Selfish and selfless models of learning

It was wonderful to hear, first hand, Professor Mohammad Yunus[1] speak about his experiences in setting up the Grameen Bank, the challenges he currently faces and his reflections and philosophy at NESTA this week.

For anyone who has not heard it, his story of encountering loan sharks operating in villages, his experience of the reluctance of traditional organizations to step in and provide loans to poor people and stumbling into doing something about it himself is more than compelling.  Fresh from university he discovered loan shark practice. He investigated it in one village finding 42 people in debt to the loan sharks.  Debt from which it was seemingly impossible to escape.  This happened around 40 years ago, but it is still shocking to think that the sum total of the debt, owed by all 42, was $27.  For that sum people were kept in debt and additional misery.

Of course Professor Yunus gave the people the $27 to pay off the debt and went about providing micro-loans and while ‘traditional’ banks said impoverished people would never pay them back, the history of Grameen suggests otherwise.

There’s something funny going on here – articles and research on charitable gifts have suggested that by some measures, those with less are more generous in their giving than the better off.  Generosity and trust-worthiness in repayment are not the sole preserve of the well off.

I idly wondered if there any parallels in education.  Is there anyone who approaches education such that a learning debt is maintained and learners just have to keep coming back never quite reaching their potential or developing their knowledge and skills sufficiently?  Of course we might think about that in terms of the costs of some parts of education.   Or we might reflect upon it in terms of the way in which knowledge is “given out” at a pace that suits teaching rather than learning.

Liam Black, who interviewed Professor Yunus, told the story of visiting the Grameen Bank with a colleague who observed “This isn’t a bank, it’s a dignity engine”.  I wonder if schools can be viewed as knowledge repositories or dignity engines and which role is the more powerful and more compelling.  And those thoughts brought me to Notschool.net, run by the Inclusion Trust.

Not.school.net[2] was established to support learning among those who had been excluded from school.  The path to school exclusion, I suspect, is not something that is enjoyed by any of its actors, whether on the side of the learner, the parents and guardians or school teachers.   Many different reasons will be given for exclusion with a range of root causes.

At Notschool.net, roles are not of teacher and pupil, but of expert and researcher.  So relationships are not traditional.  Curriculum is not imposed but negotiated.  So if the researcher’s interests are in Chinese language and trombone, the experts are found to support the researcher’s learning.  A computer is given, together with broadband access to the internet as most of the learning happens on-line and through joining Notschool.net’s online community.

Jean Johnson, Notschool.net’s Chief Executive, reported that some 98% of Notschool researchers re-engage in learning and achieve a formally recognised award in the national qualifications framework.  Something like 50% of Notschool.net graduates plan to go on college. 

Spot the parts of the Notschool.net’s success story that seem “dignity engine-like” and reap similar rewards in the social benefits that are achieved. 

Perhaps there’s a lot more of what we tend to call “learner voice” or “student voice”, diminishing it in the process, that perhaps should be considered in “dignity engine” terms.  Some may consider that the credibility of formal schooling will continue to be challenged unless we pay greater attention to learner’s voices and accept its influence on curricula and ownership of education.

When Professor Yunus reflected on selfish and selfless models of capitalism and banking and the balance between them, I wondered whether there are some challenging parallels with teaching and learning.