Social Learning?

Let me begin by explaining that I am by no means stupid. In fact, I'd like to think I'm pretty intelligent and can make useful assumptions about human beings (especially after having graduated with a degree in Psychology) as a result. However, when reading Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity by Ettiene Wenger, I quickly realized that I had missed out on making a key assumption about the way we learn.

Wenger shares with the reader that she has four assumptions of learning (Wenger, p. 4)

1. We are social beings. Being socially engaged is therefore a central aspect of learning.
2. Knowledge involves both competency as well as "valued enterprise".
3. To know means to participate in the pursuit of what is valued/worldly experience.
4. Learning produces meaning of that experience.

I always thought that learning entailed simply coming into contact with new knowledge, and then understanding it/being able to recall it later. Perhaps I simplified it a little too much. Ok I did.

What Wenger spoke about with regards to us learning as social beings rings very true to me. I can now think back to going to school my entire life. I learned in a class full of students, and yet we rarely were allowed to talk to each other and group work- especially in the younger days- was very frowned upon. Sure, we had the odd group presentation that we had to do, but let's be honest- there was always one person pulling more of the weight than anyone else. That person was usually me. I didn't do poorly in school as a result of the lack of social learning within the classroom, but I certainly had to overcome difficulties. Having the teacher guide me during seemingly-complex equations in math class was very helpful, but as soon as I didn't have her guiding hand, I felt lost and incompetent. 

I can think of other times where learning wasn't at all an issue, such as when I went on a student exchange to France when I was 16. There I had to learn about all the french sayings and expressions, new table manners, proper greetings, and numerous other cultural practices that were very different than those I had grown up doing. In retrospect, I picked up this new information and put it to use fairly easily as a result of being immersed in the French world. I wasn't reading about these things, I wasn't regurgitating information that I had studied for hours trying to remember; I was involved and this produced a lot of meaning for me.

Humans aren't the only species that learn best socially. Many other animals are too, such as chimps and parrots. In this video, two chimps were separately taught processes necessary to get food from a human-made contraption. When reintroduced with their chimpanzee companions, the other chimps learned- through modeling- the same processes that had been intentionally taught to the others previously. 

I also remember learning about researchers who were trying to teach the different shapes and colours to an African Grey Parrot (known to be the smartest of the parrots). In the beginning, they used a basic food-reward system to try and teach the parrot, but quickly realized that the process was becoming long and unsuccessful. They then decided to use a different method, which involved having the researchers teach each other the shapes and colours while being rewarded with food that the parrot would want in the presence of the subject animal. In no time the parrot picked up the knowledge and learned how to distinguish these different shapes and colours without having been intentionally taught, suggesting that its learning was social in nature and very successful. 

Clearly, humans have evolved to be able to have much more complex teaching methods. Knowing that there are so many different ways to pass knowledge down to new learners, it is important to incorporate those new methods to make the learning process as effective (while being violence-free!) as possible.