Give Someone a Fish....Teaching & Learning

During the process of developing a series of master classes in systemic designing (www.haroldgnelson.com/masterclasses) I became aware of a critical issue. Many of the terms I was using, such as ‘learning’ and ‘teaching’, had been hollowed out by the predominance of AI-related terms in public discourse like ‘machine learning’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI). In addition, the dominating hype or shallow understandings of the ideas behind the terms I was using further hampered any meaningful communication with others. Even the term ‘masterclass’ had lost common meaning — much like the term ‘equal’ has lost shared meaning among mathematicians.

Common terms like ‘innovation’, ‘change’, ‘creativity’, ‘agent’, or ‘paradigm shift’ are among a growing list of words that have become mere tags or indicators rather than carriers of useful information in shared discourse. In my master classes, for example, key terms like ‘learning’, ‘teaching’, and ‘knowledge’ are central concepts that are often misconstrued, misapprehended, or misinterpreted in shared public discourse.

To review my understanding of these key terms I created a brief master class—for my own benefit as well as others—to assist in better communicating my intentions. Attached is my brief overview of ‘learning’, ‘teaching’, and ‘knowledge’. I begin by responding to the challenge of an old familiar aphorism concerning teaching people to fish for themselves rather than giving them fish—a metaphor for ‘teaching and learning’.

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