Out of all the LW posts I read in 2024, I think this one was the most beneficial to my daily life. As a review of this article, I think it might be useful to link it to the current literature on communicating information from one person (often a teacher) to the other (often a student); I think it “fills in the blank” where I previously struggled to implement Raemon’s knowledge.
I’m currently doing a masters degree in education, as such I think a useful contextual addendum to this article—with the goal of improving the required skill of “Modelling Others”—would be the interface between Grow (1991) and Mohanna et al.’s (2007) learning and teaching styles, respectfully.
I’ll start with a brief overview of the two (1 and 2), link them to each other (3), and then link them to this “Listening to Wisdom” article by Raemon (4), because I think it makes the whole concept click into place, and gives me tacit ways to apply Raemon’s insights.
1. & 2. Grow’s (1991) Stages of Self-Directed Learning & Mohanna et al.’s (2007) Four Styles of Teaching
Students start out dependent on the teacher for learning, and view the teacher as an authority or coach; teaching is provided with immediate feedback, and is informational. Imagine students being a cup, and the teaching filling it with liquid learning. They then become interested learners, and the teacher is a motivator or guide, giving lectures that point to a greater truth and guiding discussion plus encouraging goal-setting in the students. Picture the teacher moulding the ‘clay’ that is the students. Students are then involved, with the teacher facilitating discussions as an equal, navigating concept-space with them, and giving group-projects where the student engages with the material in a semi-supervised setting; imagine the teacher leading students on a hike where the destination is mutually agreed upon between student and teacher. Finally, students become self-directed, and the teacher is a consultant in their learning; students pick their own topics, their own interests, and the expert teacher reviews the student’s output and gives advice on how to perfect it. Imagine the students having their corner of a garden, explaining their aim to the teacher, and the teacher praising and advising where needed.
3. Integrating Grow and Mohanna
This is the important part, and you will start to see links to Raemon’s article. It is important that the teacher correctly identifies the stage of learning that the students are currently at, and approaches it using the correct stage of teaching. For example, if you approach a level 1 student (still dependent on the teacher) with facilitation or consulting methods, they will be resentful of the freedom they have been offered; you have effectively dropped non-swimmers into a deep reef with a strong current, and are trying to teach them how to freedive as they sink down, drowning. On the flipside, if you have competent and self-directed swimmers, teaching them how to tread water will leave them bored and resentful of the simplicity of the teaching; they might want to scubadive, freedive, or maybe even surf, and you’re railroading them.
4. Linking this to Raemon (2024, hehe)
Any person at any stage of learning might face a problem that you tacitly understand, and you realise you need to communicate to them the importance of that problem as well as hand over the information you think they would benefit from soulfully, tacitly understanding. How? Well, a great first step is to consider where they are on the spectrum of learning, and often this is through asking open questions to assess their level, as well as their overall aims.
Have they encountered the information a while ago and are starting to be interested, and mistakenly think they can solve all the problems they’ve faced, despite problems being complex and the solution-space being thoroughly explored by thousands before them? Then guide them to set these lofty goals (e.g., “solve world hunger”) and facilitate briefdiscussions towards prior attempted solutions. When they come up with solutions, ask them to see if this has been thought of before, and maybe help them identify why said solutions didn’t work beforehand, if they can’t come up with these reasons themselves.
Are they becoming more involved in the concepts, and have a grasp of the fundamentals and common pitfalls, but still flounder with more complex solution-spaces? Go on a facilitated journey with them, together, and let them pick the route; have the resources to come out of dead-ends, and emphasise the rational tools needed to foresee and mitigate these dead-ends in the future.
Do they have a solid grasp of the topic, and now know enough to independently direct their own learning? If you are an expert, act as a safe base for them to consult you as needed, and offer guidance when asked.
You might note that dependent learners rarely make the mistake of dismissing wisdom, because they don’t know enough to make any conclusions (if they are sufficiently self-aware). Similarly, self-directed learners have usually encountered reality enough that they are self-sufficient purely by virtue of tacitly learning that real solutions are rarely neat and tidy implementations of theory. It is the interested and involved learners who tend to make the mistake of ignoring tacit, soulful knowledge/wisdom, either as unknown unknowns or overestimation of known knowns / underestimations of known unknowns.
Overall, if you can reliably identify where the person is, through questions about their knowledge-base, assessments of how interested or engaged they are in the subject, and adjustments of your own approach to teaching them, then you can usually convey information to them in a way that they are ready to receive. It’s up to you, now, to decide if it is worth your time and effort.
I think this context is important in the overall post, as I originally had difficutly implementing this knowledge when teaching or discussing with others; I found that sometimes my attempts landed, and other times they were floundering with excess information. As you said, Raemon, a Giver needs good modelling of others to properly communicate what they need to, and I hope this adds to that skill.
I’m curious to hear a bit more details about the gap that this post filled for you – I’m guessing you knew the gist of all the things in #4 but there were some subtle, well, tacit bits you hadn’t connected.
Were there any particular paragraphs, or gestalt takeaways, that felt like the thing you were missing?
Ah, I think I wasn’t clear on this in my original response: I encountered your post before I started my degree, but I found I couldn’t fully implement your concept until I joined it with the two studies I outlined above. In other words, I wasn’t paying attention to my learner’s level, because it wasn’t something I had conceptualised yet.
Your article itself helped me realise that modelling the listener is essential to convey worthwhile information, and that you need to identify their “sticking points” (or cruxes, or grieving points; similar concepts) in order to make progress. Simply put, some people resist psychologically load-bearing updates, and it is important to identify why.
Where I was struggling was in fully applying your concept to my own life, thus my review including the piece of learning that helped me “unlock” the rest of the wisdom of your post (i.e., a/the sticking point might simply be that they aren’t able to engage at the level you are approaching them from). No doubt some people wouldn’t need my insight, but this review was for those that do or did, like me.
In other words, I actually didn’t know #4.
I hope that answers your question, let me know if not.
Out of all the LW posts I read in 2024, I think this one was the most beneficial to my daily life. As a review of this article, I think it might be useful to link it to the current literature on communicating information from one person (often a teacher) to the other (often a student); I think it “fills in the blank” where I previously struggled to implement Raemon’s knowledge.
I’m currently doing a masters degree in education, as such I think a useful contextual addendum to this article—with the goal of improving the required skill of “Modelling Others”—would be the interface between Grow (1991) and Mohanna et al.’s (2007) learning and teaching styles, respectfully.
I’ll start with a brief overview of the two (1 and 2), link them to each other (3), and then link them to this “Listening to Wisdom” article by Raemon (4), because I think it makes the whole concept click into place, and gives me tacit ways to apply Raemon’s insights.
1. & 2. Grow’s (1991) Stages of Self-Directed Learning & Mohanna et al.’s (2007) Four Styles of Teaching
Students start out dependent on the teacher for learning, and view the teacher as an authority or coach; teaching is provided with immediate feedback, and is informational. Imagine students being a cup, and the teaching filling it with liquid learning. They then become interested learners, and the teacher is a motivator or guide, giving lectures that point to a greater truth and guiding discussion plus encouraging goal-setting in the students. Picture the teacher moulding the ‘clay’ that is the students. Students are then involved, with the teacher facilitating discussions as an equal, navigating concept-space with them, and giving group-projects where the student engages with the material in a semi-supervised setting; imagine the teacher leading students on a hike where the destination is mutually agreed upon between student and teacher. Finally, students become self-directed, and the teacher is a consultant in their learning; students pick their own topics, their own interests, and the expert teacher reviews the student’s output and gives advice on how to perfect it. Imagine the students having their corner of a garden, explaining their aim to the teacher, and the teacher praising and advising where needed.
3. Integrating Grow and Mohanna
This is the important part, and you will start to see links to Raemon’s article. It is important that the teacher correctly identifies the stage of learning that the students are currently at, and approaches it using the correct stage of teaching. For example, if you approach a level 1 student (still dependent on the teacher) with facilitation or consulting methods, they will be resentful of the freedom they have been offered; you have effectively dropped non-swimmers into a deep reef with a strong current, and are trying to teach them how to freedive as they sink down, drowning. On the flipside, if you have competent and self-directed swimmers, teaching them how to tread water will leave them bored and resentful of the simplicity of the teaching; they might want to scubadive, freedive, or maybe even surf, and you’re railroading them.
4. Linking this to Raemon (2024, hehe)
Any person at any stage of learning might face a problem that you tacitly understand, and you realise you need to communicate to them the importance of that problem as well as hand over the information you think they would benefit from soulfully, tacitly understanding. How? Well, a great first step is to consider where they are on the spectrum of learning, and often this is through asking open questions to assess their level, as well as their overall aims.
Have they encountered the information a while ago and are starting to be interested, and mistakenly think they can solve all the problems they’ve faced, despite problems being complex and the solution-space being thoroughly explored by thousands before them? Then guide them to set these lofty goals (e.g., “solve world hunger”) and facilitate brief discussions towards prior attempted solutions. When they come up with solutions, ask them to see if this has been thought of before, and maybe help them identify why said solutions didn’t work beforehand, if they can’t come up with these reasons themselves.
Are they becoming more involved in the concepts, and have a grasp of the fundamentals and common pitfalls, but still flounder with more complex solution-spaces? Go on a facilitated journey with them, together, and let them pick the route; have the resources to come out of dead-ends, and emphasise the rational tools needed to foresee and mitigate these dead-ends in the future.
Do they have a solid grasp of the topic, and now know enough to independently direct their own learning? If you are an expert, act as a safe base for them to consult you as needed, and offer guidance when asked.
You might note that dependent learners rarely make the mistake of dismissing wisdom, because they don’t know enough to make any conclusions (if they are sufficiently self-aware). Similarly, self-directed learners have usually encountered reality enough that they are self-sufficient purely by virtue of tacitly learning that real solutions are rarely neat and tidy implementations of theory. It is the interested and involved learners who tend to make the mistake of ignoring tacit, soulful knowledge/wisdom, either as unknown unknowns or overestimation of known knowns / underestimations of known unknowns.
Overall, if you can reliably identify where the person is, through questions about their knowledge-base, assessments of how interested or engaged they are in the subject, and adjustments of your own approach to teaching them, then you can usually convey information to them in a way that they are ready to receive. It’s up to you, now, to decide if it is worth your time and effort.
I think this context is important in the overall post, as I originally had difficutly implementing this knowledge when teaching or discussing with others; I found that sometimes my attempts landed, and other times they were floundering with excess information. As you said, Raemon, a Giver needs good modelling of others to properly communicate what they need to, and I hope this adds to that skill.
I’m curious to hear a bit more details about the gap that this post filled for you – I’m guessing you knew the gist of all the things in #4 but there were some subtle, well, tacit bits you hadn’t connected.
Were there any particular paragraphs, or gestalt takeaways, that felt like the thing you were missing?
Ah, I think I wasn’t clear on this in my original response: I encountered your post before I started my degree, but I found I couldn’t fully implement your concept until I joined it with the two studies I outlined above. In other words, I wasn’t paying attention to my learner’s level, because it wasn’t something I had conceptualised yet.
Your article itself helped me realise that modelling the listener is essential to convey worthwhile information, and that you need to identify their “sticking points” (or cruxes, or grieving points; similar concepts) in order to make progress. Simply put, some people resist psychologically load-bearing updates, and it is important to identify why.
Where I was struggling was in fully applying your concept to my own life, thus my review including the piece of learning that helped me “unlock” the rest of the wisdom of your post (i.e., a/the sticking point might simply be that they aren’t able to engage at the level you are approaching them from). No doubt some people wouldn’t need my insight, but this review was for those that do or did, like me.
In other words, I actually didn’t know #4.
I hope that answers your question, let me know if not.
Gotcha, appreciate it.