Learning is more than incremental
Alan Selig

     David Perkins, in Smart Schools, declares 'students with an entity attitude toward learning have a theory about the nature of learning that is fundamentally mistaken and counterproductive' (pg. 119). Bold, absolute declarations of truth are risky. Within the arena of the social sciences especially, including the field of education, a cautious approach to what is 'fundamentally' known to be true should be deeply ingrained. Often, however, it is not. This paper is a response to Perkins' rather incautious statement. It offers a limited review of learning theory literature, with reflections on what we know (and do not know) about how learning occurs. It concludes with a consideration of some implications for educational design.

      Perkins' declaration comes in a chapter on curriculum development, a key focus in his concept of a superior educational environment. It would appear that a correct understanding of learning theory is critical for creating such an environment.

     For Perkins, learning comes as 'a piecemeal process requiring persistence,' (pg. 119) and it is this steady accumulation of segments or chunks that marks the overall development of the student. The learner receives appropriately sized pieces of input and incorporates them into an ever-increasing body of personal knowledge and expertise. The view is of a relatively mechanistic process, the 'building' of a human being; a sequential placing of layer upon layer (like a stonemason) until a product is created. An example of this kind of learning is perhaps most easily seen in the physical activities of sports. The child begins bouncing a basketball. Skills are developed over countless practice sessions incorporating thousands of opportunities to bounce the ball, until . . . Michael Jordan is the result. But sometimes the learning experience isn't accomplished through such a laborious and lengthy process as this. The following experience, described in story form gives a different scenario.

     I take my parental responsibilities seriously. Those responsibilities include encouraging independence and facilitating freedom. I have two daughters and one of the elements of freedom for a child of five or so is being able to ride a bike. I determined to teach her that skill.

     April already had a bike; we bought it complete with training wheels at Target. Now, however it was time to learn to operate on two wheels. My approach was simple. I would remove the training wheels, walk (run, actually) behind the bicycle down the sidewalk and provide a stabilizing force until she learned to balance herself. I understood that the first 'solo' experience would probably be short, but the grass was soft on both sides of the walk, and, with practice, those solo trips would get gradually longer, until she no longer needed me at all.

     The only problem was that April seemed to have no internal sense of balance. The minute I released my grip on the back of the bike, the bike immediately began to lean a list to starboard. April would lean to port and the angle between rider and vehicle would grow more and more pronounced, until they would part company.  Every solo trip was the same, looked like an English farmer on his way home from the pub, and lasted about 15 feet. The number of attempts made no difference.

     In the evenings after our vain attempts, I was reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  In that book, the main character develops an interest in learning to fly. This is not an interest in airplanes, but in self-powered, arms wide out, flying. Another character in that book explains how the skill is learned in a manner something like this-- 'The trick to flying is to fall down, and then, at the last minute, miss the ground. If you can do that, you'll be flying.'

     The approach worked in the story (although it is a work of fiction), so I decided to try it for riding a bike. The next day we went out, not to the sidewalk, but to the parking lot. April got on the bike.  I gave her a push and let go.  And she began riding.  It looked exactly like falling down and, at the last minute, missing the ground. She didn't ride for 15 feet, she rode for 15 minutes, and she only quit because she knew that she could now ride anytime she wanted.

     I stood and watched, not because I had done anything particularly useful to the process, but because I was amazed that it had happened, and because I was wondering about flying...

     This experience seems to demonstrate a type of learning distinct from incremental learning.  It is more closely related to the concept of entity learning, which Perkins dismisses at its extreme manifestation.  'An extreme entity learner believes 'you either get it or you don't.' Learning something is a matter of 'catching on' and if you don't catch on in a few minutes, you probably will not catch on at all' (p. 119). Perkins doesn't talk much about entity learning, beyond dismissing it. Sadly, in only treating the extreme form of this theory, Perkins leaves the impression that teachers in smart schools need only consider incremental learning patterns. However the wider field of learning theory discusses other views of how learning occurs, and at least one of those, arising out of gestalt approaches to cognition, does seem to be related.

     Gestalt ideas of learning arose from reflections upon how we learn music and movement. It looks specifically at learning moments that early researchers termed 'A-ha experiences.' (Gardner, p. 113) In formal learning settings, both in psychotherapy and in more general life experiences, this concept argues for learning moments that encompass a widely ranging restructuring of knowledge and life orientation. And often the moment is not the result of a gradual, incremental accumulation of experience. It may be sudden and quite dramatic, as in the following story.

     'Let me tell you about an experience I just had,' said Paul. 'It's pretty amazing.' Since Paul is a psychologist who had previously told me about experiences with psychopaths, sociopaths, people who had multiple personalities and other amazing things, I let him.

     'We have a woman at the hospital who has had such low self-esteem that she saw absolutely no reason for her continued existence. She saw herself as totally worthless. The world would be better off without her. She held this view so strongly we didn't think we could do anything to help her. We tried to reason with her. We tried to counsel with her. We tried several esteem building activities, but with no significant results. She remained dangerously suicidal. So a while back I suggested a different approach.

     'We gave this woman the most menial job we could think of -- cleaning the cement steps on the front of our building. Then we gave her a bucket of water and a toothbrush for tools, and told her to go to work. When she actually finished it all we said was "Do it over, again." And she did.

     'I warned the staff that it was my hope that the woman would do something out of character. I warned them not to give any positive feedback or encouragement to her as she cleaned, but to be ready 'for anything.' 'Anything' came today. We set her to work this morning with her bucket and toothbrush. After working away for a time, this woman suddenly stood up, grabbed her bucket, and with a great shout, dumped the entire contents over the head of the nearest staff person. Then she began to scream that this was the stupidest job in the whole world and she wasn't going to do it anymore!

     'She had discovered something she was worth more than,' Paul said, 'just as I had hoped. What we couldn't argue her out of, she exploded out of in that instant. Now we can begin to build on that.

     'Pretty amazing, don't you think?'

     I thought so then, and I think so now. Yet dramatic moments of insight, understanding, awareness, learning do seem to happen in such ways. They don't always happen in such ways, indeed this may not even be the most common way in which learning occurs, but such 'A-ha' moments do come in sufficient quantity that they cannot be dismissed as easily as Perkins would seem inclined to do. Lewis Perelman (1992) argues for openness to 'entity learning' although he does not use Perkins' term.

    In reality, scientists and mathematicians do not do their crafts in the linear, progressive way their subjects are usually taught. Practitioners commonly start with a flash of insight (the stereotypical light bulb lighting), a hunch, a dream, a guess, an elaborate hypothesis or postulate, and then work backward, forward, and around it to try to make it fit with established knowledge . . . . theorists like Einstein come up with wild new theories like relativity that experiments may have to struggle for decades to find a way to test and prove. Scientific knowledge does not grow incrementally down a predictable track. Rather it grows volcano like, sometimes oozing in patient rivulets, sometimes erupting in fiery ferment, and occasionally exploding, blowing away the rock of established truth.

     All this is not to say that Perkins is wrong in arguing for the importance of slow, incremental growth as an element in learning. But such a concept is inadequate to explain either Albert Einstein or Michael Jordan, or many, many other learners. Rather Perkins has fallen prey to the temptation to take a complex phenomenon (learning) and try to explain it in simple terms. The ways humans learn, as children or as adults cannot be reduced to a single viewpoint, including either of those mentioned by Perkins. 'It is doubtful that a phenomenon as complex as adult learning will ever be explained by a single theory, model, or set of principles. Instead, we have a case of the proverbial elephant being described differently depending on who is talking and on which part of the animal is examined.' (Merriam, p. 12)

     So what does all this mean for the teacher wanting to function in a 'Smart School' setting? There are several consequences to the acceptance of a more complex and less clear concept of learning. First, continue to teach toward incremental learning. Much of what Perkins has to say about how incremental approaches foster persistence is true. Learning is often hard work and learners need encouragement, reward for partial attainment of goals, and the ongoing invitation to learn more, all of which can be facilitated through incremental learning approaches.

     Second, don't let yourself be limited to incremental learning approaches. It may be arguable that incremental learning by itself is capable of producing 'adequate' levels of knowledge or ability or maturity. However, it will never explain the level of mastery, the excellence, the reframing of an entire area of learning which is accomplished by a Michael Jordan in basketball, an Albert Einstein in physics, or an Amadeus Mozart in music. Smart teaching is not aimed toward adequacy but rather looks to the capacity within the learner and learners. Space must be given for more than plodding toward the goal. The opportunity to 'fall into flight' must also be available. 

     Such opportunities are not as easily designed as the structures for incremental learning. There are, however, some activities and attitudes which teachers can bring into the learning environment that may help make such events more likely.  The following are suggestions for educators who wish to foster the possibility of entity learning:

• Move away from data transfer and into story telling and journaling, and do it regularly and with intent. Such activities are not devoid of content, but approach content in a different way, allowing the student to take a step back and become an observer of his/her own experiences. When such activities occur and the students are left with a wide degree of latitude in the experience, they are freed to make their own connections and applications of the information and experience they are gathering. Those connections and applications may generate the leap or explosion of understanding or mastery.

• Foster a high level of interpersonal trust, between teacher and students and between the students themselves. Without trust, there is little likelihood of risk-taking behavior. But when students trust each other and their teacher, they are more willing to attempt a great leap, knowing that if nothing substantive comes as a result, they will not be subjected to ridicule or shame. And when a teacher trusts his/her students, that teacher is more willing to allow students the freedom required for learning to move beyond the appropriation of what the teacher already knows.

       

• Cultivate a sense of wonder. Both the open-ended attitude of questioning encompassed in 'I wonder...', and the sense of wonder toward the world 'and all that dwell therein.' Such a sense will counteract a great temptation of teaching, the idea that 'I have taught this subject or this age group for long enough that there are no more surprises to be found.' Such an attitude of expertise is transferred to the students as the sense that there is no room for new exploration and discovery, only the gradual acquisition of whatever the teacher already knows.

• Plan to practice leaping. Smart teachers in smart schools recognize that the vast majority of such leaps will lead nowhere in particular. The experience, however, has a value in itself, as it provides exercise for 'leaping muscles.' Strong leaping muscles may prove valuable long after graduation from formal learning settings has occurred.

• Believe that although the great majority of students will never make great leaps of learning this particular student just might.  Because there is no way to tell from the outside, assume the possibility on the inside. Look for the sudden light in the eyes, the stunned expression that declares an unexpected grasp, not of a piece of knowledge, but of an entire framework of understanding.

There are a few great leapers in every generation who, when provided with an appropriate platform to stand upon, given the freedom of movement, encouraged in exercise, instilled with wonder, and trusted to excel, will move so far beyond adequacy that they will rewrite the very definitions of mastery. To be a teacher of one who suddenly erupts into flight, and to know you were able to help rather than hinder that flight, would be amazing and wondrous and the greatest of privileges.

References

     Adams, Douglas. (1979). The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. New York: Harmony Books.

      Bonny, Helen L., and Savary, Louis M. (1973). Music and your mind: Listening with a new consciousness. Barrytown, New York: Station Hill Press.

     Gardner, Howard. (1985). The mind's new science: A history of the cognitive revolution. New York: Doubleday.

     Mayer, Richard E. (1992). Thinking, problem solving, cognition (2nd ed). New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.

     Merriam, Sharan. (1993). Adult learning: Where have we come from? Where are we headed? in Merriam, Sharan. (Ed.) An update on adult learning theory. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

     Perelman, Lewis J. (1992). School's Out: Hyperlearning, the new technology, and the end of education. New York: William Morrow.

    Perkins, David. (1992). Smart Schools: Better thinking and learning for every child. New York: The Free Press.

    Walters, Darrel L., and Taggart, Cynthia Crump. (Eds.) (1989). Readings in music learning theory. Chicago: G. I. A. Publications.