Dear organlearners,
Ben, when Diana Mordock opened her soul to us by telling about her
Disappointment, Frustration and Impatience (DFI), I thought it necessary
to comfort her by hinting at my own experiences. I said that I am a
university lecturer (and by implication that I am not a professor). The
reason (which I now realise that not all of you know) is that here in
South Africa one has to have a doctorate to qualify for professorship. I
do not have a doctorate, although I got all my other degrees cum laude.
The abbreviation 'Mnr' in my email address means a plain person - it is
the Afrikaans equivalent for Mr. A lecturer here, even a senior one,
remains a plain mister.
Diana, I owe you an explanation as much as I owe Ben and the other members
of this forum. I will first explain why I am a Mr and what it means to me.
Then I will discuss my task as midwife. I will furthermore discuss what is
happening now on Internet in terms of the historical perspective of
learning. Finally, I wanted to write to you that you have discovered that
you do not want to be a "werfbobbejaan" any more. I decided against it to
keep the reply too you short. However, I think that I cannot avoid this
beautiful metaphor out of Africa any more. Thus I will end this
contribution by a declaration in terms of this metaphor.
Now why do I not have a doctorate? Am I a failure because I had to give up
doing a doctorate a number of times? No, it all has to with the issue of
'paradigm shift' on the domain of science/academy. Pray that you never
experience such a paradigm shift before you have finished your academical
career if you do not want to experience DFI (see above).
My paradigm shift began with a very simple observation which I have made
roughly 30 years ago: TO LEARN IS TO CREATE. The learning which I refer to
in this observation, is the learning which a person requires to become
prepared for the future. Thus, for example, it does not include rote
learning.
My first DFI was that the more I began to understand how true this
observation (tenet) is, the more my colleages could not understand my
conversations, plannings and activities based on this tenet. Obviously, I
then knew nothing of the work of Thomas Kuhn on scientific revolutions and
paradigm shifts. To add insult to injury, the better the results of my
pupils and students became, the more my colleagues tried to discover how I
'cooked' those results. The more I tried to work openly, the more they
suspected fraud. When truth becomes stranger than fiction, it makes people
behave extraordinarily.
One thing led to another. Eventually, in 1982, I discovered that creative
learning has indeed a sound foundation, namely the Second Law of
Thermodynamics (which concerns the creation of entropy). I then made my
last attempt at obtaining a doctorate. The ensueing DFI was terrible. As
long as I kept to traditional education, my promoter was very happy for
having a candidate understanding things so well. But as soon as I tried to
steer our dialogue to creative learning, entropy, chaos, order, emergence,
nonlinear self-organisation, a blank stare came over his eyes. I had to
act like a well trained dog, sleeping on the jacket of its master. As soon
as I jumped off, into the deep river flowing by, he became angry, barely
managing to conceal it, jerking the chain (degree). The more I tried to
tell him about the wonderful discoveries which I was making (like the
essentialities of creativity), the more he switched into a dreadful
monologue.
Eventually I had to cut the chain - I could not bear the DFI any more.
The funny thing is that I now have much trouble with people insisting on
calling me professor. My students do it - even more so when I ask them not
to do it, explaining to them why. They say that they want to honour me
because I am the one person who is really concerned about their future.
People at my bank also do it, regardless of my objections. This creates a
dilemma because it may be taken as a sign of fraud. Just last week, when I
applied for a CITES permit to export protected plants propagated in
cultivation, the conservation officials did it again. They refuse to
correct it. The more I try to keep to the truth, the more situations
develop by which I could be accused of fraud.
I do not want to be called a professor. I want to be called a mister
because this name signifies that universities (at least in our country)
are not prepared to give guidance in paradigm shifts. Furthermore, a
paradigm shift is only the limiting case of emergent learning, employing
revolutionary creativity (the 'aha' phase). The sad thing is that
universities are poorly organised to give guidance in even emergent
learning.
Ben and all the others who have written to the same effect, thank you very
much for acknowledging that you have found my contributions beneficial and
enjoyable. I wish to be something more than your servant - I wish I could
be a much better servant.
No, I must formulate it even better: I wish to be your intellectual and
spiritual midwife - to assist the birth of your noble thoughts and
spirits. I have no desire to control your creativity other than to promote
it as much as possible. We all have this incredible need for creative
learning, i.e. proper learning. Proper learning is one of those things we
will never be able to buy, because it can only come from within each of
us. Whoever is trying to sell learning as a commodity, is commiting fraud.
But we also have to share this creative learning, thus forming a LO,
because our spirituality depends on it. Alone I am not a full person - you
are the other part of me.
We now have Internet - and the history of academics is repeating itself!
In the first few hundred years of the universities (from the 1200's
onwards), formal qualifications played little role. The LO played a much
greater role (obviously, nobody then knew the concept LO). Students
wandered from one university to another, trying to find someone who
professed (avowed openly) the truth which was mainly undocumented. Since
the truth makes them free, these students were able to organise themselves
learningly around that professor. In other words, by avowing the truth
openly, they were able to form a LO. The universities were simply the
places where the LOs were to be found.
Then came the invention of the printing press and the slow process of
information displacing midwifery and LOs. More and more each student had
to rely on himself/herself to be his/her own midwife. Since the advent of
the computer, the information on the world around us is fast becoming as
complex as the world it documents. Students are wandering again, but now
on internet, trying to organise themselves learningly, wishing to be made
free by the truth. They experience that complex information, although it
documents the truth, helps little in making them free and creative.
Internet's Web is now fast becoming the most important place where to form
or find a LO.
Finally, just so that you do not get the wrong impression about me, here
is my Declaration of Independance: I never want to become a
"werfbobbejaan" again.
Note:
1. A "werfbobbejaan" is the Afrikaans word for which the literal English
translation would be 'yard baboon'. A baboon never becomes fully tame and
hence a pet - it is too intelligent. Thus it always has to be kept on
chain. Even when chained, it often frightens the other yard animals (cats,
dogs, chickens, children) with its clever schemes. Nevertheless, it
remains a most dangerous animal because it can kill a leopard as easily as
vice versa. Unfortuantely, the one thing it can never do, is to get rid of
the chain. Consequently, a baboon should never be kept in captivity.
2. We use the word "werfbobbejaan" as a metaphor. It refers to any person
who is kept by a chain in captivity for only one reason - to please his
masters, either by frightening the other yard animals or to do the silly
things which humans do. We usually use this metaphor in politics. However,
it can apply to any domain in life. It is indeed remarkable how many
"werfbobbejaan"s can be found in politics, business, sociology, education
and even religion. Today I know why it is so dangerous to stress the
tenet: 'to learn is to create'. This tenet forbids any "werfbobbejaan" in
education.
3. If anyone of you wish to make a doctorate on LOs, why not considering
the following topic: "The concept of a LO as manifested among a 'flock' of
baboons in the wild". It is probably the most remarkable case of a
nonhuman LO ever to study, as Eugene Marais has already discovered more
than 50 years ago, long before even the concept LO was made known.
4. The US has a wonderful Declaration of Independance. If you care to
work through it again, see how little of it cannot be described by my own
declaration, using the meatphor "wefbobbejaan".
PS. My full names are Adriaan Michiel. The At is a shortened form of
Adriaan. It is sounded like the 'at' of 'what' without the 'wh'. Please
feel completely free to call me At - it will make me very happy. The Mr is
much too formal.
Best wishes
-- -
At de Lange
Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education
University of Pretoria
Pretoria, South Africa
email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
--"Mnr AM de Lange" <AMDELANGE@gold.up.ac.za>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>