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thoughts provoked by Sterling 2007

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Edited by Arwen Bailey, Wednesday, 21 Mar 2012, 05:44

Bateson distinguished three orders of learning and change (no reference given. Grrr. could it be Ecology of Mind) p71

Anyway "a key point is that learning can either serve to keep a system stable, or enable it to change to a new state in relation to its environment" Weakland and Fisch (1980) say "there are two different types of change: one that occurs within a given system which itself remains unchanged, and one whose occurrence changes the system itself" (See Grove, Kibel and Haas)

"change within changelessness" (Clark 1989) "maintenance learning" (Sterling) p71

p74 "need to reconcile people's sphere of concern with their perceived limited sphere of influence through facilitating their ability to engage in change"

A framework for a learning reponse in these circumstances is suggested from Ballard (2005)
  • Awareness of what is happening and what is required
  • agency or ability to find a response that is meaningful
  • association with other groups and networks
  • action and reflection

in critical learning systems (Bawden)

"in essence, sustainability is about conservation of potential and increasing self-organization, resilience and adaptive capacity at all nesting levels within social-ecological systems, and learning - reflexive, experiential, experimental, participative, iterative, real-world and action-oriented - is intrinsic to this process and challenge" p78

This is talking about ecocultural sustainability, but it really rings true to me for the sustainability of the AWARD effect too.

p79 Sterling is talkiing about "an ecological worldview" but for me this is Systems in a nutshell: "[it] yields many different views of the same thing, and the same view of many different things".  I love that!


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third-order learning

in chapter 8 of Social Learning, David Selby refers to Sterling (2001)

"while first-order learning is adaptive, leaving basic values and assumptions unchallenged and unchanged, and second order learning takes to the level of active reflection on thinking and learning processes, third order learning is profoundly concerned with embracing epistemic and paradigmatic challenges to the way we see the world, with the conscious goal of transformation"