Foundationalism, in theology, is the belief that there is a single One Perfect Right for each everything under G_d's creation, incomprehensible by humans because, well, we're humans and not G_d. (This, BTW, is the basis of the concept of the Augustinian "perfect traveler" concept I trotted out in an earlier blog - the perfect traveler cannot see the single Right way and practice, but works to travel towards it.)
The story of the Garden of Eden is a nuanced one, incorporating ideas of Foundationalism. Eden was the One Perfect Right world, according to the story. Humans, of course, bungled it, got kicked out and had to go out and hunt Mastodons and protect themselves from Saber-Toothed Tigers. (Told you I was mixing my metaphors.)
As close to Foundationalism as I get is the belief that there may be One Perfect Right means of learning and teaching, and cognitive, social and educational research, though "through a glass blindly" (more theology, sorry) moves us forward to that Right way, the way that might have happened in Eden if Adam and Eve's kids got educated.
I put before you that "digital natives" may not be the "brave new world" (oops! I did it again - quoted shamelessly from Brittany Spears) that some would believe.
Some characteristics of digital natives are said to be:
- Possessing the ability to multitask. Indeed, it may be the preferred method of taking in data.
- Intolerant of being fed large chunks of data at one time.
- Possessing short attention spans.
- Graphically-oriented.
- Straining the bounds imposed on them by the Previous Generation, aka The Establishment, and demanding to have their received wisdom given to them in ways they wish to deal with it. (If there are any Boomers out there, who does this remind you of, hmmmm?)
Ok, while this may be annoying to the Educational Establishment, as Prensy indicates, perhaps digital natives may be "perfect travelers" back to the Garden - at least in the sense of being learners.
My (spotty) understanding of the history of education, starting from the schools of the Greco-Romans and Aquinas, is that long lectures and much memorization was the norm.
Socratic learning obviously existed, and problem-based learning for physicians has been around since that time, (although dissection was expensive could get one killed at the stake). Scenario-based learning through apprenticeships and following Mommy around as she worked taught certain classes of individuals, but the classic, sine qua non form of teaching, was in the Great Lecture Halls and involved long lectures and memorization.
Well hell! I put forth to you that this has never been the ideal method of teaching (although without networking, options were limited). If I may throw in a bit of anthropology, Homo Sapiens, or Intelligent Human, probably resembled the digital native more that the student listening to Thomas Aquinas.
Looking at Homo Sapiens, they appeared to live, work and travel in social groups, and interacted (networked?) with other social groups, learning and exchanging culture. As hunters of massive Ice-Age beasts, big bad wolves and other hungry beasts, they worked in collaborative groups. Likewise, they appeared to have and use multitasking, as a survival strategy. There is paleontological evidence that some of their prey were social animals, and were pretty good at coordinating their own hunting strategies. Multitasking was the way to keep an eye on the tribal back while advancing the hunt. And while (probably) the men took down the meat in evolving hunter/gatherer groups, women (probably) had to discern visually what was healthy to gather. And to mind the kids. I think any parent would acknowledge this as an example of multitasking.)
Social sciences,population genetics and others espouse the theory that within group difference is often greater than between group difference. Therefore, it is likely that there are strong characteristics shared between "digital natives" and "mastodon-killing natives."
Organizing this post into a loose, fanciful braid, let me finish by stating that what we think Homo Sapiens were, may have been close to the the idea of, according to the biblical book of Genesis, First Man and First Woman, eventually kicked out of the Garden of Eden. The Homo Sapiens brain would have altered under the stressors of life outside the Garden, but brains change slowly. Hence, the "thinking brain" that was able to survive outside the Garden may have resembled closely our "digital natives" and then, may also have had strong similarities to the putative brains of Adam and Eve. Perhaps this brain comes close to the Foundational Brain. And in that case, teaching and learning in Eden would have been fitted to that Foundational Brain, which I have posited, rather closely resembles the brains of our digital natives.
Therefore, the learning preferences of today's digital natives may be onto something, and are actually Perfect Travelers to G_d's Foundational Educational Practices.
