Getting started

Blog Posting #1                                                                           Jan 27^th 2012

The first hour of class the Professor advised me of the fact that ‘I am an intellectual’. This comment seemed like misguided praise; similar to praising a tiny infant baby for being ‘so smart’ when they smile. From my own perspective, I have never viewed myself in that light and it will be a while before I’m comfortable settling into that category. I guess the term intellectual was validated ever so slightly with the fact that I have enrolled in this program and I am setting forth into this somewhat forgotten territory called school.

I was expecting the first class to be entrenched in adult education theories and techniques; I was pleased to realize I was part of an interactive discussion about the very earliest forms of communication and social interaction in relation to humans and primates. This is so interesting and relatable, as humans we are drawn to any creature that has similarities to our own species. It can be fascinating when a species shares familiar actions and features to humans such as a hug, rolling around playing or grooming each other. It demonstrates they are aware of each other and would appear they have concern for their fellow companion, much like humans.

When we are involved with learning, the experience may feel new and unique to us. What we may not realize is the experience of learning has roots that not only go back to our own personal development, but it is also traced back to the earliest forms of our own species. The unique process of communicating, and thus learning, is built upon over years of evolution as well as generational experience to allow each of us to accomplish learning, be it ever so small such as a first step, to complex thought.

“….by the second half of the second year of life, human children have begun

engaging in the kinds of cooperative activities that enable not just cultural transmission but also cultural creation _the achieving of results in interaction

with others that could not be achieved alone Children’s skills of shared intentionality also manifest themselves at around this same time in the mastery of linguistic communication and conversational skills.

In class I was very interested to learn that children up till age 2yo and apes essentially learn at the same pace, they can accomplish the same task and make the same errors. Then humans surpass our primate counterparts and therefore are the superior being.  In some ways this was explained by Michael Tomasello as the four side effects of humans.

Tomasello classified his theory into four categories, in short they can be explained as:

 Develop and share culture, an appreciation of one another, to appreciate one another we must acknowledge each other.

Next, humans act together, the formation of “We”, for without this we stand alone unable to work together toward a common goal, from picking up a log together to building the world’s tallest structure, we need each other.

The ability to have a connection, depths of love and caring, bonds of solidarity, this seems to be evident in other creatures and I certainly believe aspects of this exist in other creatures, however, a deep connecting love with care and compassion is unique to the human species and has enabled us to reach out to each other despite the many human conflicts through-out the ages.

I think the one that is unique to humans is our sense of self, other people become the mirror of ourselves, our social identity is what defines humans. Primates and other creatures perhaps, have the luxury, of not caring how they are viewed within their social group.  From the outside looking in this could sounds like a good thing, however it would stifle human social existence if we had no regard for how other members of our human species viewed us. This sense of self allows for civil societies and laws to be maintained to prevent social chaos.

Another unique trait of humans is the ability to pass along our knowledge to future generations, the ability to move knowledge over time with subsequent generations learning from previous generations. This is the key to human advancement in the world. We have tens of thousands of years of knowledge and culture and continue to explore, learn and grow. Humans advance and expand our abilities with each new generation. However, as we learn new ways of meeting our needs, we also lose skills and culture. The knowledge and culture can become obsolete with new advancements. This can be unfortunate, but, it seems, as a species we tend to hang on to the only the craft and skills that benefit us immediately, such as a cut out in a wall, ‘the window’ has changed its style over the years however the simple invention that allows us to see what’s coming toward us, let light and air into a shelter has survived for thousands of years. The same could be said for some musical instruments such as a drum or more recently a stringed instrument. However, overtime, languages have often fallen by the wayside, as do many inventions that are discovered over time, it usually takes a historian to determine what an artifact is and what it was used for. These primitive discoveries are evidence that, as humans, we only take what’s necessary along for the ride in human evolution.

References:

(Cooperative Activities in Young Children and Chimpanzees.

 Felix Warneken, Frances Chen, and Michael Tomasello

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Child Development, May/June 2006, Volume 77, Number 3, Pages 640 – 663, pg 661, paragraph 2.)