Notes on Illeris (2007) Chapter 12: Learning in Different Learning Spaces

Illeris, K. (2007). How we learn: Learning and non-learning in school and beyond (M. Malone, Trans.). London and New York: Routledge.

Chapter 12: Learning in different learning spaces (pp 214-233)

Before you begin reading these notes on Chapter 12 , you may want to read my overview/review of the entire book.  Notes for Chapter 13 can be found here.

Key Points

1. Types of Learning Spaces
1. Everyday Learning
1. Illeris prefers this term over “informal learning” and “non-formal learning” because:
1. There is really no distinction between informal and non-formal learning forms
2. It makes clear “unintended, yet omnipresent” nature of this type of learning (p. 216)
3. It implies the importance of context.
   
2. Schools/Educational Contexts
1. “the fundamental function of school was, and basically still is, to discipline the growing generation to function in the context of wage work and also to accept and extend the existing society (e.g., Knudsen, 1980)” (p. 217)
2. Also serves “qualification and sorting functions” in terms of reproducing social inequity
3. Fact that students are required to go to school affects the quality of the learning that takes place
4. Gives rise to the problem of learning transfer because the school “is institutionalized as a differently situated world, isolated from the rest of life. … School learning is obsessed and structured in such a way that in most cases there must be a demanding re-structuring both emotionally and in terms of content, before it can be applied outside the institutional context” (p. 220).
3. Learning in Working Life
1. Changes taking place
1. Recognition that education/training/learning is not a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Must be ongoing.
2. Now learn “competences,” not just obtain discrete skills/knowledge or develop as a person
3. Benefits of moving learning to the workplace
1. Not inhibited by past (negative) opinions of schooling
2. Saves governments money
4. Problems with
1. Learning is secondary to primary money-making mission and often gets put on the backburner
2. Tends to get so focused on organization’s (short-term) needs that doesn’t wind up benefitting learner’s life by finding wider applications for learning
3. “learning measures can have a disturbing effect on the targeted work” (p. 227)
4. “learning in working life … has a tendency to especially favor those who already have the best education” (p. 227)
4. E-learning/Net-based Learning
1. Misconceptions about learning have driven much of the interest in technology
2. “With the emergence of the new demands for competence development it is, however, clear that such a learning approach will only be able to solve very limited tasks” (p. 227).
3. Benefits:
1. Time and place flexibility
2. Distance problems overcome
3. Increases the “visibility” of individual participants
4. Improves (written) communication skills
5. Encourages reflection
6. Can still build a socially cohesive group
4. Downside
1. Requires highly motivated learners
5. Interest-Driven Learning (aka “Leisure time interests and grassroots activity”)
1. The most motivated form of learning activity
2. Not (financially) publicly supported, yet essential to society
3. “From the point of view of learning it is characterized by a high degree of participant motivation and, thus, also the strength and efficiency in learning that increasingly seems to be a problem in the institutionalized education programs” (p. 230).
2. Learning from all of these learning spaces need to be interconnected AND/OR learners need to be able to recognize/form connections between the learning that goes on in these different compartments of their lives. Otherwise, life keeps getting more and more fragmented.

 Terms & Definitions 

• Everyday learning space: “daily contexts where we are seldom oriented towards learning but, nevertheless, learn quite a lot” (p. 215)
• Everyday learning: “learning which occurs informally and apparently by chance in everyday life as one moves around the spaces of one’s life without consciously intending to learn anything, but often busily absorbed in getting everything to function, and more or less understanding it” (p. 215)
• Hidden curriculum: “the daily school routines that are not laid down in the curriculum or anywhere else, but which nevertheless play a strong part in socialization through their constant daily repetition, year in, year out (p. 218)
• Competence: “The concept of competence refers ... to a person's being qualified in a broader sense. It is not merely that a person masters a professional area, but also that the person can apply this professional knowledge—and more than that, apply it in relation to the requirements inherent in a situation which perhaps in addition is uncertain and unpredictable. Thus competence also includes the person's assessments and attitudes, and ability to draw on a considerable part of his/her more personal qualifications. (Jørgensen 1999, p. 4)” (p. 135)
  Note: Competence is a larger concept than “qualifications” in that certain qualifications (i.e., abilities, knowledge) will be required in order to be deemed competent in a particular role. (See Illeris, 2007, pp. 134-137, for more information.) Also includes the ability to extrapolate from what is being learned and apply it in the workplace.

Great Quotes

• “The role of the pupil involves the pupil having to have motor and verbal control. This means that the pupil must be able to sit still for reasonably long periods, be quiet, and preferably speak only when encouraged to by the teacher ... the pupil must have the self-discipline to be able to work on projects alone for lengthy periods in spite of the close presence of classmates and various interruptions - ... must be able to adapt to changing forms of authority and changing pedagogical strategies within short periods of time. At the same time the pupil must be able to endure a high degree of conformity, ... must be able to give a good performance in competition with other pupils - ... be attentive, and this attention must be directed towards the teacher and the subject activities, which are to a great extent completely foreign to the pupil's own life context ... be ready to ignore his or her own needs and experiences from family and leisure time. (Bauer and Borg 1986 [1976], p. 29)” (p. 218-219)
• “Giving grades promotes discipline, not independence, it promotes competition at the cost of co-operation, it promotes a tendency to loneliness at the cost of a libidinal attitude to learning, and a superficial form of adaptive learning as opposed to a creative form of learning.” (p. 219, citing Kvale, 1980, p. 189)
• “with the learning concept I have developed here one cannot say that the organization can learn—and much of what is marketed under the term ‘the learning organization’ in my opinion has more dot do with management and, sometimes, smart formulations than with learning” (p. 225).