Once we had recognized each other as intentional being about 200,000 years ago, this environment called “Society” was born. Imagining these early human were gathering together and pointing out and making sounds to communicate each other. I am sure men are talking about their hunting tools, and women might be talking about leaves they can use to heal someone. Then, this gathering became informative, people started exchanging some good ideas and showing how one do certain things and how other do same things with different way. You “learn” new things from and through others, and next day, you tell this knowledge to your children. As Dr. Plumb said in last Tuesday class (Feb. 1,) “this is what we are good at, so why not teaching others the way we are good at…” I agree.
Now we are going to look at “Social practice” using the book by J. Lave & E. Wenger, “Situated Learning. Legitimate peripheral participation” See Here I was very excited about this book because I really like the form of learning called “apprenticeship. I opened the book and started reading it, and I realized I was having a hard time grabbing their point of view. Dr. Plumb explained to us in last Tuesday that this is not talking about just “apprenticeship,” it is much deeper, I would say, much more core point of learning. This sounded to me very deep, but at the same time it should not be, because it is investigating about very simple event that we have been carrying on in our long history, which is called “social practice.” To me, what reminded me when I hear about “apprenticeship” is “blacksmith, tailor, carpenter, masonry.” These were, actually, in my neighborhood in my hometown in Japan when I was very little. I remember to see them around on the street we lived on. Then, one by one they disappeared. By the time I wanted to learn traditional tailoring from some good old tailor in Boston, I could not find one there. All the fabric stores in Boston were edge of closing at that time.
On the other hand, though, schoolings were in, a lot of people were going back to school to get new skills, most of them were in computer science or computer graphic, something to do with computers. I have just started reading this new book, “Situated Learning legitimate peripheral participation” but I am looking forward to find out what Lave and Wenger are telling us about “apprenticeship and Legitimate peripheral participation.” I really feel that learning is not what we think it is now. In our history, somewhere, maybe we took wrong turn?
One thing I have learned since I left my country is that there is 2nd chance out there; nothing is too late to start. I found that people in western countries take a risk to go back to school and try to reach their dreams. And in their society, there are options for people like them. I never heard about “Lifelong learning program” until I moved to the United States. Learning in Western countries happens most of them in a school environment, and they have much more wider variety of choices that they can choose from.
I just had a conversation with my neighbor, Lata who has 7 years old granddaughter who is in French immersion program. She has been living in Halifax many years and she knows most of people in our neighborhood. She said she had asked around people how this French immersion helped them for their career. In the talk I had with her, she mentioned about the man who went to all way up to the University in French language, but he ended up changing the school to English university, because there were more choices in English one. This story actually took my attention to these two different cultures, then, I thought about my own country, Japan. It seems to me French universities are more like ones in Japan. (I am sure though, it has been changed some even in Japan since I left) Then, I wonder that, in a culture of speaking French and Japanese, they use different teaching method when people learn certain subjects, and they put them NOT into university (academic), but more like community learning (practical). But in American and Canadian cultures, it looks to me, they brought these subjects into academic field (university). For example, “Fashion Design”: you can get BFA in Fashion design in the States and Canada, but in Japan, it is taught in skilled trade area where you can receive diploma or certificate. However, you can receive BFA in Design or craft. I am not judging right or wrong, they both have Pros and Cons, I believe, somewhere in my mind, however, I cannot deny the presumption that someone thought that the paper it said, “Bachelor of_____” would become necessity and to have power over practical skills in our society. In a way, I see there are still many respects left in Japan, for people who could do amazing things with their hands, but I see less in America.
It looks to me that in Japan or French society, if the subjects are in the knowledge transmission type, then they tend to keep them under Academic category, but it is in more like skill transmission, then they would keep them under Practical category where teaching method should be different from one in Academic. I just put my thoughts here without any solid proves but these are the things, I think, it is interesting to look at closely. I wonder why, in American society, they decided to bring these Practical sides of subjects under the umbrella of Academic? As I mentioned earlier, I could not ignore the thought that there was “business of education” in someone’s mind. What was the social aspect made people felt that they need to have academic proof for their good future? Was trust lost in somewhere? More and more we don’t have job markets for practical works, and machines and computers replaced some of these skills, so people had to go to academic to get better job. (?)
At the end of this blog, when I think about knowledge vs. skill, one movie comes to my mind: “The Edge” (1997) directed by Lee Tamahori. See Here How the role Anthony Hopkins played was well informed theoretically, which ended up saving him in wildness. Sometimes, though, I wonder if in real life, the knowledge only from theory would transform so smoothly to skill or not, but at least it is better than no knowledge. As I said in last Tuesday class, I see the gap between knowledge and skill, and it would be great to have less gap between these two.
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