Therefore, it’s important to understand that there are aspects of knowledge and learning: (1) Information, (2) Skills, (3) Interpretation, (4) Experimentation. In the best fields of study, educators know how to incorporate these four modes of learning. If they must assess, they assess according to which of the four—or combination thereof—are fore fronted.
INFORMATION
Too often, English Studies classes use an information model of learning, taken from the introductory courses of normative sciences—such as botany, chemistry, astronomy. “Normative,” derived from the same word as “normal,” means a standard way of knowing according to set models. These sciences have a foundation of information—in botany, you learn about photosynthesis and parts of a cell; in chemistry, the periodic table; in astronomy, the positions of the constellations. This knowledge lends itself to standardized testing—either you know the information, or you don’t.
To focus on information, you focus on the bedrock of discoveries and agreed-upon “facts” in a particular field of study. You memorize more, question less. There are certain benefits and satisfactions in knowing information—games such as Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuits—based on memory of information—wouldn’t be as popular as they are. Either you know something—or you don’t. It is satisfying to score 100% on a multiple-choice test. But not all of us think this way.
Remember, too, that just because others believe something is a fact doesn’t mean that it is so or that it shouldn’t be questioned. For example, at one time, some scientists believed that women were intellectually inferior to males. Science has shown this notion to be wrong. “Facts”— “information”—are no more than statements that are commonly believed by a group of people.
But culling and memorizing and repeating Information, is a limited way to learn. It might lend itself to standardized testing, but it can frustrate you in other ways of knowing.
Knowing that a comma is used to divide letters and ideas from each other might not help you to use it—let alone to interpret how a comma creates meaning in a poem. It does not facilitate your experimentation through drafts of your writing to discover new ways of using it.
Even in science, learning information is not enough. If it were, there would be no breakthroughs—just repetition.
SKILLS
To focus on skills, we engage in action and practice that go beyond collecting and memorizing what others consider to be important information. One misguided teacher I know had his creative writing students memorize their text. But getting 100% on those tests—knowing the technical terms for adverbs, imperatives, and subjunctives did nothing for students as writers. Worse, focusing on the terms was boring, stressful, and created not creative work but writers’ block.
Learning skills requires practice, experiment, revision—making mistake upon necessary mistake—patience, perseverance, commitment. Developing skills can stall if the focus is on information instead.
And in the science, skills are essential to learning, as well. In botany, for example, it’s important not only to identify plants in the field—information—but also to know how to harvest, propagate, hybridize them. In mycology—the study of mushrooms—developing skills of observation can be a matter of life and death, as some mushrooms are toxic.
INTERPRETATION
When looking at a mass of data or words, how do we decode and make meaning? This is the process of interpretation—a skill, yes, but of a level that deserves its own category.
Interpretation combines a command of information and skills with the ability to respond as an individual. Morality and the arts, for example, are considered to be more matters of points of view than matters of fact. Each discipline and subdiscipline provides us with ways of interpreting. For example, in an art course, we interpret the mood or ideas a painting creates in us as we view the colors, shapes, shadows, designs, subjects. In poetry, we interpret the feelings, insights, and epiphanies through considering the sound, rhythm, sensory imagery, diction, and spatial design. Be careful to notice if, in a particular course, someone claims that a certain interpretation is certainly the right or best one. That person may have confused a matter of fact with a matter of interpretation. One interpretation may be clearer, more novel, or more encompassing than another, but that doesn’t mean that the process of interpretation is now shut. If it is, then what we are considering is neither science nor art. There’s always another breakthrough in meaning available.
EXPERIMENTATION
To focus on experimentation, we question, explore, take risks, dismantle the old and known, open to the possibility of endless possibilities. We discover information through trial and error. We seek to make mistakes that will open up new paradigms for how we think and act.
Consider your courses and discern what mode or modes of learning are favored. Are they the most exciting, useful, satisfying approaches? How might you, with more awareness of the various modes of learning, better realize your goals to be whomever you want to be—athlete, businessperson, craftsperson, artist, musician, civil servant, scholar, teacher, or scientist?
Works Cited:
The ideas in this blog post were originally published in the “Writing to Learn” chapters of my book The Flexible Writer. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2003.
Because I Can Teach: https://becauseicanteach.blogspot.com/2018/03/teaching-from-heart-pyramid-of-needs.html
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