Assisted Learning. Rolf Arnold

Dr. Rolf Arnold: Dipl.-Päd. (MA. Ed.), born in 1952, obtained his PhD at the University of Heidelberg (1983), worked thereafter for five years in an International Adult Education Centre, obtained his postdoctoral qualification at the Distance University of Hagen in 1987 and has been working at the Department of Pedagogics (in the fields of Vocational and Adult Education) at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern since 1990. He is also Scientific Director and Chairman of the Board for the Distance and International Studies Centre (DISC) as well as the Speaker of the Virtual Campus Rhineland-Palatinate (VCRP).

      • He held teaching posts at the Universities of Heidelberg, Bern, and Klagenfurt.

      • In 2002 he rejected an appointment at the University of Tubingen.

      • Since 1984 he has undertaken numerous teaching and advisory field trips to developing countries, particularly in Latin America (Topic: Development of Educational Systems).

      • He is a member of numerous expert commissions and member of the regional advisory committee for continuing education in the State of Rhineland-Palatinate, chairman of the administrative council of the German Institute of Adult Education (DIE), chairman of the advisory board of the Institute for Further Education and Counsel (IFB) for the State of Rhine- land-Palatinate and a member of the BMBF's innovation initiative for continuing education as well.

      • Main research areas: Adult Education, Vocational Training and Continuing Education, Teaching and Learning System Development (e.g. Distance Studies), Systemic Pedagogy and Intercultural Vocational Education.

      1. Preface

      The first part of this book introduces a new way of thinking about learning and teaching. The concept of “Assisted Learning” (Ermöglichungsdidaktik) is presented in the context of the ongoing professional discussions of terms like education and learning as well as the emerging new learning requirements and educational methods. Assisted learning requires a cultural change in education, a change which gives more weight to the methods owned by the learner. Education and learning are being re-invented in a systemic-constructivist context.

      Current thinking about the emotional construction of reality is introduced against the background of this new understanding of the learning function and the idea of emotional competence is the focus of the second part of the book. This idea involves, especially, the development of emotional competence. Educational professionals and administrators learn to assume the role of a reflexive observer, in the sense of self-reflection. Those who know the preferred patterns of their world view may not be immune from returning to them over and over again, but they are able to apply them flexibly. This ability in the end is a prerequisite for managing one’s own destructive emotions in a more constructive manner. This is only acquired through reflexive learning processes, the willingness to critically question our usual patterns of behavior and includes knowledge of the way perceptions function. The aim is to achieve a more conscious or sensitive response and to offer more support to educating and education in the context of Assisted Learning.

      2. The Effects of Education Are Uncertain,

       but Some Shaping Is Certainly Possible

      Educational issues are issues for everyone. Everyone knows all about such things, each person has the experience of their own education and is – usually unsolicited – ready to offer their advice. These nuggets of advice usually originate from a trusted perspective on things, which should not be resented. This advice usually has to do with setting the necessary boundaries. Occasionally, popular wisdom holds that parents and teachers need to act firmly and administer discipline. A closer look at this advice quickly shows that it reflects what those giving the advice have experienced themselves. What educational researchers say and whether and to what extent the recommended measures are truly effective are not usually questioned. The fact is, what makes sense to us – and obviously, the only thing that can make sense to us – is what we can illustrate through our own experience.

      This is the reason traditional education styles are so incredibly “tenacious” and we have great difficulty questioning something that has made us into the persons we are. But do we know the long-term effect of violence and humiliation on the maturation processes of independent individuals? Experienced violence scars people just as a violent education does. People sometimes suffer years later from the humiliations they experienced at school or, at home at the hands of their parents. There are moving reports and stories of how a violent education can affect one’s entire life.

      In such descriptions, we encounter a fundamental element of education, namely, the imbalance in power – we are referring to parental authority – which clearly regulates the violence. The weaker party must obey the will of the stronger party, although the stronger party never has to prove its legitimacy. In this case, an old anthropological pattern prevails, which is often described as the “need to educate” the next generation of the society. According to this theory, people are “incomplete” at the beginning of their development and require the example, the guiding hand, as well as the experience of the elders – or “parents” – in order to prepare for their future roles in the advance of civilization and to mature into productive adults. But is this reasoning correct and does it justify all that parents do and what harm they may do to their children?

      In her essay “What can we learn from street and working children?” the Swedish educationist, Birgitta Qvarsell, provides yet another argument in favor of why the traditional concept about the relationship between young and old should be reconsidered. In our world, “work” is viewed as an economic activity preferably reserved for adults, whereas in many countries around the world, it is a standard activity for children (besides playing and learning). With this in mind, we are obliged to readjust the focus of educational research and, in addition, more closely analyze the various shifts in the relationship between adults and children:

      “The situation for children of our time is very clearly marked by what M. Mead used to call co-figurative forms for culture and learning (1979). In a relatively stable society you can count on the so called post-figurative learning form as the normal one. When changes are few and the relations between generations are stable, the younger will learn from the elder, in a post-figurative way. Parents, teachers and the other professionals teach and bring up children and youngster. Our society is to some extent co-figurative, equals learning from each other, peers from peers. To some extent it is also evident that we change into a society with pre-figurative learning conditions. Younger people have to teach the older generation the rules of society in some aspects or the techniques to be used in our modern information systems. Such changes may, of course, be seen as threatening by the adults, who are not used to learn from the younger generation” (Qvarsell 2002, p. 117 f).

      There may be a theory of the “need to educate mankind”, which is advanced in the theory of lifelong learning, but if so, only because it promotes an interpretation and legitimizes and ultimately guarantees the continued existence of the educational science of “pedagogics” – a self-critical thought posed with increasing frequency by educational theorists. There is another critical idea, namely the question of the intended and unintended side and long-term effects of educational measures. The future of a society is, after all, affected and often adversely affected by what happens in the child’s room and the expectations placed on the children.

      2.1 The Dual Uncertainty of Education’s Effect

      Only relatively little can be ascertained about the effects or the effectiveness of education. Nevertheless, the fact cannot ignore that educators, either after careful deliberation or without giving any thought to the matter, employ educational measures that often produce no effect or a different, perhaps including even some unexpected effects. Education is also a systemic process. It is an attempt to intervene in the complex interactions between effects, similar to the attempt to lead an organization or to counsel a family. While such intervention may contribute to success, there is no guarantee that it will. It is always the receiving system that determines whether the advice is accepted or not. The brain researcher Antonio R. Damasio (2003) cited the words of Albert Einstein in this context:

      "All knowledge