Content - How Does New Information Come to the Learner? How Do People Learn?This is a featured page

Let us sum up the key ideas introduced earlier before proceeding: with unfreezing the system becomes motivated to change. But that does not imply it will actually change, it does not determine how it will change and that it will be able to refreeze into a new equilibrium. Change - as we have seen - is a particular kind of learning that is different from “new learning” as it implies (usually painful) unlearning and (usually difficult) relearning. How that learning happens – we saw – is through cognitive restructuring – a restructuring of thoughts, perceptions, emotions and attitudes.

Central to all these processes is that new information enters the system – or comes to the learner. How does new information come to the learner? There are two mechanisms: a) Identification and b) Scanning1.

a) Learning through identification.
This is when learning happens thanks to positive or defensive identification (or imitation) with a role model2. The following examples illustrate this mechanism in ways that are relevant for the way we do peace building training.
  • The expert trainer. Positive identification is what happens when people attend a training where an “expert” is facilitating (especially if the expert is a popular one). Participants might undergo cognitive restructuring (i.e. restructuring of feelings, thoughts, perceptions and attitudes) thanks to identification with the expert trainer as a role model – they want to be like her/him. The expert trainer is a role model.
  • Dominant models. A more nuanced, but very effective, role model can be a theoretical/methodological one. Consider a training were participants from a low-income African Country are exposed for one week to theories and methods derived from cutting-edge research of US Stanford, Harvard or UK Oxford. Participants might just want to identify with these “new” theories and methods from a dominant culture. The theories, models and techniques are a role model here.
  • The mentor. Another approach to learning that is based on positive identification with a role model is mentoring, where the mentor can take the role of a parent figure or that of an older sibling. Mentoring is effective and frequently applied: think of what happens when an agency (usually from the North) sends its skilled staff to work with a Caritas agency (usually from the South) in a context of conflict. The mentor relates with the national staff, usually assuming the position of a “parent” or “older sibling”
If we look at our peace building efforts, we will probably identify initiatives and approaches based on assumptions - either tacit or surfaced - of learnign through identification.

b) Learning through scanning.
This is when learning happens through searching – or scanning - the environment, by exposing the system to a variety of information, by deliberately trying new solutions and opening space from which to learn from errors. Eventually, by spontaneously experiencing an insight that provides the solution. This is how most of us learn when we have no role model to identify with, nor initial clues to where the solution might lie. Here, cognitive redefinition is a result of the solutions that we develop for ourselves.

 In business, organisational change consultants seem to suggest that expert advise is hardly an effective intervention; rather they see their role in facilitating the client’s understanding of the problem and supporting the development of responses that are owned by the organisation. These consultants work more with questions than with answers, assuming that the solutions that people develop for themselves are appropriate and more easily implemented3. With learning through scanning it can be said that people own the change to a larger extent.

 Most aid workers learn through scanning as formal education is never enough to deal with the problems they face in the field. Formal education often cannot provide the answers as the problems are different from those described in textbooks; often the project “did not predict the outcome that is actually occurring”. Aid workers need to activate and scan for solutions to their problems: they talk with colleagues, interview stakeholders and experts, search books that are relevant to their problem, hire consultants – whatever might help them to find solutions. Then, they try solutions and when these don’t work, they organise “lessons learned” workshops and try again. Eventually they might experience an insight and apply a different solution.

If we look at our peace building efforts, we will identify many processes where learning is taking place through scanning, and through trial and error – either planned or spontaneous.

Further Considerations about identification and scanning

Both identification and scanning have advantages and disadvantages. Both are useful mechanisms for peace building training/learning. Rather than sustaining one or the other for ideological purposes, we need to understand the implications and consequences of each mechanism better, in order to be able to act appropriately in each specific situation.

  • When is learning through scanning (or identification) more appropriate?
  • When is learning through identification (or scanning) more effective?
  • What happens when people learn through identification (or scanning)?
The literature on change in human systems provides some insights, but not enough. More importantly, we should remind ourselves that most of this literature (especially the contemporary works) is business-driven: it refers to human systems intended as business organisations, mostly corporations. Its aim is to serve organisations whose objectives are growth and improvement, especially in terms of profits. Our realm is different and possibly more complex as we work with communities.

Keeping that in mind, let us see what we can learn from the existing literature4.

  1. Learning through identification or imitation of a role model is economic in terms of time: learning is rapid.
  2. Identification is effective in determining the direction of change: when we provide a role model we make a consistent investment in the direction of change.
  3. The essential problem of learning through identification is that it might clash with individual psychological defences and (especially important for us) groups’ embedded norms (i.e. groups’ cultures). This is especially relevant for a Confederation of 162 Member Organisations engaged in every corner of the world – dealing with diversity is an everyday occurrence for us.
  4. Learning through scanning sticks more easily as it does not raise the problem of eliciting psychological defences or clashing with a group’s culture: it is the people (the system) who determine their own solutions – they own the change.
Learning through scanning seems to be given primary consideration, especially when working with different cultures. More specifically,we assert that:

  • Participants in training should face their own problems;
  • Solutions to problems should be developed in a dialogue process where local actors (the system) retain most of the decision-making;
  • The trainer’s role is to support the group scanning the environment in search of solutions, opening space for trial and error. Participants to the training (individuals, groups, communities) should own the change.

Source: mikicesari@gmail.com
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1Schein, E. H., “Kurt Lewin’s Change Theory in the Field and in the Classroom: Notes Toward a Model of Managed Learning”, Ibid.; from the same author see also Schein, E. H., “Models and Tools for Stability and Change in Human Systems”, Ibid.
2Defensive identification is less relevant for the purposes of this paper, thus we choose to focus only on positive identification. Research on defensive identification dates back to WWII, particularly on inmates in Nazi camps. See Bettelheim, B., “Individual and Mass Behaviour in Extreme Situations”, in Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 38, 1943.
3“People do not resist change, people resist being changed”, is a popular quote attributed to Richard Beckard.
4 Schein, E.H., Models and Tools for Stability and Change in Human Systems, Ibid.; Kurt Lewin Change Theory in the Field and in the Classroom, Ibid.; From Brainwashing to Organisational Therapy, Ibid.



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mikicesari 		Latest page update: made by mikicesari , Feb 10 2009, 3:52 AM EST (about this update About This Update mikicesari Edited by mikicesari


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