What is Education?- A thread on learning and teaching, the creative process, practice

[MikeF]

As we continue to rediscover small wars, as we peel apart the lessons learned from the past history of warfare, as we are nine years removed from 9/11 and still engaged in two protracted insurgencies with many smaller proxy wars below the surface, we are forced to confront gaps in our educational and training institutions. What should be taught? When should it be taught? To whom should we teach? How do we learn? How do we capture lessons learned and compare and contrast them with past experiences? How do we overcome our own conceptual blocks to find better, creative solutions to intractable problems? These questions are mere secondary questions to the larger question,

What is Education?

General Martin Dempsey is working through this problem at the TRADOC level attempting to transform the Army's learning environment. Before him, General David Patraeus provided us with a temporary solution- FM 3-24. Adam Elkus and Captain Crispen Burke wrestle with problem definition as they work to frame and define the scope of Wicked Problems. Major Rob Thorton sorts through these issues.as he attempts to write the doctrine for Security Force Assistance. The boys at CNAS are striving to adjust our Intelligence apparatus. Schmedlap is on a one man crusade to abolish the archaic "task, conditions, and standards," and countless others on this board work to affect change on the tactical level.

Most of us are products of an educational system developed in the early 1900's as a National Security concern to prepare young men for the Industrial Age and military service in a large, conscripted army. This process and structure is severely out of date and needs serious reform. Some politicians have recogonized this need, and we've had some failed measures of reform to include "No child left behind."

So, this thread is dedicated to discussing how we learn. What are the benefits of our current means and ways, and where should we go? What has worked best for you? Who is on the cutting edge of this process, and how can we learn from them? In some ways, this issue is one of National Security.

Looking forward to the discussion.

v/r

Mike

[MikeF]

I'll start this out with something simple that us meatheads can understand.

Kettlebells, Combatives, Yoga, and Surfing

Ten years ago, if you had asked me about physical fitness, I would have swelled my chest, open my closet full of ripped fuel and creatine, and laughed at you while throwing more and more weight on the bar for my squats and benchpress. Some of my more intense friends (that later went on to the ranger regiment and SF (haha, you know who you are)) would try to convince you to wear muscle shirts and shave your legs..

Ten years ago, that worked, and I kicked butt. Now, after spending years patrolling with body armor, cramped inside the back of a tank, HMMWV, or Chinook, or just living in undesirable conditions, my body hurts. I can't just make it feel better by lifting more weights.

Ergo, we had to try some new ideas. Yoga and Kettlebells work the joints and tendons not just the muscles. Surfing is good for the soul, and combatives and boxing helped my younger soldiers learn to face violence outside of playing some video game on a Sony Playstation.

We learned to adapt like discovering rugby after years of playing football. This analogy holds to the realm of learning as well.

v/r

Mike

[slapout9]

We learned to adapt like discovering rugby after years of playing football. This analogy holds to the realm of learning as well.

v/r

Mike

See what you can find out about Combat Football which was started in the 82nd around late 1974 if I remember

[MikeF]

See what you can find out about Combat Football which was started in the 82nd around late 1974 if I remember

Slap,

Don't even get me started. Now, due to the political correctness of some command sergeant majors in the name of good order and discipline, a unit is not allowed to raise a guidon and talk smack while your boys pass another unit on Ardennes Street. It might hurt someone's feelings. God forbid we do something physical outside of ultimate frisbee or flag football.

We did most of our company PT back in the woods in Area J- combat focused on obstacle courses, long runs, ruck runs, getting muddy, and jumping over fences and structures.

[marct]

I'll start this out with something simple that us meatheads can understand.

Translations, amn, it's all in the translations !

Ergo, we had to try some new ideas. Yoga and Kettlebells work the joints and tendons not just the muscles. Surfing is good for the soul, and combatives and boxing helped my younger soldiers learn to face violence outside of playing some video game on a Sony Playstation.

Yoga and surfing are also great ways to get to know yourself. Of course, surfing is out for me (Ontario just is atrocious for it!), but I use some yoga techniques, as well as adaptations of samurai training exercise.

We learned to adapt like discovering rugby after years of playing football. This analogy holds to the realm of learning as well.

LOL - glad your learning about a real sport ! I played rugby for three years (and got all my major injuries in the final year). Wonderful game that teaches people how to be both violent and civilized at the same time. My last game, after about 10 minutes I had one of my fingers turned into a good example of bone chips, and the guy who did it helped me off the field and drove me to the hospital while play continued (bought me beers all evening, too ).

[MikeF]

LOL - glad your learning about a real sport ! I played rugby for three years (and got all my major injuries in the final year). Wonderful game that teaches people how to be both violent and civilized at the same time.

Naw, I started playing rugby back in 1997 when I decided not to wrestle or play football in college. Like my spring break trips to Guatemala, it just took me a while to fully understand the lessons that I learned.

Oh BTW, in my three years of rugby, we were 3-0 against the Royal Military College (RMC) although we could never beat Sandhurst, USNA, or Berkeley. However, in my time in Canada, I learned the distinction between American Molson and your Molson XXX .

[marct]

Mike,

Bravo for tackling a question most of us have been sidestepping - at least here .

I want to start by making a couple of observations. While a lot of my educational experiences derive from that Industrial Age model you mention (pioneered by Dewey, BTW), three of them weren't; and they have heavily influenced by thinking.

First, I grew up in a family where dinner conversation was quite wide ranging and, often, very "debate" oriented. My best friend once defined our dinner conversations as "feeding time at the shark pool". This meant that there was an incredible pressure to always be able to either back up what I was saying or to learn 9really quickly!) how to qualify it.

Second, and it's another family thing, both my parents (and a number of other relatives) were quite active in political causes of various and sundry types, so I grew up in an atmosphere where organizing on the ground politics was "normal", and a lot of discussions were surrounding the best way to analyze and communicate politically charged situations / messages.

Both of these were not what is normally called "education" but, as almost all studies will show, family "culture" is at least as important for outcomes as is the formal education system.

The final difference was that i went to a private school for three years in Toronto; part of what is called the Headmaster's League (Royal St. George's College). Years after I left, I was back on the campus getting a tour from the then Head Master, and I asked if the school was still the same. He looked at me and, with a collegial smile, said "Oh yes, we are still teaching the boys to rule". That experience still haunts me, because that was exactly what they were doing; none of the workers and conscripts, this was officers and CEOs. Scary stuff in many ways, but I certainly internalized a lot of what they taught, even if not in the manner they expected .

When I compare these three educational experiences with my formal, Industrial Age ones (high school, most of university), I find that what I learned in the latter is, maybe, 25% of what I learned from the former.

So, why the freakin' biographical stuff? Put simply, without knowing that background, most of what I say about education doesn't make much sense without it .

So, on to education and PME in particular.

First, as an ethical positioning, each and every officer and NCO who serves has chosen to serve (now at least) and, by that service, execute one of the core requirements of a society; the assurance of collective security. That, to my mind, implies a reciprocal contract on the part of society, which is to require that these people, in turn, have access to the best possible education (NOT training) for them to be citizens both after and during service.

Second, by education in this instance, I am referring to any formalized activities that encourage the learning by individuals of a) how to think in a critical manner, b) how to know the value limits of their thinking, c) learn as much about themselves as possible (which is a value limit we don't often recognize), and d) engage in "civilized discourse" and social action (i.e. don't go on a shooting spree when told you can't become a CEO right out of getting your MBA at 25....).

Third, and in this I am very Socratic, always "ask the man who knows". But, in the asking, make sure that you know enough to ask the right questions which, in my usual tangential manner, brings me back to Mike's point about "what to teach" and "when".

The first thing that always needs to be taught is the language of the discussion or, to be more accurate, enough of the grammar and vocabulary that you can order a beer and find a washroom (metaphorically.....). the other "first thing" that needs to be taught is the relevant "stories". Did you guys know that for most of it's existence, the Roman Empire's PME was based on stories? I'm not joking about this (if you're masochistic, read this paper) and it happened for several excellent reasons.

First, reading is a pain (thus speaks the guy who reads 1-2 books / articles a day ). In terms of internalizing a piece of knowledge, hearing it in a story with emotions attached is much more memorable (anywhere between 50% and 800% [yes, that's not a typo - eight hundred] according to Bateson). This, BTW, is one of the reasons why "fairy tales", at least in their original forms, tended to be so gruesome - they were designed to tie an emotion into an action sequence.

Second (sort of), learning the "language" is an iterative process. You can get it from either formal instruction or stories or immersion, just to name the major sources. Regardless of where you get it, you need it in order to make sense of what is being discussed, so it is a crucial component of an education. Think about it for a sec; if I started talking about "Like, you know, those dudes who, like, walk around with guns" instead of "infantry", how would you react to me? When I talk about "translating", this is a lot of what I am talking about.

Outside of the language and stories that underlie the discussion in the area of knowledge, "what" and "when" are, pretty much, irrelevant since any formalization of them will, automatically, be out of date by the time they are formalized and communicated. Think about "They are always fighting the last war" as an example. The what and when, in this instance, are an example of a poorly developed area of knowledge in the sense of there are wrong answers, but no right ones except, possibly, general principles.

Now, having said that, I am going to completely contradict myself with one absolutely glaring exception: what and when will be set by the organization and will act as gatekeepers for survival and promotion within the organization. This has absolutely nothing to do with the stated purpose of the organization but, rather, is solely dependent on internally constructed environment of that organization. Think about "The Japanese are our opponent, the Navy is our enemy" for an example. All too often, people who excel at fulfilling the function of an organization run afoul of the internally constructed environment of that organization (cf Mary Douglas, How Institutions Think).

This problem is a paradox that is apparent in pretty much every culture I've looked at, so I'm assuming it is a human constant. Or, in other words, and education needs to reinforce the meme of "do what you have to in order to do what needs to be done". And this paradox is crucial to what GEN Dempsey is now dealing with in, for example, the work on leader development.

[BayonetBrant]

Something I just wanted to throw out as a point of conversation. There does need to be some clarity in terminology at some point. "Education" is probably expected to be some form of holistic type of intellectual improvement.

I would like to propose one delineation within the terminology, and that is the difference between "training" and "learning".

"Learning" would be new skill acquisition: I don't know how to knit, and therefore would need to learn how to knit. It's a new skill. Similarly, although I know a bit about statistics, there are still many things to learn, and although I know something about structural equation models, there's still more I could learn.

"Training" would be skill rehearsal: I'm am practicing something I already know. I've fired a lot of M16s/M4s. Going to the range isn't learning for me, it's training.

Now it's possible to train one thing while learning another - training squad patrolling while learning about cultural sensitivity or IED reaction drills.

I just wanted to throw out an idea to try and keep the vocabulary cleaned up a bit, rather than argue over how people are using certain synonyms for similar, but distinct, concepts.

Thoughts?

[MikeF]

Something I just wanted to throw out as a point of conversation. There does need to be some clarity in terminology at some point. "Education" is probably expected to be some form of holistic type of intellectual improvement.

I would like to propose one delineation within the terminology, and that is the difference between "training" and "learning".

"Learning" would be new skill acquisition: I don't know how to knit, and therefore would need to learn how to knit. It's a new skill. Similarly, although I know a bit about statistics, there are still many things to learn, and although I know something about structural equation models, there's still more I could learn.

"Training" would be skill rehearsal: I'm am practicing something I already know. I've fired a lot of M16s/M4s. Going to the range isn't learning for me, it's training.

Now it's possible to train one thing while learning another - training squad patrolling while learning about cultural sensitivity or IED reaction drills.

I just wanted to throw out an idea to try and keep the vocabulary cleaned up a bit, rather than argue over how people are using certain synonyms for similar, but distinct, concepts.

Thoughts?

Good thoughts brandt. This distinction is very important. It also drives to a question of "what is teaching?"...I'll sit back for a bit and see what others have to say.

Mike

[marct]

Hi BB,

Something I just wanted to throw out as a point of conversation. There does need to be some clarity in terminology at some point. "Education" is probably expected to be some form of holistic type of intellectual improvement.

Totally agree on getting a common language . "Intellectual" improvement? Hmm, personally, I wouldn't limit it to to intellectual.

I would like to propose one delineation within the terminology, and that is the difference between "training" and "learning".

"Learning" would be new skill acquisition: I don't know how to knit, and therefore would need to learn how to knit. It's a new skill. Similarly, although I know a bit about statistics, there are still many things to learn, and although I know something about structural equation models, there's still more I could learn.

"Training" would be skill rehearsal: I'm am practicing something I already know. I've fired a lot of M16s/M4s. Going to the range isn't learning for me, it's training.

Hmm, much as I appreciate the way you've laid it out, I still would have to disagree with you.

First off, "training" and "learning" (despite PPT influence neologisms) are actually from different stances. "Learning" if from the stance of the receiver / interpreter, while "training" is from the "instructor's" stance. Having tried to learn how to knit, I know that what I need to do is rehearse; I just put knitting pretty far down the line of what I "need" to know.

Basically, what I'm saying is that "training" and "education" are both from the instructor stance, while "learning" is from the receiver stance. I can "learn" from either type of situation but, just because I am learning, doesn't mean that I am being either "educated" or "trained".

Now it's possible to train one thing while learning another - training squad patrolling while learning about cultural sensitivity or IED reaction drills.

Totally agree. It's possible to train in any subject while the student learns how to sleep with their eyes open as well .

Dropping the sillyness (yes, Wilf, it's one of THOSE days for me), we, as in any group of people, can decide what someone should be trained in. These are often called "learning objectives", which is all fine and dandy. However, baring certain fairly specific types of skills (e.g. repetitive tasks operating in a high predictive validity area of knowledge), we really can't exercise that much control over what our students actually learn.

I just wanted to throw out an idea to try and keep the vocabulary cleaned up a bit, rather than argue over how people are using certain synonyms for similar, but distinct, concepts.

Thoughts?

Totally appreciate it . While we play with terms, we are actually clarifying a common, group understanding of what we, as a group, mean by them at the conceptual level. One other point I just want to toss out is that I really doubt how distinct, at least in the either/or sense that is often associated with that word, many of these concepts are.

For example, I have taught (another word we might want to add into the mix), students to perform mechanical analytic sequences which they have been able to do perfectly in a variety of settings without being able to interpret what the implications of their results are. Now, I would call what they received (learned if you will) "training" even though my intention was "education" (in this instance, being able to extrapolate from the mechanical manipulations performed).

Cheers,

Marc

[John T. Fishel]

Learning is from the student's/receiver's perspective while training and education are from the instructor's perspective - agree. However, in my mind, training addresses skills while education addresses concepts. I can train a student to speak Spanish, English, or statistics. But I cannot train a student to comprehend a foreign culture - I can only educate him about that culture. By now, however, you are probably saying B___ S___! Higher level Spanish involves reading Quixote; English, Shakespeare, and stats analyzing multple regressions of political attitudes or something. So, of course, all education includes training components but it jumps to higher levels. An absolutely rotten tool (that nevertheless has its uses) is Blooms Taxonomy where the lower levels tend to refer to training while the higher orders tend to refer to education.

Cheers

JohnT

[Steve the Planner]

Mike:

Like you, I have been immersed elsewhere for a few weeks.

We start with the basic MIB problem: A person is smart; people are stupid.

So the first issue is whether we are discussing trying to educate an organization, or a person, or, more likely in the TRADOC application, persons who can contribute to the organizational knowledge & wisdom.

Reading the TRADOC pub gives a good picture of some conceptual frameworks far afield from my days as a TC---takes this tank, blow stuff up or hold this ground.

Problem is that if we use what we see today as a template for tomorrow, what we seem to be profoundly lacking in as a basic framework and understanding of societies, and societal systems, and the effective roles that military organizations can play in shaping and influencing them.

Tomorrow, in DC, is a conference on Post Conflict stuff (CSIS). Mark Weber from UNAMA is going to be there with others. UNAMA is drawing a very big distinction between the role of government and population servicing and reinforcement, and the role of the military. It does so at a time when the military is being forced (as a last resort tool) to try to effect and resolve substantial civilian deficiencies as part of its ever-broadening Mission.

If education is a structured process for conveying knowledge, wisdom, skills or capabilities, and the purpose is to fill some open gaps needed for the future, where do we find and how do we define those gaps in order to create a structured process to fill them?

With a baseline understanding that there is a big gap in US foreign engagements between what political leadership wants to accomplish, and what can be accomplished, the military is increasingly the service of choice, but is it the right service, and are these the right choices?

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least five courses I would love to give to the right folks just to explain the civilian frameworks and systems that underpin their supposed, and sometimes ill-defined mission objectives, but I couldn't begin to guess who, how, where (or why).

There is a general assumption that the volunteer military (and especially the reserves and guard units) come with a built-in civilian know-how, and to a great extent, that is true. But what I continually experienced is that many of those civilian cross-over experiences were like me as a Tank Commander trying to cross-over my ground-level tactical skills to a strategic theatre level (a bad fit)---lots of little decisions and actions that, in sum, amount to nothing productive.

What I believe (for my humble little slice of this pie) is that the right folks in the right places would do well to have, is the right higher order understanding of what and how to synthesize the many small decisions around strategic framework that has a greater opportunity for 1+1 equalling something at or greater than two.

But, in a military that has enough trouble finding time for on-going career and professional training (due to deployments), where and how does that pie-in-the-sky happen?

My version of educating to the gaps is, perhaps, a lot more self-learning, go and see, absorb and know, rather than teach/learn.

But, before I fall back into two more weeks of re-immersion into the primordial ooze, that's my two cents.

Steve

[selil]

There is training and there is education. To understand the difference do you want your teenage daughter to receive sex training or sex education? This is how my first educational philosophy course as a doctoral student began.

I hate to link farm but I've written a lot about this topic.

Some highlights

The Socratic compass: Giving students directions not answers
Guiding students to the questions that they can answer.

How do we get there from here? (by my better half who is also a professor)
How does education define our society?

Education paradigm: How you get there may not be where you are going
This article in many ways describes the issues as talked about above.

The dark ages: Modern anti-intellectualism and failure of the thinking man
More on society and the anti-intellectualism that is fairly rampant.

What does the military want from the education system?
This one should be of substantial interest.

When the TRADOC RFI was posted here I didn't have much nice to say about it and after writing five pages trashing it. Well I decided if I didn't have anything nice to say I shouldn't say anything. So I self censored. All of the elements being discussed in this thread (with the mild prod by marct) are fairly well known in the education field. I guess I think it is funny that a bunch of soldiers who complain about the malfeasance and arrogance of civilians mucking about in military affairs have no issues tromping about redefining higher education.

As marct alluded to a lot of what we know now as higher education was began by John Dewey (1907ish). His books are available free online and are guiding principles on how we teach and educate. Bloom a 1950s era educator is how most of our outcome based education programs began. There is also Gagne and a few others. If we really want to start talking about philosophical differences we will have open up the constructivist versus behaviorist approach to education. Basically constructivists believe that you can educate from principles to knowledge (grossly simplified), and behaviorist believe that factual iteration (memorization) is the way to knowledge.

I imagine the discussion will be lively.

[BayonetBrant]

"Intellectual" improvement? Hmm, personally, I wouldn't limit it to to intellectual.

That's why I wasn't trying to define "education"

Hmm, much as I appreciate the way you've laid it out, I still would have to disagree with you.

That's what discussions are for!

First off, "training" and "learning" (despite PPT influence neologisms) are actually from different stances. "Learning" if from the stance of the receiver / interpreter, while "training" is from the "instructor's" stance. Having tried to learn how to knit, I know that what I need to do is rehearse; I just put knitting pretty far down the line of what I "need" to know.

Basically, what I'm saying is that "training" and "education" are both from the instructor stance, while "learning" is from the receiver stance. I can "learn" from either type of situation but, just because I am learning, doesn't mean that I am being either "educated" or "trained".

I'm going to re-iterate my stance with some different wording then, because I don't think training/learning has anything to do with which direction you are in the teacher-student relationship.
I am still standing by "learning" being "new skill acquisition" but will adjust training to being "skill rehearsal and refinement".
Hard lesson learned at NTC: don't put all the tank ammo on the same HEMMT in the emergency resupply at the CTCP. I know how to plan for tactical resupply and I know how to pre-plan ammo packages that meet weight/cube standards for trucks - I wasn't "learning" how to plan tactical resupply; I was training it. Part of that training was refining the skill to the point that you don't put all the tank ammo on one HEMMT, even if it fits.
Now, colloquially, in the field, we call this a "lesson learned" and that's fine for a discussion point out there. But if you want to finely slice the differences in how education works, you have to distinguish them somehow, just as Operation Terms and Graphics distinguishes "seize" and "secure".

Dropping the sillyness (yes, Wilf, it's one of THOSE days for me), we, as in any group of people, can decide what someone should be trained in. These are often called "learning objectives", which is all fine and dandy. However, baring certain fairly specific types of skills (e.g. repetitive tasks operating in a high predictive validity area of knowledge), we really can't exercise that much control over what our students actually learn.

We can, once you change the colloquial definition of "learn" to something more exact. Might we need to put a term in play to cover secondary/unintentional wisdom gained through the learning/training process? Probably. But over-expanding the definitions of existing terms will inevitably lead repetitive caveats of "and by x-term I mean as used in this fashion.

For example, I have taught (another word we might want to add into the mix), students to perform mechanical analytic sequences which they have been able to do perfectly in a variety of settings without being able to interpret what the implications of their results are. Now, I would call what they received (learned if you will) "training" even though my intention was "education" (in this instance, being able to extrapolate from the mechanical manipulations performed).

I think we could characterize that as a case of "learning" (how to extrapolate) while "training" (the rote manipulations). No?

[MikeF]

Hard lesson learned at NTC: don't put all the tank ammo on the same HEMMT in the emergency resupply at the CTCP. I know how to plan for tactical resupply and I know how to pre-plan ammo packages that meet weight/cube standards for trucks - I wasn't "learning" how to plan tactical resupply; I was training it. Part of that training was refining the skill to the point that you don't put all the tank ammo on one HEMMT, even if it fits.

As a former tank company XO, I'm laughing, but as a cadet, I'd would of had no clue about what you're talking about. That's part of common-sense that comes with experience. I once had a commander that explained the we learn through one of two ways: 1. Mindless repitition, 2. Blunt Trauma. I think there's some truth to his thoughts.

The same thing goes for intuition. I think it first really hit me on my third tour. Instead of answer questions with "I think x,y, or z," I would just say that "something doesn't feel right." At the time, I couldn't understand or explain why I felt a certain way, but I seemed to have premonitions at certain times that an attack was coming or a tribal leader that seemed very friendly was playing me like a mark in a poker game. Later, back in school, I started researching more into psychology and the study of intution so now I'm better able to articulate those feelings and how they translate into my thoughts and analysis of a situation at times. At the same time, these "feelings" can be a conceptual block that distorts your reality if left unchecked or untrained.

So, here's where I'm going with this. Some would argue that common-sense and intution are gained through experience (i.e. wisdom) and trial and error. I disagree to a extent. I think it's possible to minimize the gap between the theory and practice. I think it's possible to teach our cadets and new LT's some of these intangible traits without them having to learn them the hard way in combat. That was the whole thought process behind developing ranger school back in the early 1960's- tough, realistic training of sleep and food deprivation to simulate combat.

But, how do we do this with the softer side of small wars? Gen Charailli started it back at Fort Hood in 2004. He had his officers work with city officials in Killeen (I think) so that they could get a grasp of what it takes to do nation-building.

I'll give one example of something that I'm considering and it involves anthropology. How do we give a crash course in anthropology so that our boys start gaining a way of understanding the complexities of different cultures? How do I impart what Anna Simons taught me on the anthropology of conflict and that of the combat advisor? How do I get them to read and process what MarcT writes and discusses in SWJ? Most likely, I can't do that. I'm not going to have the opportunity to send them to NPS prior to deployment or take a six-month sabatical to go study Mayan tribes in Guatemala. I gotta work this within my budget and time constraints.

I tried this technique as a commander back in early 2006, and it worked. I couldn't get my guys to read a lot. After The Sling and the Stone, they got burned out and didn't want to tackle the SF FID manuals or FM 3-24. At first, I was frustrated. They wouldn't read the books that might save there lives in combat, but they were obsessed with some book on dating (I think it was called the Little Black Blook). Anyways, some dude wrote a book on how to pick up any girl at any time. After a while, I realized this guy was on to something, and I could use his book as a way to train my boys. So, our informal training became comparing dating to small wars. Finally, I got their attention.

So, long post I know, as I got back and thought all of this through, I realized that despite all of our differences, people are people. We don't need to obtain cultural awareness; we simply have to spend time and get to know people. We don't do leadership engagements; we go and talk to people. In reality, the sunni sheiks that colluded with al Qaeda that I met had a lot in common with my southern-baptist country uncle in North Carolina. I just had to adapt my social skills to talk to them. A lot of this is learning how to actively listen. Other, more subtle tactics include sitting the way they do, holding the cigarette in the same manner, and mimicking their gestures.

I'm going to explore if this works. I tried it back in Cali by just getting out and talking to people- homeless guys, Salinas gang members, lawyers, and doctors. Just talking and trying to better my own skill sets. I'd like to take the complex issues of certain specialities in social science and see if I can convert them in to simple concepts for training. A "Good Enough" solution if you will.

Thoughts?

Mike

[marct]

Hi Mike,

Still processing most of this, but a few thoughts....

The same thing goes for intuition. I think it first really hit me on my third tour. Instead of answer questions with "I think x,y, or z," I would just say that "something doesn't feel right." At the time, I couldn't understand or explain why I felt a certain way, but I seemed to have premonitions at certain times that an attack was coming or a tribal leader that seemed very friendly was playing me like a mark in a poker game. Later, back in school, I started researching more into psychology and the study of intution so now I'm better able to articulate those feelings and how they translate into my thoughts and analysis of a situation at times. At the same time, these "feelings" can be a conceptual block that distorts your reality if left unchecked or untrained.

Very good point, Mike. Just to add to the mess of Greek terms WM tossed in, they (the Greeks) called this type of knowledge "thumos", what we used to call "gut knowledge", although most of the similar connotations disappeared in the early 20th century.

Training intuition, however, is tricky. I know quite a few systems that do it, but they are all fairly time intense. That said, I think they're worth it.

But, how do we do this with the softer side of small wars? ....

Anyways, some dude wrote a book on how to pick up any girl at any time. After a while, I realized this guy was on to something, and I could use his book as a way to train my boys. So, our informal training became comparing dating to small wars. Finally, I got their attention.

No reason it shouldn't work, Mike ! That stuff I was writing earlier about how learning by/with analogy operates fits this example perfectly.

How do we give a crash course in anthropology so that our boys start gaining a way of understanding the complexities of different cultures? How do I impart what Anna Simons taught me on the anthropology of conflict and that of the combat advisor? How do I get them to read and process what MarcT writes and discusses in SWJ?

The short answer, Mike, is that you cheat. A lot of "teaching" is about shifting the perceptions of those you are trying to teach. So, don't start with "complexity", start with simplicity. I used to give my students, back before the PC crowd vetoed it, a really simple exercise - surprisingly similar to your COIN as dating . First, I'd give them a "field exercise": go out to a bar that you would normally go to and just watch people. Since I was generally dealing with 19-21 year olds, that meant that almost all their bars were "meat markets". Now, while you are watching, start looking for patterns of behaviour and how people "identify by display" (what do they wear, how do they handle body language, etc.). Pretty soon, anyone can pick up on the general patterns and develop stereotypes. Then I'd get them to draw a map of the layout of the bar they were looking at and see if they could track the flow of people and how the physical environment encouraged / discouraged certain types of action and interaction. I'd then get them to write up their observations and we would talk about them at the next class.

Now, that next class was crucial, because I wouldn't give them any "facts", I would give them the "names" / terms that we (Anthropologists) used to describe the interactions they (the students) had actually seen. Those terms became the basis for a lot of future discussions about things like gender roles, display, ritual, etc. Even worked for archaeology, too . So, really all you need is a couple of exercises that will give your folks experiences that are analogous to the skills they need in the field, and then name those experiences for them such that all the boring books (and my posts!) now have an experiential base for them.

Cheers,

Marc