apcampbell

A greater self-awareness is not only important for personal growth, but also necessary for happiness and world peace.   Much of the suffering we inflict upon ourselves and others stems from own ignorance.  Many of us unknowingly feed destructive mental habits and hold views that run counter to what what we’d like to accomplish, potentially causing restlessness, unsatisfaction, and frustration.  Personally, I have never been able to separate my education from my quest for greater freedom and happiness.  My learning has always been an integral part of that adventurous path.  You might call it spiritual.  Without that element of wonder, education becomes mere training.  I guess that’s why I cringe when I hear terms like ‘content delivery’, ‘control groups’, and ‘variables’ in educational literature.

In his book, Implementing Computer Supported Cooperative Learning, David McConnell writes about what happens when we make our learning public through cooperative learning:

It can be thought of along several dimensions: our learning is public when it is known to others and to ourselves; it is blind when it is known to others but not to ourselves; it is hidden when it is known to ourselves but not to others; and it is unconscious when it is not known to ourselves or to others.

Working cooperatively with others helps to raise the public awareness of our learning so that those aspects of learning which are blind, hidden and unconscious become clear, open and conscious.  We become aware of our learning by working with others and by focusing on the processes of working cooperatively.  We reduce the hidden and blind areas and open the public areas through the group’s cooperative work.  (McConnell D 2000, p.12)

Through interactive webpublishing and the technologies that enable it, the potential for such cooperation exists.  Indeed, we cooperate when we share our learning, subscribe to each others’ RSS feeds, and comment on and link to each others’ postings.  When our minds interact this way - co-constructing knowledge - the conversational, reflective responses of different people serve to highlight those blind areas.  Furthermore, personal reflection on the archives of postings and the ensuing discussions can reveal new patterns of cognition and behaviour, bringing into the light of awareness knowledge of self that was previously unconscious.  As more becomes known, it is easier to share what is hidden for the well being of the self and community.  The ’blogoshere’ is not the place for  ’content delivery’, but rather a space to interrelate, to interact, to empathize, to feel, to discover, to learn, to co-create!  And in the process, we diminish the blind, unconscious, and hidden aspects of our being, pouring them into the public pool of knowledge for the benefit of all.

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