Learning Networks Article 2

Learning networks can act as umbrella systems that can pass on the benefits of learning. They can also act as a forum to reflectively analyse what is being learnt on an ongoing basis as well as acting as a framework in which assessment can be conducted. In many ways learning networks are the precursor of the learning society able to avail itself of the benefits and scope for improvement in quality and excellence that the networks bring.

 

Through the emphasis on interdependence rather than dependence, each individual element of the network can make its own enterprise sustainable, while contributing to the sustainability of all. We must therefore nurture an understanding of learning networks and shared-learning and their centrality to the overall quality of social and organisational life, with people on the ground determining how the networks are formed and maintained, encouraging them to link into other networks and learning pathways.

 

The learning network approach to development is different to that of the more traditional forms of addressing social and organisational issues. The traditional approach tends to focus on the individual aspects of such issues. Whereas a network approach tends to focus on how the various parts of the system interact with various other areas of social, organisational and environmental life.

 

Learning networks operate by expanding the enterprise’s vista, taking into account what is happening in other areas of society. Such an approach usually results in a more comprehensive understanding that is not possible when looking at a single issue, or indeed a number of single disconnected issues.

 

The learning networks must be fine-grained enough to permit higher-level learning to emerge, thus they will grow, evolve and continue to learn over time. As individuals we can only see a fraction of the world around us, a fraction of reality. The networks will allow us to extend our horizons, seeing possible solutions to problems and challenges in other areas of human endeavour beyond the present limits of our normal everyday lives.

 

The learning networks will also process a kind of emerging understanding, and an ability to store and retrieve much more information, thus better able to recognise and respond appropriately to various patterns of human behaviour. Via the learning networks each person, each community and each organisation, will have the opportunity to contribute to that emergent intelligence and understanding. Again, the learning networks would function as information storage and retrieval systems. Ideas and information flows readily within such networks leading to productive cross-pollination, ensuring that worthwhile ideas don’t simply fade away in isolation.

 

The aim of the learning networks is to act as a mechanism to environmental, economic and moral enrichment via the sharing of ideas that increase our understanding of how the world really is. By utilising the highly inclusive, democratic and motivational structure of learning through working together, networks are able to identify common needs, incubate innovation and develop practical solutions to both problems and challenges. They will help us to understand and deal with complex and ambiguous demands. They are, as has been said, inherently organic, not routine or standardised in any way. They operate as shared conceptual systems within which the participating groups and organisations perceive, understand and if necessary alter various aspects of their behaviour. Indeed, they act as a framework for normatively co-ordinated behaviour so as to produce results that will benefit participating communities and organisations.

 

For example in relation to education, thinking of the school as a community of learners and as part of a broader set of learning networks will enhance the knowledge and skills of the teaching and care staff, which in turn will influence in positive ways the quality of teaching and learning throughout the school itself. We could say that such learning networks are about schools working together in order to enhance learning at every level of the system. They make it easier to create and share knowledge about what works in the classroom and throughout the school generally. In this way, learning becomes the engine driving further learning.

 

By working in interdependent and mutually supportive ways the learning networks enable us to bridge barriers of culture, class, age, gender, ethnicity, power, status and hierarchy so as to allow people to work together as peers on tasks of mutual interests or concern. Unlike many official and semi-official bodies, learning networks do not offer a simple diagnosis of problems, or a set of prescriptions for fixing things. They do not act as frames of reference, or as a basis for ideologies. They do however act as a reservoir of knowledge that will help to find solutions to problems and challenges that those involved want to address.

 

Learning networks offer a sound foundation on which to build shared-learning, collaborative working, social inclusion and cohesion. They are the basis on which genuine democracy can be built. They draw on numerous elements rather than a single intelligent “executive branch”. They are also very much ground based systems, and not hierarchical systems.

 

Learning networks challenge the ‘un-connectedness’ prevalent throughout much of our social and organisational worlds. They will reinvigorate communities by encouraging dialogue and providing a forum for voices that too often go unheard. They will provide the basis for mutual understanding. They will help both communities and organisations get things that need doing, done: People are much more capable when they work together than when they work on their own. Just as with individuals, when communities and organisations are isolated and disconnected, they are in many ways powerless.

 

In the meantime, each learning network must be free of the influence of psychopathic personalities; ideologue or ‘true-believer’ obsessed with a particular issue, or agenda who has no qualms about imposing, to the exclusion of all others his, or her, world view into any discussion, or exchange of ideas. In order to sustain an effective learning network there must exist a bond within each network based on democratic and agreed rules of conduct. For learning networks to work they must deal with issues that have meaning for people; they must be about problems that people have to grapple with on a day-to-day basis, otherwise they could simply become talking shops and there are all too many of those already.

 

In a fragmented environment the introduction of learning networks would offer stability as well as sustainability, support and solidarity. Such networks, given both determination and support could become hubs of learning and innovation embracing educational bodies, business organisations and government agencies concerned, and remitted with enhancing prosperity and enriching the lives of people locally, nationally and internationally.

 

The creation and adoption of the learning networks involves building bridges between peoples.

 

That is, bridges between different bodies, organisations, communities and individuals across the social and organisational worlds. Worlds where the practice of science, art, education, philosophy, politics, business, health, social policy, entertainment, sport, environmental issues, agriculture etc., have their own politics, economics, and culture. The concept of interdisciplinary learning networks will allow people to leave their own, often restricting social or academic environment at least for a while, and with the right attitude they might begin to appreciate, understand and benefit from the knowledge and experience of others that might very well offer participants different and insightful ways of looking at their own lives and areas of interest and concern.

 

For any network to be successful it must be inclusive in the sense that you may find that not all the participants are ‘visible’. A given network may have two or three active contributors and several who simply listen but don’t contribute with their own ideas, their own understandings. This creates a fundamental imbalance that gives the ‘leader’ an opportunity to dominate the group. Of course, in such a situation you don’t have a learning network in any democratic sense. Instead, what you have is the tyranny of the crank, the autocrat, or the control freak. In other words, you have a system where the information-flow is simply one-directional where others are present yet at the same time invisible and unacknowledged.

 

It is therefore imperative that each learning network operates on a fair and democratic basis. No learning network will operate effectively with any single individual or elite group being in control. Instead, they operate best as a mix of negative, positive or neutral feedback, along with a high degree of structured randomness, interactions and decentralized control. In short: Learning networks operate as virtual democracies.

 

As the web of networks grows and become more complex and interconnected, understandings and patterns of collective behaviour can evolve creating a range of possible solutions that will benefit humankind and the Living Earth on an ongoing basis. In the scientific world the interlocking of causal explanation across disciplines, as with the operation of the learning networks, is today increasingly accepted not only by the neuro-sciences and evolutionary biology, but also indeed by disciplines across the scientific world best poised to serve in turn as bridges to the social sciences and humanities.