Can learning happen without the learner knowing it?

I spent most of last Friday on a tour of Thanksgiving Point with a group of fellow graduate students who are working with Thanksgiving Point management on a project I have blogged about in a previous post.   We visited each of the three main venues at Thanksgiving Point and at each venue our tour was facilitated by the director of that particular museum or attraction.  Among other things, they oriented us to their venue, helped us understand the guest experience, and showcased exhibits or features they felt were particular noteworthy.  One of the directors, while taking us through his space, repeatedly made the comment that "kids are learning here, they just don't know it."  After hearing that statement three or four times in a matter of an hour, I started to wonder what that might mean.  And, it highlighted for me the fact that we frequently assume that learning is occurring without any real evidence that it is.  The TP manager we spoke with assumed that kids, parents, and other guests were learning while participating in the museum experience his venue provides, but it was just that--an assumption. 

In the title of this post I posed a question--can someone learn without knowing it?  I think the answer to that question probably depends on how a person defines "learning."  But, I'm willing to concede that "unconscious learning" might happen in some cases (e.g. The gradual process of becoming a more skilled artist or musician or the familiarity with a new neighborhood that comes over time).  But, the larger issue here is how much more meaningful learning is when the learner recognizes that it is happening.  And, helping learners see they have learned, seems like an important function for educators and educational environments to play.  This could happen in any number of ways, but here are a few

1.  Clearly articulate what you hope will be learned.  Sometimes just alerting learners to what it is they should or could be learning, helps them recognize it when it happens.  The old adage, "you see what you're looking for" applies here.

2.  Ask them to reflect at key points in the experience.  Ask learners what they are learning and how they are learning it.  This could happen at just about any point in the learning process, but beginnings and endings present nice opportunities for reflection.  What's more comparing these sorts of pre-post reflections reveals to learners how they have changed and provides an opportunity for them to identify how to replicate the learning process on their own.  

3.  Celebrate learning.  Provide opportunities for learners to demonstrate, share, highlight, or reveal what they have learned.  Not only do these sorts of activities deepen learning for individual learners, they communicate to the larger community of learners (a class, a school, an organization) what type of learning the community values.

4.  Provide opportunities for learners to teach one another.  Nothing lets us know how well we know something like trying to teach it to someone else.  And, the process of articulating knowledge not only reveals what a learner does and doesn't know, it deepens understanding and raises new questions that facilitate additional learning.

When ideals and viability collide

On Tuesday evening, the Provo School Board approved a renovation of the Provo High School football complex.  Anyone who has driven by the stadium knows that this sort of project is long overdue, particularly when Bulldog stadium is compared to its neighbor up the hill at Timpview High School.  The challenge for Provo School District is how to fund capital projects like this one, in the face of ever shrinking budgets and a reeling economy.  Not surprisingly then, Tuesday evening's conversation about the renovation at Provo High was dominated by talk of where the money will come from.  The Board of Education has committed $125,000 on the front end of the project and has agreed to subsidize the cost of replacing the track that surrounds the field, but falls far short of the nearly $1.5 million that is needed for the two proposed phases of the project. The Board's solution?  Sell the naming rights for the stadium and field to the highest bidder.

At first glance something like this seems like a fine idea and common practice in the world of sports.  After all, we could probably all rattle of a list of 5 or 10 athletic venues named after corporations (e.g. The Staples Center in LA, The TD Boston Garden, or Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City).  The sense among Board Members on Tuesday was that everyone wins.  The district brings in a large sum of cash, student-athletes have a great venue to play in, community members have something to be proud of, and a local business gets publicity.  But, it seems like a slippery slope to me and one that leads down an increasingly problematic path where, eventually, educational ideals are likely to be compromised (as evidenced by this extreme case from a Sacramento School District).  Of course, community businesses have always been partners with local schools when it comes to athletics.  They hang banners at the fields, have their names in the program, and donate goods at reduced cost for concessions.  But, in large part, it avoids major problems and conflicts of interest because of its scale.  The banners are for the gas station down the street, the concessions come from the local grocery store, and the programs are paid for by the trophy shop around the corner.  In other words, the money put up is small and those contributing are people that have at least a small stake in what happens at the school on Friday nights.

Provo District, however, is headed down a different path by asking for million dollar donations.  That sort of invitation brings in a much different bidder--one with deep pockets no doubt, but whose intentions aren't likely to be as pure as the burger joint down the road whose owners have had children and grandchildren don jerseys for the school.  When asked who his potential donors were, JT McGraw (the driving force behind the project) mentioned that Frontier Airlines would be at the top of his list.  It's a savvy move considering their the airline's recent announcement, but one has to ask how much Frontier airlines really cares about Provo High athletics.  And, in addition to their name on the stadium, what else might they want to see happen in exchange for their donation?  Half-time announcements?  Frontier's logo on the jerseys?  Where does it stop?

Those, of course, are all extreme examples.  But in thinking through these sorts of partnerships, schools need to consider where they might lead.  The next time the library needs a remodel, do we end up with the Subway Social Sciences shelf or the Domino's Pizza study hall?  And, based on the view of Board Member Darryl Alder--who commented that the district should try to sell naming rights for anything and everything it can--that sort of thing isn't out of the question.  

Even in college athletics, where corruption and profit-driven decisions are almost the norm, institutions have largely avoided corporate naming rights for their venues.  Most have distinct names, completely removed from individuals or corporations (e.g. The Cotton Bowl, The Rose Bowl, Harvard Stadium, and the "Big House" at Michigan).  Even when the stadium does have a namesake, it is almost always an individual or family who, while donating large sums of money, is a key part of the community in those places (e.g. Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, or Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee).  

So, the question Provo needs to ask is where this is all leading and if they'll really end up in a place that they want to be in.  Sometimes giving up a bit of money, in the name of doing what is best for students (like this community college in Texas) is a better road.

On

Attending to culture and tradition as part of the change process

I am currently part of a group that has been asked to participate in helping Thanksgiving Point, a non-profit organization housed in Lehi, Utah, to rethink the way its staff and volunteers interact with visitors to their venues.  It has been an interesting project because it has taken us nearly two months to even begin to understand "the problem," as it were, and what it is that we are trying to design or redesign.  In a nutshell, the Thanksgiving Point leadership hopes that we can help them prepare "ambassadors" who can enhance the guest experience by, among other things, facilitating meaningful learning in the various venues, connecting guests with parts of the property they may not be aware of, and putting a "human face" on the Thanksgiving Point experience.

Problems or projects like the one facing Thanksgiving Point are interesting opportunities to see how groups go about facilitating change.  One approach (and the one that is probably typical in organizations) is to roll out a new program, provide training to employees/staff to prepare them to "get in line" and implement the new program, and then to follow-up to make sure things are going as planned.  It is very top-down and directive, which often sounds attractive because it appears to be "clean," simple, and efficient.  Those that employ this approach seem to operate under the assumption that they can tell people what is going to happen, show or teach them about how to make it happen, and then follow up to make sure it is happening.  In higher ed we might see this process at work when a campus institutes a common reading program, adopts the campus-wide use of ePortfolios, or when a college decides that they are "going to do learning communities."  The thinking is that "best practices," "innovations," or other changes can simply be rolled out and that a few years down the road all of the kinks will be worked out and things will be good.  And there are a standard set of methods for facilitating change that flow from this paradigm--orientation meetings, manuals, training workshops, and accountability measures to name a few.

The problem with these types of approaches is that they fail to recognize that change does not occur in a vacuum--each organization has its own "story" that traditions, values, and an embedded culture that dictates the way people speak, think, interact, and make decisions.  So, any change effort must in some way or another address the issue of how to change or modify culture.  

What the group I am on is starting to realize is that what Thanksgiving Point has really asked us to help them with is a change in culture, particularly as it relates to staff-guest interactions.  So, although new employee handbooks, training meetings, or edicts from adminstrative leadership might play a role in the change, they can't be the end.  In fact, a superficial approach to change that only employs these methods is likely to engender resentment and counterculture.

So, how does one go about changing culture?  There don't seem to be any simple processes or steps, but there are a few things that seem to be important.

Vision:  It is nearly impossible to create a new culture when key stakeholders aren't in agreement as to what the new culture will look, sound, or feel like.  The danger here is in getting bogged down trying to negotiate.  Of course, some negotiation, particularly at the top, is critical, bringing too many stakeholders to the table might mean that you never get anywhere.

Visibility:  Images are powerful.  And, what people see when they are on a campus, in a corporate office comples, or walking through a venue communicate a lot about what the organization values.  I was on the campus of Westminster College earlier this week and noticed that their learning goals and mission statement appear all over campus where students will see them.  My guess is that these things have been part of the Westminster culture for some time, but there are new students that arrive on campus every fall and they need to be brought into the culture.  Letting them "see" the culture each day on campus helps.  

Stories:  The stories that are told within an organization help to form, reveal, and shape the culture.  If we want to change culture we need to look at the stories that are told and whether they represent the values, priorities, and traditions we associate with the desired culture.  Sometimes we already have the stories, but just need to find ways to tell them or tell them more effectively.  Other times, we have to go looking for the stories.  And, two types of stories seem useful.  First, "institutional" stories that tell the story of the organization (e.g. its history, defining moments, narratives about key figures/leaders, etc.) and which are told by the organization.  Second, "personal" stories told by individual members of the community but which align with the same messages conveyed by the institutional stories.  Not only are stories more emtionally powerful, but they are often more instructive than are overly-generalized or vague mission statements or statements of purpose.

Relationships:  Much of the culture of a place is transmitted and represented in the interactions that take place between members of the community.  In my first year on my campus as an administrator, I learned more about how to do my job (or how others wanted me to do my job) by the conversations and interactions I had with colleagues, particularly senior colleagues, than any manual or orientation could have ever taught me.  So a cultural shift requires that we examine the way interactions occur among community members, particularly newcomers and what Jean Lave has termed "oldtimers" or veterans.  By identifying the mentors or experts in our organizations who have bought into the culture we want, we can provide opportunities for them to interact in authentic ways with newcomers and invite them into the culture we want.  Over time, this relationship-based approach can have a renewing effect on an organization and keep the culture both rooted in tradition and open to innovation and necessary change.

Gathering Places:  The physical spaces where community members gather can do much to communicate culture.  What is hanging on the walls, the type and layout of the furniture, and most importantly the conversations and activities that take place there, can be used to shape and influence culture.  

None of this, of course, is meant to suggest that cultural change is easy or that telling stories or using images is a foolproof means of implementing change.  But, a change that doesn't attend to the cultural context is likely to be short-lived or superficial.