The Learning Bubble

This will be my first attempt to try to explain an idea of mine which I will call the learning bubble. It is based on a number of ideas:

• the human mind continually changes and this change includes the formation of new neuronal links, neurone regrowth and change, besides non-physical organisational changes
• when it comes to learning it is the context that is important
• nurture rather than nature
• immersion - daily lived experience

The model of learning it attacks is that learning is something that accumulates over time i.e. as we get older we 'know' more or become more experienced...experience being interpreted as being better to deal with our current environment.

Within this model I perceive the individual as existing within a time bubble and it is the recent learning that is more relevant to that individual's experience. We can perhaps imagine a time bubble of about three years in size. This bubble contains within it a number of learning experiences which are more likely to be relevant to the current context of the individual. Taking Ericssons idea's of expertise, if the experiences are intense or immersive enough there can be significant changes in individuals.

Let's take a psychomotor example: learning a tune on a musical instrument. I may learn a tune off by heart but if I don't play it for a while, even a couple of weeks, it needs revision before I can play it. A short spell of revision may make it playable again...but it is the currency of playing and doing it that counts...it has to be almost there at your fingertips.

The other day I played my first squash game for a long time, years, and I have not really played a great deal since my early twenties. I can still play, I know the skills are still there but they are not as yet at anything like the level they were.....or are they all there, but dormant? Is it a question of re-working and re-jeuvenating synapses, neuronal channels etc. How much of my brain is the same as it was 20 years ago? In chemistry, information, structure? Am I indeed a different person?

These two examples are interesting reflections relating to largely, but not wholly, psychomotor skills. If I was to surround myself within a three year bubble of playing squash, playing regularly, how good would I get? Of course it all depends on the degree of immersion, social involvement and so on.

I see the bubble idea as fitting in strongly with the principles of life long learning...it's not so important what you did then (in the past, at school, university etc), it is what you do now that counts. I suggest in this way that it is possible for us all to become someone else to a certain extent.