I have been thinking about the presence of a knowledge deficit disposition or approach to learning for many years now. I often talk about the experience I had on a project a few years back supporting some heritage sites in their design of learning. During some immersion into the experience of learning we stepped into a guided tour around the castle we were in. The painful experience I had was more to do with the learning process than any ancient torture device or prison chamber.
There had a been a specific blindness to any knowledge that was present within the group to begin with. There was an assumption that we had none and that we were there to laud over the expertise shared by our guide. So transfixed by the woven tales of scripted knowledge we would drift along enlightened by every stopping point. Hopefully our brains would not spill this knowledge into the moat as we crossed the drawbridge on the way home. To ensure this expert knowledge was secured for the younglings there might be some paper rubbings with some crayons or charcoal.
We got a puppy before Christmas and have just started to go to some dog training classes. The instructor soon lapsed into the same type of disposition, assuming we knew nothing. Sure we have less experience, but knowledge is freely accessible nowadays and the time of the expert is shrinking. Endless research and reading has put us in a stronger position as we have knowledge, well at least access to it. In fact when it comes to looking after a dog there is all sorts of conflicting knowledge. Being able to use that knowledge expertly is a different matter.
Deeply understanding how the knowledge set is connected requires something very different, a level of expertise in the knowledge that doesn’t work to a script or to a guided tour.
Back at the castle. If students, visitors, families and the general public coming to experience those ancient stones were seen as bringing different ideas and relevant knowledge it becomes a completely different starting point. A start that might lead in lots of learning directions.