Advanced Study of the Learning Sciences Blog post 2
The old Grain truck continues on…
The Old Grain Truck
My reflection on Mindstorms (Papert, 1980)
Open the squeaky door until it clicks
*click*
Get in sit down, watch for the wire in the seat
don’t want to scratch yourself
*squeak*
Feel the steering wheel smooth with age and wear
bumpy on the back from generations
of drivers.
Touch the key wait and prepare
pump the gas 5 times
(4 not enough, 6 will flood)
talk to it nicely
“c’mon old girl”
turn the key
pump the gas slowly
almost lovingly as you wake it up
This truck is more human than most
robots who work a nine to five.
Moaning awake she comes alive.
As she has done for 50 years.
Time to move to the field
down the road.
Shifting is a science thanks
to Eaton and his axle:
Start 2, 2 high 3 low
3 high, 4 low 5 low
4 high 5 high.
The old truck shakes down the road.
The first time you take it out
you might swear and cuss at the
incredibly touchy and finicky ways in
which you need to complete even the simplest
of tasks, but when it clicks and you become one
with it, you will grow to know that this truck is special.
Yes it breaks down often
fixing it up is where you truly get to know it.
Fuel pumps, transmissions, brake cylinders,
oil changes and even a complete rewiring.
Working with the materials at hand
to create a fix that will last,
time limits you in repairs
cause maybe…
the combine is full and the rain is coming.
It is simple and complex
It taught me so much.
I look forward to seeing those big headlight eyes
and hearing it purr every time Dad asks,
‘Hey, can you…’
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| Figure 1. The Old Grain Truck Riley Ohler Personal Photograph |
When driving the truck efficiently it was an experience similar to what Abrahamson and Lindgren (2014) explain as a perceptumotor activity that “…engages a cognitive motor system that is highly sophisticated yet demands little if any reflection” (p. 357). I can tell you how to drive the truck but until you experience it for yourself it will take some time to learn it.
Learning experiences in the old truck required not just a stimuli response reaction. The driver of the truck has to experience it. The driver comes with their own experience of vehicles, they need to know what it feels like to start it, shift it, and move with it. The old grain truck is also culturally situated in our family, it is a rural farm experience, and driving it requires knowledge from older generations who have demonstrated how to effectively use this machine. Yet even when I drive the truck I drive it differently than my Dad or Grandpa, all of us sit in the squeaky seat a little differently.
This is why I find it important that students have the chance to embody the lessons they learn through the arts, projects or technology. Giving students these rich learning experiences allows them to combine the tacit and explicit knowledge that both Abrahamson and Lindgren (2014) and Engstrom (2008) mention in their works.
Abrahamson & Lindgren (2014). Embodiment and embodied design. In In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (2nd ed.) (p. 358-376). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Engstrom, Y, (2008). Expansive learning Illeris, K. (Ed.). (2008). Contemporary Theories of Learning: Learning Theorists ... in their own words (p 68-89). New York: Routledge. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/lib/ucalgary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=425525
Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms : Children, computers, and powerful ideas. New York: BasicBooks. doi: 10.1038/537308a
I remember your truck story from our last residency. It resonates with me on many different levels. I grew up on a farm -- a tobacco farm in SW Ontario -- and we had the old green pick-up truck -- a 1970 GMC -- with my dad's name in metallic adhesive letters. At the time, going to town in it was mortifyingly uncool. But riding through the fields on the back of it, coaxing it to start and shift gears -- being able to drive that truck was a source of pride since most couldn't do it. You have to feel it out and listen to what it needed you to do. Experiencing learning through embodiment, if it is also done with mindfulness to the moment, is a deep kind of understanding. Feeling things out in a state of anxiety may not necessarily be powerful learning if you aren't able to get to an expected state or competence. Though, perhaps a lot performance learning is also about dealing with anxiety and developing an ability tap into a flow experience. I think that sensory embodiment during learning activities is so important -- especially as technology makes the world increasingly virtual and automated. I wonder how the importance of arts and physical activity can be advocated for -- especially within provinces who now have conservative governments who seem to value cost efficiency and results on standardized tests. I also wonder whether schools, like the Calgary Arts Academy, are seen as the privilege of a select group of people in Calgary or is attendance for kids truly available to anyone - regardless of where you live or the socioeconomic status you have.
ReplyDeleteEach student brings different experiences and understanding to the learning environment--as do we as educators. These experiences together create powerful diversity, and when embraced, can bring about transformative learning. I am reminded of the example of George Harrison and Paul McCartney being told by their grade 4/5 music teacher to put down the guitar and stop trying to sing because they "would never amount to anything". Little did the teacher realize that he had fifty percent of the Beatles in his class!!
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