Jerrell Jobe raised some wonderful questions about the personal transitions I have implicated in Learning the Landscape.
As I've explored numerous transition processes in the past few months, I've come to the understanding that many digital immigrants will be left behind as this digital transformation evolves. Why won't they get on board, evolve with the changing times and join the revised culture?Are there ways of acclimating the Immigrants to not only the landscape, but also the Natives who live there?
Our unconscious minds figure out how to survive and thrive in dangerous situations. We then get "locked into a loop", "sold on our success routine", or "sentenced as a prisoner of our habit". We don't change our mind, patterns or premises easily. The new situation looks like more of the same dangers that we're already prepared to face.
It takes an existential crisis to change our unconscious minds. We become "reprogrammed" when our survival strategies are not working -- no matter how we try. We need to feel like we are in a sealed chamber with no exits. We cannot escape using our established gambits, outlooks and rules to play by. It's time to make a change at a deeper level than our conscious reasoning goes.
The most popular genre of movie involves this transformation of the protagonist's character. The existing personality traits are good to go off on some heroic adventure. An initial success comes easily and turns the protagonist's confidence to arrogance. A series of setbacks give victory to all those creepy antagonists. The situation becomes inescapable without a change in the protagonist's character. The plot thickens and the hero reaches deep into his/herself to come up with a new way to act.
This is a "baptism by fire". The initiation is terrifying. The possibility of psychological annihilation is great. The penalties for getting it wrong are "total reject -- game over". The escape routes are barricaded. The issue is being forced so that the unconscious mind goes into spontaneous reorganization.
These crises occur frequently in committed relationships. Misunderstandings erupt that can only be resolved by a deep change in character. Conflicts between digital natives and immigrants may become the staging ground where discovery learning gets initiated and book-learners switch to learning from the landscape.
My son is only 15 months yet is learning at a rapid rate. The volume of information that he is processing every second is mind-blowing. I can't even begin to imagine it. Many times I fear that my attempts at teaching him are interfering with his learning process. Since he immigrated from his mother's womb, his learning curve has tilted upward sharply and he is quickly becoming a native of this new world he has come into. My prayer is that his learning shall never slow down nor his creativity butchered by the education system which sometimes does a great job at that (sit down!, Raise your hand!, Memorize this!, etc).
ReplyDelete