On Context
I’ve been thinking a lot about learners and the context in which learning happens. Some things occurred to me about what happens when we start considering learning from a learner perspective.
A person exists within his or her own context which is, in turn, embedded in a larger global context. Each person has an archive that is both internal (memory) and external (artifacts) which help the person operate in context. The archive includes resources like mom’s best dish, dad’s favorite color, bank statements, phone books, tax records, class notes, etc.
Within the global context exist ideas that I am calling cognates. They can be anything from whole fields of study to “what happened in Sri Lanka this morning” to “how to tie a shoe” and anything in between. They represent things that might be learned — that is — assimilated into the person’s context. Note that the person only knows about those ideas that impinge on his context - A, B, C. The person knows nothing about D or E. Those ideas are unavailable to him.
Cognate A has been assimilated into the person’s context. The overall context for this person has been changed to include the larger space. The new skill/knowledge/attitudes brought about by Cognate A are now available to the person.
Consider what happens when the person adds Cognate C to his context. At that point, Cognate D becomes available because D and C hold some relationship or knowledge in common allowing the person to make the bridge from current context to a context which includes both C and D. Keep in mind that the person may decide to assimilate C but not D but cannot decide about D until C has been added to the personal context.
So how does the person get to E? Find a teacher!
There may well be cognates that link the person to E but they are not obvious from the current person’s context. But the person has the option of finding another bridge — the teacher who has the context which includes the requisite knowledge can make that new cognate available to the person.
So this model provides me with a way to think about learning:
Learning is the process of assimilating cognates into my context in such a way as the attitudes, skills, and knowledge embodied become available for my personal use.
And a way of defining a teacher:
A teacher is any individual that provides a bridge from my present context to a cognate which is not presently available to me.
Are these definitions any different from existing ones? Does the notion that learning is aggregation of cognates into an individual context give us any advantages in designing instruction? Does the idea that a teacher is not so much “guide” as much as “bridge” to inaccessible cognates give us a useful construct within which to operate — both as learners and teachers?