Languaging learners: constructions of identity through discourses of lifelong learning
Roger Harrison, Open University, UK
Paper presented at SCUTREA, 33rd annual conference, University of Wales, Bangor,
1-3 July, 2003
Introduction
The premise of this paper is that representations of learners are never neutral; rather they are active in ‘naturalising’ certain understandings of what it means to learn and be a learner, and in so doing define the boundaries of the educational field and what is possible within it. The paper is in three parts. First I will look at the role of language, and in particular metaphor, as a means of understanding and explaining the world around us and of characterising the nature of learners and learning. Second I will look at some of the representations of learners which emerge from recent policy and research on lifelong learning, identifying the ways in which certain features of the person – autonomy, choice, enterprise – are valorised, whilst others – collaboration, participation, negotiation – are not. Here the metaphor of learners as travellers and learning as a journey are particularly prevalent. Third I will examine some of the implications and effects of these constructions for the practices of education with adults. Of particular concern here is the way in which established ‘taken for granted’ understandings of learning open up certain spaces for thinking and talking whilst simultaneously closing down others. In this final section I want to point towards some of those understandings of learning and learners which are emerging from more social and biological perspectives, bringing with them a very different imagery to that of the independent traveller, and posing fundamental challenges to the ways in which we organise teaching and learning.
Metaphor and meaning
A significant literature has grown up around the use of language and metaphor as a means of understanding and explaining the world around us. A key distinction which runs through this literature is between understandings of language as a neutral and transparent medium through which reality can be precisely described – the position of logical positivism – and the view that how we come to understand the world is through a process of mental ‘construction’ (Orteny,1979). Here language is neither a neutral tool nor a transparent medium for the communication of knowledge. Rather it is an active, generative and constraining participant in the construction of understandings about reality. Cognition cannot be understood simply in terms of the giving and receiving of information, but rather as a complex interaction between the information, the context in which the transmission takes place and the knower’s pre-exiting knowledge. This allows for a more dynamic concept of language, one which acknowledges the role of context, culture and history in the giving and taking of meanings. Language consistently refuses to comply with the ‘essentialist’ requirement that words carry the same meaning for all people in all places at all times. Within this constructivist paradigm metaphors are significant, not as a source of literal descriptions of reality, but as a means of making sense of our concrete experience of the world and of explaining abstract concepts and theories. Rather than merely a rhetorical flourish, Lakoff and Johnson suggest metaphor as fundamental to our processes of meaning making:
…metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language, but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p3)
It is the generative nature of metaphors, the ways in which they engage us in the linguistic game playing through which meaning is made and through which it can be challenged, that is the subject of this paper.
Metaphors gain much of their power and persuasiveness though association with other metaphors, forming entire networks of understanding which might grow out of a single ‘root metaphor’. In relation to the idea of learning as a journey the ‘root metaphor’ might be characterised as ‘the purposeful life’ and traced back to the Judo-Christian tradition represented in John Bunyan’s ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’. Here the journey of life is assumed to be purposeful and individuals are expected to act autonomously in planning their pursuit of previously identified goals. As Bunyan’s pilgrim discovered, the route is sometimes complicated and confusing, with many alternative pathways and little effective signposting, requiring inputs of advice and guidance from those more familiar with the terrain and the rules of conduct. As the journey progresses the pilgrim accumulates knowledge and wisdom on the path to enlightenment.
Metaphors can carry with them not only a set of understandings about how things are, but also the suggestion of how things might change. In the context of social policy planning Donald Schon (1979) has examined the ‘stories people tell’ in characterising problems through metaphors which subtly and insidiously suggest certain ‘solutions’. Thus if slums are described in terms of a cancer they are recognised as something which is bad, and must be isolated and treated. In this sense metaphors are ‘generative’; they contain meanings and associations which constrain and sometimes control those actions and strategies which are seen as possible or desirable. Schon argues that in order to think differently about entrenched problems in the field of urban planning we must first restructure the frame within which we understand these problems. In relation to lifelong learning, the frames within which learning is conceptualised can come to dominate our thinking about the priorities and possibilities entailed by policy, research and the practices of teaching and learning in ways which exclude other perspectives. Michael Reddy (1979) takes this a stage further, claiming that the English language carries with it a ‘preferred framework for conceptualising communication’ which makes it hard for us to think of communication other than through the metaphor of a ‘conduit’. Whilst Reddy is discussing processes of language comprehension he is also drawing attention to the same issue as Schon, that the root metaphors we use constrain as well as enable our imaginings. Moreover, the fact that they are so embedded in our habitual ways of thinking and talking, even in the structures of the language we use, means that their presence remains largely invisible. The purpose of this paper is to unmask at least some of the effects of the language we use in our descriptions of learning.
A language of learners and journeys
The particular representation of learners and learning I want to focus on is that which draws on the metaphor of learning as a journey and learners as travellers. The literature of and about lifelong learning is imbued with the language of goals and outcomes, routes and pathways, maps and mazes, barriers and bridges, stages and progression. For the purposes of this paper I want to draw on recent initiatives by the Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA). Their annual conference at the end of last year was titled 'Learners' Journeys'. This metaphor not only provided the title for the conference but also for an LSDA funded research project and the theme of the autumn 2002 edition of the Agency’s journal. The Agency clearly thought there was mileage in the idea. The language and imagery used in the literature which came with the conference pack revealed the kind of associations, or networks of meaning, envisaged by the organisers. Here assertions are made about the centrality of ‘personal choices’ and ‘individual aspiration’ in the workings of the education and training system, and the challenge facing educators is framed by the self evidentrequirement to ‘create coherent and rewarding pathways that satisfy all types of potential learners’.
Part of the ‘work’ which the metaphor of the journey does here is to provide a discursive context in which related ideas, such as 'ladders of learning', ‘routes for success' or 'pathways to opportunity' are easily assimilated, and in which policy developments such as credit accumulation and transfer, targets and learning outcomes are readily understood. Each refers to the progressive and cumulative nature of the journey, in which arrival at certain pre-determined staging posts is recognised through qualifications or portfolio entries. It is a view of learning which fits well with current policy imperatives, in particular the requirement to identify, measure and assess all forms of learning at the level of individual achievement. It forms part of the economic rationale for investing public money in lifelong learning, based on the logic that it will eventually yield results in terms of economic productivity and global competitive advantage. To sustain this claim requires hard evidence of individual learning outcomes which has in turn led to the development of a complex machinery of specification and measurement, locking practitioners into technical and rational frameworks and procedures. As Eraut et al (2000) express it, the dominant paradigm in education and training
treats learning as a self-conscious, deliberate, goal driven process which is planned and organised by ‘providers’ to yield outcomes that are easily described and measured(p. 232).
Whilst arguably effective in relation to at least some aspects of formal learning, it is a paradigm which fails to capture the richness and complexity of learning, as Eraut and colleagues describe in their detailed study of learning in the workplace.
The image of the learner on a journey also carries over into research, with implications for the ways in which we frame our research questions and the methodologies we employ in attempting to answer them. The LSDA research report referred to earlier (LSDA, 2002) describes an imaginative approach to research in which informants are encouraged to use the learning journey metaphor to help them describe their own learning experiences. For example, a respondent who was frustrated by his slow progress was able to say:
Well, I’m just on the motorway. There’s a lot of cars holding me up and I want to get to London quick. (LSDA, 2002: p.29)
The stories elicited through this methodology clearly have value and provide real insights into the lived experience of these learners. However, the claim that learners are being enabled to ‘tell their own stories’ fails to acknowledge the power of the metaphor in allowing the emergence of some accounts whilst silencing others. The stories being told here are already, to some degree, ‘spoken for’ in the way the researchers elicit their accounts. If we understand metaphor, not as a neutral descriptor of how things are, but as an active player in the construction of meaning, then interviewees are both enabled and constrained in the sorts of stories they can tell. In this case the effects of language were so well concealed that the researchers felt able claim that the journey metaphor provided them and their interviewees with objectivity and distance ‘from their ingrained knowledge and assumptions about learning and assessment’(LSDA 2002, p.15). In other words it provided a neutral and common-sense understanding, free from the baggage of theory and ideology. The naivety of their claims can be read as a caution to all researchers to beware the power of language to shape particular understandings as ‘natural’, whilst the linguistic practices through which this has been achieved are allowed to slip unnoticed from the scene.
Implicit messages
The ‘learner’s journeys’ metaphor not only shapes our thinking about learners’ experiences, it also shapes our understandings about knowledge and the processes of knowledge acquisition. The contemporary language of goals and outcomes suggests learning as an individual possession, something which can be acquired. Anna Sfard has characterised this idea through the ‘acquisition’ metaphor of learning.
This approach… brings to mind the activity of accumulating material goods. The language of ‘knowledge acquisition’ and ‘concept development’ makes us think about the human mind as a container to be filled with certain materials and about the learner as becoming the owner of these materials.(Sfard, 1998, p.5)
Knowledge is understood as a stable commodity; something which can be moved about between the mind of a teacher and that of a learner, or between one practice setting and another, without changing its nature or meaning. Here we can see a correspondence between an acquisition model of learning and Reddy’s notion of communication as a ‘conduit’. In both cases what is implied is a positivist view of knowledge and a transmission model of learning, in which the learner’s role is to annex the knowledge of others and the role of the teacher is to assemble it into manageable chunks which can be more easily digested. The image of knowledge as an entity which exists outside ourselves, floating free of context, is deeply embedded in our habitual ways of thinking.
In addition, the metaphor of the learner as traveller suggests a certain category of person: an autonomous and enterprising individual, rationally choosing the mode, pace, direction and destination of their learning journey. These freewheeling individuals are seen as having seized the controls and taken on the self-steering capacities of the independent and autonomous individual. The theory of learning which fits most comfortably with this image is reflection (Kolb, 1984). It is through reflection, these authors claim, that learners are able to make informed decisions and choices, taking into account not only the complexities of the context or the problem, but also their own tacit knowledge, assumptions and values. One effect has been a proliferation of curriculum innovation designed to foster processes of reflection, planning and decision making, resulting in a rash of profiles, portfolios, records of achievement and learning logs in all sectors of post compulsory education. The image of the learner as self-managing individual is a particularly westernised view of the self whose origins lie in philosophical traditions of humanism and the science of psychology (Rose, 1996; Harrison, 2000). Whilst more recent developments within the discipline of psychology have moved away from a cognitive and individualised representation of the self, the idea that learning is that which occurs in the mind of the individual learner maintains a firm grip on the imaginations of learners, educational practitioners and policy makers.
In contrast, sociological, philosophical and cultural critiques draw our attention away from the individual learning journey to the ways in which the terrain itself, and the routes through that terrain, are already circumscribed and constrained, offering limited space for autonomy and choice. Institutional structures, funding regimes and qualification systems all work to ensure that some learning journeys are less stressful than others. Pedagogic, pastoral and financial support is available only to learners aiming for those outcomes which contribute towards national and local targets for learning, usually expressed in terms of qualifications or employment outcomes. Cutting across country can be difficult and laborious work, whilst staying on well-trodden pathways is usually easier on the pocket as well as the footwear. The idea of the learner making independent and rational choices about routes and destinations is further undermined by forces of globalisation which constantly disrupt the most carefully planned itineraries. Here individual choice becomes a risky rather than a rational business (Beck, 1994). Being lost at sea without a compass may be a more appropriate metaphor for the contemporary learner than the purposeful and goal oriented traveller.
Different stories
The argument of this paper has been that the metaphor of the journey is both powerful in its effects and extensive in its reach, but as a representation of learning it is partial and flawed. In this final section I want to indicate briefly some alternative understandings which present other possibilities for how we understand processes of teaching, learning and assessment. We might, for example, follow Lave and Wenger (1991) in viewing learning as a product of participation in social practices, rather than an individual achievement; Vanderstraeten and Biesta, (2001) in seeing learning as occurring in the ‘in between space’ between teacher and learner (p.7), rather than in the mind of any one individual; or Fenwick (2001) in describing learning as ‘co-emergence, at the intersection of invention, identity and environment’(p.243) rather than as a steady progression towards pre-planned gaols. If we were to adopt these descriptions of learning, then priorities for policy, research and practice might look very different. Within each of these descriptions the heroic individual learner is relegated from the centre of the stage to a subsidiary role as participant in a collective process of negotiating meaning within a particular context and community of practice. By suggesting that learning can only be understood as a social process, traditional preoccupations with what goes on in the mind of the individual are displaced. Here it is not the learner but the whole social and cultural context in which learning takes place which occupies the centre of the theoretical frame. The idea of knowledge as a stable commodity that belongs to an individual and can be transmitted, assessed and accredited is undermined by this narrative of learning, with significant implications for supporting and accrediting learners.