There are no last page conclusions to learning

In the twenty-first century, the paths we are encouraged to take tend to lead us towards becoming specialists and reductionists. But perhaps we should be more interested in what happens when different fields of expertise converge in some shared physical or intellectual space? Decisive moments in science and in our own learning often emerge from collisions between ideas, moments of cross-fertilisation that prime the pump of learning and progress. Art and science coalesce when they are passionate about the subject and at the same time critically dispassionate about the rules, understanding and knowledge which underpin that subject. Unfortunately we live in a world leaning towards confirmation bias. Commentators use what they see and hear to confirm what they already think. We run the risk of being drowned by what Popova described as a tide of convention and unreasoning collectivism. We need to forage for new knowledge, then test and own it, questioning assumptions, generating and developing ideas. We must look at our world with what Zen Buddhists would call, a beginner’s mind, predicated on a commitment to question what we think we know and believe.

The formation of attention

Weil calls the process of marrying prolonged effort and imagination, the formation of attention. Tireless and precise attention to detail, and the learning processes that we would hope to experience and to replicate. It encapsulates that development from curiosity, to discovery, to discipline and independence that as teachers we hope to give to others and to experience ourselves. Things come into being through the experiences we have. It’s not so much about testing as it is about working to keep your eyes open while you are moving. Not offering experiences on a plate – to learn off by heart – but combining sensory and cognitive experiences. Keats called the world around him ‘the vale of soul-making’, by which he meant a place where we embrace a variety of experiences and participate in a process of thinking that leads towards finding out who we are. Looking for questions at least as much as we look for answers.

Leonard Mlodinow makes the case for the power and significance of association cortexes with regard to our senses. We have an association cortex for each of our five traditional sensory systems and for each motor region:

Neural networks that represent ideas can activate one another, creating associations. The association cortices are where those connections are made. Associations help to confer meaning on what you are seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching … In humans about three-quarters of our cerebral neurons reside in the association cortices.

Confounding expectations
Steven Johnson argues that in addition to our senses igniting in us an instinct which draws us towards novel experiences – illusions, and visual art in general – take our perceptions of objects in the world and confound expectations in startling ways. Through our senses, we become more alert and engaged; from those encounters we receive ‘a novelty bonus’ which helps us to learn from new experiences. Johnson goes on to say that ‘humans [have] evolved neural mechanisms that promote learning when they have experiences that confound their expectations. When the world surprises us with something, our brains are wired to pay attention.’

When an individual’s interest is at its height, so too is their capacity to learn and remember, and when learning is satisfying, it tends to be long lasting. Johnson might have added that if our ways of learning are centripetal then we miss a trick. Engagement through the senses separates delight from demand; it pushes us towards exploration, it propels us to seek out new twists. Steven Weinberg makes a plea for interdisciplinary and real-world interaction with a reference to one particular poem called ‘Event Horizon’ by the late, great Clive James:

You get to see the cosmos blaze

And feel its grandeur, even against your will,

As it reminds you, just by being there,

That it is here we live or else nowhere.

He seems to be saying that the meaning of his life is to be found in that refraction that occurs between his own gaze and the enormity of the world and the universe around and beyond him. Meaning is in everything – learning to see in the broadest way possible will release multitudes of unexpected and brightly lit moments. It is not about certainties but possibilities. The phrase constructive ambiguity summarises how we need to work as a means of discovery rather than as a way of telling ourselves what think we know – learning as an evolving conversation rather than a last word pronouncement.

False consensual certainties

There is always more to say, more to discover, more stories to tell. We should never accept that any research or work has an ending. It can be abandoned, but to say it is finished is nothing less than accepting defeat. Kolb identified the learning process as a cycle which begins with concrete experience, leads on to observation and reflection, expands into the shaping of abstract ideas and then tests those ideas. This might sound like a linear process, but is not; the starting point for this cycle might be any one of these elements but only if the whole approach is underwritten by direct experience. Underlying the approach is the premise that, for as long as possible, there should be no right or wrong but only genuine experience – because only with real experience will there be real engagement.

And finally, if we do believe that a focus on the physical environment and the way it is processed through the perceptions – the five senses – is a viable approach, then it is certainly worth thinking about the mileage to be had from cross wiring the experience of these senses as a next step. The result might well be a perfect expression of inventiveness, immersion and imagination.

Isn’t this what education is, or should be, about? Building and adopting a database of knowledge, of course, but then adapting, adjusting and going on with the search. There are no last page conclusions to learning. Too often we seek a false consensual certainty, simply because it is acceptable or reassuring. It’s important to reject this compulsive cramping ideal and to choose to live with complexity; our ability to hold doubt, suspend judgement and accumulate additional information allows growth. We need to accept that when it looks as though we have the answer, we may well have frozen the evolution of our understanding into a static order.

Adapted from Unfinished Perfection: Learning with Leonardo: by Ian Warwick and Ray Speakman, John Catt 2019