The primary role of education is to pass on the values, knowledge and skills of the culture from one generation to the next. In our rapidly changing world,it has become more and more difficult to identify our values. The disintegration of stable communities and neighborhoods prevents groups of people from sharing common values. Most of us never take the time to determine what our values are and we rarely attempt to live by them.

Our public schools reflect lack of clarity in values. We want our schools to do everything from babysitting to producing college eligible students, yet we do not value our educational systems enough to put time, effort or dollars into the system. We do NOT view our children as our future, our most valuable commodities. We do not value their minds or the growth and tending of their minds. My niece spoke recently at a high school graduation in Portland, Oregon. The school tried to have her taken off the program because her talk was not upbeat, but the student body prevailed. What did she say? "The people of Oregon [who had just voted down a measure for increased aid to education] are giving us the message that they don't care about us or our minds."

If we query one hundred people, we will most often find that what turned an individual around, or in a special direction in education, was an interaction with one person at one moment. "If I hadn't had that math teacher, I never would have done anything in high school," a man from rural Montana who went on to become a mathematician told me. Louise Nevelson, the famous artist, often said that when she grew up in Rockland, Maine, her art teacher always wore a purple coat. Young Louise thought the coat was the most interesting thing in Rockland and decided to become an artist. I myself had an elderly English teacher in high school named Dorothy Lambert who dictated to us the stories of all the great myths of the world, creating in me an eclecticism and breadth of world view that has stayed with me all my life.

Many cognitive scientists and other researchers are working out pieces of the learning puzzle - how people learn and how we can make learning materials that work with these possibilities rather than using the same book or lesson or program for everybody. This research identifies elements of learning such as problem solving; isolates them; breaks them down and analyzes them; and then reconstructs these learning elements with wider applicability.

But what are the researchers looking for? Do we know how the old rabbi teaches Torah for 3,000 years, bending over the shoulder of the young student and slowly pointing at the handwritten ancient letters? How does the Native American teach a young woman to mix herbs and administer them to the sick? What are the elements of teaching and learning such as smells, associations, the air around us, memories, random thoughts? Do we learn by concentrating on one thing or by letting something into our brain in association with many other things?

Perhaps the most important gesture in education and learning is wanting to learn. Do you not agree that once we want to 'learn' something or know something that we can easily find the teacher, the book, the website, the lessons, the school, the master, or whatever it is we need to learn that thing? The big question I ask, then, is how do we turn someone toward learning, toward wanting to know, wanting to grow and change? If we could figure out how to inspire or motivate someone to move or change, then delivering the learning materials is the easy part. The learning materials don't inspire; they allow the learner to act on inspiration.

Where is our software for purpose, motivation, excitement and inspiration? Where is our program just to turn people on to learning something new? I have moved beyond the ideas of developing learning materials, even new technology driven learning materials. I have moved to a level which I think is more basic than using learning materials. Some researchers call this level "meta learning." But I think of it as the more basic steps that precede any real learning of values, knowledge or skills.

The step before even wanting to learn is the question of self image. If we could have a computer program, a website, or a paper test that would create a picture of a learner's self image, this could be our starting point. Here is the learner. Here is how the 'student' looks to the world, and here is how the 'student' looks to himself or herself. If we could identify well how we see ourselves, we can know how and why we do or don't learn. I can't learn because I am too timid; I can't learn because I am fearful; I have no confidence; I don't believe it's possible; I am not as smart as my brother; I will make my mother angry; I will stand out and be conspicuous.

If we know how we see ourselves, we can then begin to choose to become the kind of person we want to be. This brings us right back to values. We can learn what kind of person we want to be from our parents - if they take the time to figure out what their own values are.

©1999 Sherry Miller. All rights reserved.
For reprints and permission, please contact Sherry Miller.

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