... or 'mushy intertwined hole.'
As the case may be, I mean.
DH and I were discussing the learning process for him, me, and our DD this morning...
for him and her both, it's as though their "mastery" is an enormous floating dock of boxes... and "learning" is a process via which there is "capture" and then there is "placement" within that larger scaffold. Simply TYING a captured idea (or seagull) to the scaffold and letting it continue to fly in circles isn't
mastery to either of them-- they have to be able to reel it in and place it within the larger scaffold in order to "own" it (mastery).
It BUGS them when it is assumed that just tethering more seagulls = "learning" because to them, it seems pointless and arbitrary. But without an expert teacher to respond to questions about where things fit within the scaffold, and whether there are ties to other parts of it... well, it just doesn't STICK for either one of them.
Me, I'm a trivia Goddess, so I can roll with the tethering of more and more seagulls. To a point.
But for learners like my DH and DD, having actual subject expertise in a teacher isn't just a nice bonus-- they in all probability CANNOT really learn much or very deeply from anyone else. DH is a pretty impressive autodidact
now (as am I), but this was definitely not true at our DD's age. We both suspect that learners like us often HAVE to have a certain maturity and level of mastery (broadly) before we CAN function effectively as autodidacts. Our position of learning is dependent upon the strength and extent of the seagull-stuffed scaffold under us.
Like a Borg ship. Metaphorically.
