wallpaper dinding

This is the last post from 2010. It's been a surprisingly good year. 2011 is going to be very tough for anyone working in any connection to a UK university.

Being stuck in an airport (which Astrid, Izzy and I have been for the last day or so) makes me think about what goes on in people's minds as they are awaiting something together. The facial expressions and body language are all remarkably similar. What this is suggesting to me is that there are very clear patterns. With the metaphor of frequencies and regulation, resonance and topologies, I'm increasingly interested in the possibility that the best way to describe the pattern is through music. This puts a different spin on all that work on the 'psychology of music'... what about the 'music of psychology'?

Positioning theory allows me to consider the inner and outer worlds as co-determining - I can study the outer world with more precision than the inner world: there are notes, frequencies, symmetries, patterns. Anyone who has studied music already knows that the study of the outer world (the sound world) is a good way of trying to understand the inner world and the relationship between inner and outer.

What is interesting me particularly is the scansion of musical metre... each musical articulation being like a 'line' that makes up a drawing (like the lines in the Rodin picture I talked about the other day). The question of how the different articulations, the different metres, the role of harmony and counterpoint which underpins them, is perceived and resonates with an individual psychology is a question of such complexity that it might provide a more sufficient way of describing psychology and social processes than the reductionist tendencies of psychological 'science' itself.

Each articulation, in a multi-instrument composition, is also performed within the material context of the instrument that plays it. Each instrument brings its different properties. Just as a knowledge performance is played with 'some content' or 'an inspiring teacher' or 'a useful tool'. Somehow I think we map our world according to these articulations. Finally there is a question about the rationality of this mapping process (one of the criticisms of Mezirow's pedagogy is the rationality he assumes that learners posses in being able to reaon about their understanding) I wonder if our maps at once are rational and at the same time appear to us irrational, and that this might be because the topology of these maps is so complex: it's very hard to hold the whole of a knot or a Möbius strip in one's head at one time.

I'm not sure this post will make much sense. But I want to start putting things together..

The things I'm putting together are a view of cognition which is consistent with positioning theory, inasmuch that it  emphasises relationships for thinking about cognition. The space between an illocutionary act and a perlocutionary effect is essentially a relational space. This means that we can abstract away details of complex mechanisms within an individual mind, and speculate on possible consistencies between inner and outer worlds: what is reflected in the inner world, is also available (and produced) in the outer world. The most obvious analogy to this is that of resonance (although I'm uncomfortable with Sheldrake's 'Morphic Resonance', maybe he's got something...?). A body resonates because it is in an environment which is sympathetic to the frequencies at which it resonates, and feeds back those resonant frequencies. I wonder if cognition is like this...

What if in the Viable System Model, the regulating layers were merely different frequency resonators? And some frequencies have an impact on others - both within the individual and socially? To what extent do 'higher' or lower frequencies 'regulate' other frequencies? I'm still thinking about this...

But the link between frequencies and the VSM means a number of things can be explored.. First of all, the work I am currently doing in social simulation, with different agents regulating each other like a big Ashby homeostat, can be thought of as a frequency spectrum. Then there is the issue of double description (or double-artitculation) in knowledge performances. A knowledge performance not only involves different frequencies of the different regulating mechanisms of an individual, but these frequencies are performed in a material context which determines that nature of performance: so we can have a content-focused performance, or a person-focused performance, or a tool-focused performance. Extending the 'frequency' analogy, I wonder if the different types of knowledge performance, and the resonance of individual VSM frequencies in a material context is rather like making sounds with different 'instruments': each instrument equates to a different context for a knowledge performance. Thus what happens is a very complex sort of 'orchestration': the regulating levels of an individual will be conditioned by the different sorts of resonant frequencies to be found in the environment: the same melody might be played by a tuba or by a violin; essentially they are the same, but have different properties.

The VSM categories, 'instruments' and a frequency spectrum all invite analysis of their symmetry... and that is one of the most interesting things about the social simulation... what it might reveal in terms of symmetrical diachronic patterns. And then of course, there's synchronic symmetry in terms of the relations between one frequency and another.

But then we have to think about topology too... Because diachronic symmetry and synchronic symmetry meet at some point, where synchronic structures are changed in response to a recognition of diachronic pattern. (this seems to be what Mezirow's pedagogy is all about - fascinating). What do these topologies look like? (maybe a Riemann surface like this). This point at which synchronic structures are changed seems to occur when we become aware that our knowledge of the topology of our being is wrong, or usually, a double-bind. At those points a new topology is mapped out. I think...

What's really fascinating me is that the topologies that we construct are very complex. I'm fascinated how similar this topology is to the cosmic topologies of the universe..  If they are toruses, knots, or Riemann surfaces of some sort, what does that all mean?? Or is that question just a new point on my own topology?

Time is the hidden factor in our thinking about learning; indeed, it is the hidden factor in our thinking about anything. I think the conception of time in learning processes is linear and individualistic and this is something that requires a deeper critique.

Lineally thinking, we conceive of time as "we do one thing, we do the next thing". In essence, "we progress". Yet linearity does not I think reflect our actual experience of time. For whatever we do next depends on what we might have done before: not even immediately before, but maybe the 'before' long ago (the 'before' may even be mystical). Indeed, when I think 'why' I am doing the thing I am doing now, the 'befores' seem multiple and complex, each one fading in and fading out as I anticipate my next move.

Individually, our obsession with time and the linear processes of action we take in it are conceived within the context of our individual selves. This despite the fact that whatever we do, we do to others, and that whatever we do is shaped by others.

My thoughts about learning outcomes yesterday hint at a critique of the learning outcomes as essentially belonging to this thinking about time and learning. The criticisms are:
1. learning outcomes are linear and cumulatively progressive;
2. learning outcomes are individualistic, not collective

As a way of dealing with these two problems with the conception of time, I want to suggest an alternative based on:
1. time as 'pattern', rather than process
2. time as collective, rather than individual

When I think "what does my time look like", I can conceive a pattern. I've been reading about Riemann surfaces (Weyl wrote a great book about it). This may be what time looks like...









And if time looks like this, it has pattern and symmetry. How does this relate to "what I do next"? How does it relate to the collective?

Personally, I find that what I do next is determined by perceiving an aspect of 'patterning' in my experience. I have some knowledge of where I stand on the surface of time, and some understanding of the local topology. My understanding of this pattern may be due to an appreciation of its symmetry. I also find that that this symmetry is not purely individual. The symmetry relates to my action, and the consequences of my action with others. Is my action to seek archimedian points which lie between my internal state and the social forces I am subjected to? Is the surface of time the output of continual plotting of archimedian points?

Much as I'm fascinated by the metaphysical implications of all this, I think it's useful to be practical. I've been looking at Jack Mezirow's emancipatory pedagogy recently. It strikes me that he's doing something quite similar to the identification of 'double-binds' I did with the computing students the other week. I think that to see your way through a double bind is precisely to get a bigger feel for the topological landscape you inhabit. Unpicking a double-bind is to identify an archimedian point, and by so doing, the topology and symmetry start to reveal themselves.

Learning outcomes need to be seen as part of the double-bind, an aspect of the social forces that shape agency. If we use them like this, then we might be able to leverage something both rational and deeper in the learning processes of teachers and learners.

I've been thinking about the examination and assessment of musical performances. Much depends on being 'convincing', 'correct', 'accurate', 'fluent' in the style and manner of performance. Indeed, in the rubric of music examinations will often use these sorts of words. But of course, these aren't (and can never be) objective assessments. It depends on creating a relationship with an examiner; it depends on communication. When we say "this is a convincing performance" what are we saying? Are we saying "what I experience on hearing this is a feeling which I associate with the feeling that I have had when listening to performances which I know to be good"? There is the whole question of 'family resemblance' that Wittgenstein was so fond of pointing out... "This performance feels like one of the family of the 'good and true' performances which I know..."  How does a skilled performance become 'one of the family'? How does a radical performance define itself and gain acceptance outside the 'received' family, but starting a new one of its own? To me, these questions highlight the deficiency in our current thinking about 'learning outcomes'.


Learning Outcomes are basically a behaviourist take on education: that the black box of the learner, through conditioning, can be shown to have acquired new behaviours which can be objectively measured, and which can be the basis of assessment of the aptitude of the learner, and the effectiveness of the teaching. The confusion which has surrounded the issues of "what has gone on in the learner?", and "was the teaching any good?", together with the utility of learning outcomes for organising curricula into modular units so that learning can be organised across institutions more easily, has in effect shrouded the fundamentally behaviourist ontology which lies behind it.

If we look at the issue of learner needs, and what the best teaching can do, then I think there is something going on which relates to unpicking double-binds. Indeed, the worst teaching can reinforce the double-binds of the learner, whilst maintaining a stable relationship - and adhering to the rhetoric of learning outcomes. Often the most fundamental question a teacher can ask of a student desperately trying to meet a learning outcome is "why are you doing this?". By organising our system around learning outcomes, we've created an organisational structure where that most basic of questions is not only a challenge for the learner, but also risks putting the teacher at odds with the policy of the institution. Increasingly it takes a brave teacher to ask such a basic question.

The problem seems to be that however useful learning outcomes are for the internal conversation of the institution, they may be pretty useless as a measure of learning in terms of freedom from double-binds. They tend to be at the heart of the autistic conversation in the institution. Worse, they can make it increasingly difficult for teachers to ask the powerful questions that are necessary to really help learners. They can be a barrier to empathy. They lead teachers to judge that a skilled performance is or is not 'one of the family' on shallow criteria without allowing them to really consider what being 'one of the family' means.

Is there a way forward?

What if you could pin learning outcomes to learners' double binds in some way? Obviously this is a bit ambitious, but I'm thinking about extending my questionnaire of computing students (http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com/2010/12/programming-freedom-from-therapy-to.html) in a way which might help the process move forwards. The issue seems to be the transparency and objectivity of the process,  which makes itself available to inspection, and the meaningfulness to learners. Maybe in this way the meaningfulness of learning outcomes might be more evenly distributed between learners and the institution than they are now....

I've been wondering if educational institutions (maybe all institutions) develop a sort of 'cultural autism' where their internal conversations become incomprehensible to outsiders. With educational institutions, this is particularly problematic, because they are constantly seeking to 'engage' with learners, businesses, community leaders, etc, but these engagements are often framed by internal conversations of the institution, rather than the real needs and problems of learners, business, the community, etc. It is certainly very hard to find the grounds for having a conversation with businesses or community leaders where there is a deep level of mutual understanding and empathy and where ways forward address everyone's needs.

Part of the problem may be the premise for conversation and what it means to different parties. There is usually asymmetry between the needs for the conversation for each party: for example, businesses maintain their viability through doing other things than talking to people (they make and sell products, for example). Universities maintain their viability by awarding degrees, where this is the result of conversations of a different kind. Conversation for a business may be a way of marketing products or increasing productivity, but its core profitable activity will involve skilled performances beyond talk. Does business not sometimes perceive universities as 'all talk'??

More generally, education might be perceived by business as a 'good thing' - but the motivation for having the conversation on the part of a business may sometimes be more philanthropic than practical and strategic. The university, on the other hand, is having a conversation with business because it needs the conversation to continue into those conversations which it can charge for. It is, in short, marketing. But why should business be tempted? What skilled performances beyond words are valuable to it? Ideally, the University might have developed a fledgling product which the business might be enthusiastic about and take on. But these are rare cases.

Institutions are geared for conversations with individuals as potential learners. The institution markets a 'human good' and a status symbol which accompanies that good. The conversation with business often revolves around rather loose talk about 'skills' - but this is rarely well-defined; 'skills' so often disappoint. The marketing conversation with learners is more successful because learners perceive a need in themselves which the University offers to meet. I'm wondering if the needs that learners perceive in themselves is related to some double-bind that they find themselves in. It may be that this double-bind find some requisite variety in the double-bind presented by education: the two cancel each other out, the match is made.

There's a bigger topic relevant to marketing and double binds. I've been thinking that buying Christmas presents is an interesting experience! Maybe the variety of the double bind that we all find ourselves in at Christmas can only be matched by the double-binds of shopping brands and products. Does society position learners in a sort of 'Christmas state' which can only be matched by educational double-binds? Should the university be trying to unpick the double-binds of businesses to position them in a way where they too might see value in the double-binds of education? Is education becoming more aware of its own double-binds a step towards active awareness of the position of its customers? It's probably not a bad thing to do.

Ultimately, I think this is about educational institutions becoming rather more empathic - and smarter about the irrationalities of the world in which they operate. Difficult for an institution which fundamentally is built upon the principle of rationality!

I've recently spent some time helping struggling students to learn Java in my university. In the UK (as I guess elsewhere) many young people who struggle with the traditional academic curriculum find their way into studying technology courses: this is often driven by schools and colleges themselves, who see this as the best way the students can get 'a result', and consequently the league table score of the institution will also benefit. It's often justified by the students and their parents that learning a technology skill will help gain them employment. This is true in a sense - but it really depends on what we mean by 'skill'. In particular, it demands a distinction is made between 'easy' skills (from browsing the web, for example - to maybe creating a mashup - which is perhaps at the harder end of easy skills) and 'hard' skills. In computing, the hard skill is programming, and in my university - which is a university which focussed on giving life chances to these types of students - less that 15% of the year's intake typically develop anything like solid proficiency in the hard skill of programming. This inevitably impacts on their ability to find employment.

I conducted a little survey with these students: http://tinyurl.com/progquest.I was interested in how they approached 'hard' things. How did it make them feel? If it stressed them, how did they deal with this? How did their achievement of deeper goals in life depend on being able to deal with difficult things better? What opportunities might they see in learning to program which could help them to deal with difficult things in general? The responses were interesting.

One of the key things which leaps out from the responses I got was the sheer leap of faith that students commit to when embarking on education. When asked "how are you going to achieve what you want", a common answer was "through hard work". But it was also clear that 'hard work' stressed them out in a way which was not conducive to solving hard problems. This looks like a classic double-bind: "I can only achieve success in difficult things through hard work" vs "hard work will stress me out and stop me being able to solve difficult problems". There is a prohibition in being able to talk about failure because the reason why they're allowing themselves to be caught in this is "I need to get a degree".

In conversation (amd maybe only in conversation) I found that I could explore this more deeply. But the double-bind does seem to revolve around difficult things, hard work and the management of emotion when dealing with living.