Is Impilict Learning Cure for Hedonism?
In Turkey, there are some critical high-stake exams. Those exams are done only once a year. As a math teacher, I had students who will take those exams. Some students were motivated easily. However, some students were really hard to convince them to stop play less game and study more lesson. When I talk with them, they mostly say “I don’t like studying”. These students might believe that all learning process should be fun! They may think, some students are studying hard because they love to study. In the other words, hardworking students can be regarded as learning implicitly in their point of view. I think, they were missing that in order to be successful, we sometimes need to sacrifice instant joy. I think, not being capable of sacrificing instant joy for long term success is a hedonistic point of view. I think, this was the real problem of some of my students.
When I was undergrad, I was studying math teaching. People were telling me “it seems you love math!”. I was saying them “No! I just wanted to be a teacher. Math is the most respected one among my choices. That’s why I am studying math. In my free time, I don’t study math for entertainment. Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate math but I don’t love, too. I just need to learn and I learn”. People around me were thinking I was learning math implicitly. Hell no! I just wanted to go to a good university, I wanted to get the diploma. That was the main motivation for me to study math. I can still do math teaching if I have a reason. I don’t have any problem with math. But, hardcore mathematics is not fun me. I just forced myself to study, used my willpower. That’s all. However, I see people that thinks people learning new things because they love it. These people don’t bother to spend effort to learn because it not fun for them. Not loving to learn is a legitimate excuse for them. They have such a misconception.
I think, “you should have fun while learning” misconception also stems from media, or interviews. Sometimes, during interviews, interviewee says “my area is fun for me! I love it. It is not like studying/working for me. While working, I feel like I am in a holiday!”. So, some students can think that those successful people studied because they love the subject and I don’t have to study this topic because I don’t like it. In my perspective, this is a hedonistic approach. If there is an instant joy, I do. If there is no instant reward (joy), I don’t do. These students can say “I don’t like this subject so I won’t study”. Sometimes, we have to study a topic that we don’t like when we are in k-12 education or in college. Hedonistic students need to learn that as a human being, we don’t always do fun things. Sometimes, we do something even though it is not our the most favorite activity. That’s why, even if the task is not the most fun thing, we still keep on doing the task. Each human has a willpower, given by God (or the creator according to your belief) and it is given for using in appropriate time. There is a purpose for having willpower. Willpower helps us to keep on track when we don’t have instant reward. Therefore, learning process may not be fun always but this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t study on it because it is not fun.
When it comes to media and technology, substantial portion of learning is implicit (Bransford, J., et al., 2006). But implicit learning is still not the savior of the hedonists. I want to emphasize that there is still a small portion of learning that will require learners’ special attention to topic without rewarding or motivation. In the other words, implicit learning will not do all the job only by itself. In the learning process, there will still be a part for willpower. So, implicit learning is not a silver bullet of hedonist people for learning subject.
To sum up, technology is not always used for the purposes originally intended (Sharples, M., et al., 2009). No matter how educators design an activity for implicit learning, it may not be used as expected. I think, students’ curiosity and passion for learning will still have a huge role for implicit learning. As a result, implicit learning is a great way for education. It should be the mainstream approach for planning lesson. But, it is not a magical stick for teaching to hedonist students.
References
Bransford, J., et al. (2006). Learning theories and education.
Sharples, M., et al. (2009). Mobile learning: Small devices, big issues.
Enes, each week I look forward to reading your observations because I enjoy how you challenge my thinking, appreciate the alternative point of view you present, and think your points are noteworthy each week. This week is no different.
One of the main points I take away from your post this week is your decision making is based on your values – you want to teach and math is respected, therefore you must study hard to achieve your goal. When it comes to fellow students from your undergraduate days or some of your current students, I see you expressing the point that they making their decisions based on their interest – “learning is not fun for them”, “is a hedonistic approach”, etc. Their instant gratification of the interest-based decisions made in the moment may and frequently can be self-indulgent, unrestricted, and unhelpful in the long run. Conversely, it is not a stretch of the imagination that the hard and long-term decisions based on personal values are so very boring. But — speaking from the place of personal experience, mother to a teenager, and former teacher — here is the lesson that life has to offer: the power of self-determination for a person to decide how he or she makes a decision is a powerful thing to possess. The push-pull dynamics of values vs interests can easily set up conflicts and miscommunication especially if a person bases their values on their interests instead of basing their interests on their values. Even in technology, the values vs interests decision-making paradigm is going to determine how the technology is used and to what ends.
Thank you Cherly!
Same for you. I love to read your posts each week!
I will note this :
“The push-pull dynamics of values vs interests can easily set up conflicts and miscommunication especially if a person bases their values on their interests instead of basing their interests on their values.”
Thank you for sharing.
My pleasure.
Hi Enes, I definitely agree with that sometimes we have to learn regardless of our own interest or motivation. That’s perhaps one reason of why we need schools ha ha! But, if we HAVE TO teach something students who would not be interested in at all, at least we can adopt some innovative teaching methods and design some activities so that students would at least bare with that? What do you think about that?
Hi Yong,
Thank you for sharing your idea!
I definitely want to have implicit learning activities in teaching approach used in schools. That’s why we are taking this course, learning more, trying to figure out components of learning process. If we could design whole curriculum, 100%, based on implicit learning opportunities, I would be more than happy. I am a bit pragmatics about these kind of issues 🙂 I don’t want anyone suffer if there is an easier, less painful way to do same thing.
Enes – I really enjoyed reading your post this morning. I agree that hard work and willpower is a requirement for learners in K-12, higher education, or even adult personal learning. However, I think there is something to be said for turning your work into your passion, or working within your passion area.
Growth has to hurt a little. In my undergraduate program, I was required to take a class on print design. I hated it, I wanted to be designing for the web. The class hurt, A LOT, and my classmates gave me critical feedback during critique sessions. In the end, I learned a lot about myself and my passion, and that’s what matters.
Hi Enes,
I appreciate your perspective on how implicit learning (and informal learning, as many of the same principles also apply) only goes so far toward providing a means for the disinterested to become experts in individual subjects. I think of the attitudes that many multimedia consumers have toward ‘edutainment’, or entertainment products with strong educational proponents–the popular examples being video games with obvious, and sometimes ham-handed, learning-related messages. A lot of gamers groan at the prospect of playing such a game, with the expectation that the message will detract from the experience (e.g. the game environments not being as immersive as they could have been, because the developer is more focused on getting across the message itself, which takes gamers ‘out of’ the game and back into reality). In my own experiences, I have played edutainment games that I have enjoyed and learned from (often ones concerning learning principles of foreign languages), but I chose to play them on my own, with the intention of learning from them. Certainly, games that just-so-happen to have academic material packed into them have potential to provide introductory knowledge, but the idea of subliminally becoming a doctor or a lawyer would be quite an ambitious one!