to change.
Thank you for the kind comments — and i will be very keen to learn how ‘I Am Learner’ goes down in your workshops.
John
I have been saying for the last 15 years,
there is no teaching
there is learning
We have to create learning environment
John
As always, insightful and thought provoking. Agree, teaching not always synonymous to learning.
I was struck by the phrase ‘I connect therefore I learn’. Recently, had Marco Torres run some workshops for our teachers and he also spoke about how learning happens through connections — associative information, and how we need mutliple points of entry.
Greg
Wonderful piece of writing! The learner in this piece is very arrogant but at the same time intelligent with his ways of learning.
I sat and re-wrote this poem in my own words to understand it better and it helped. The learning is not one just of learning but also teaching. While at the same time stresses constantly that no one teaches him.
Loved It!! =]
Thanks, Erica,
I don’t think I can recall being called arrogant in such a nice way before.
And thank your for the interpretation. Of course I am trying to say that teaching is still critically important, but the best teaching starts from an understanding of how learning happens, and from the knowledge that what is taught is rarely what is learned.
In a way, this is merely a restatement of Ron Burnett’s notion of the ‘radical impossibility of teaching’, which I have commented on before.
John
This is something I can connect with, I make room for it so that I can first hear and then as I hear it I feel it connecting with my own family of extant ideas. It resonates with other ideas from like minded educators and authors. I will try to remember John and remember that I am learner too. Thank you John and thank you to those who commented. This makes another bit of a complex mosaic come into sharper focus.
This was an insightful take on the way people learn. The author took learning not as something he must do but as something that he does instinctively and in his own way. He has an understanding of how everyone learns in their own way. This was very creative and I enjoyed it.
I found this very insightful. I never looked at learning like this until I read this blog. I have different beliefs on learning and being taught something now. Learning is more of an instinct and teachers are just helping that instinct progress. I really did enjoy this.
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