# Education as Influencing Reorganization

**URL:** http://discourse.iapct.org/t/education-as-influencing-reorganization/3862
**Category:** CSG1992
**Created:** [October 2, 1992, 2:32am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/education-as-influencing-reorganization/3862 "1992-10-02T02:32:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![\_Gary\_A\_Cziko](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/_/3ab097/32.png) [@\_Gary\_A\_Cziko](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/_Gary_A_Cziko)
#### Post date: [October 2, 1992, 2:32am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/education-as-influencing-reorganization/3862/1 "1992-10-02T02:32:44Z")

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[from Gary Cziko 921002.0200 GMT]

Relevant to the recent discussion of purposeful influence and  
reorganization is an excerpt (sans emphases and footnotes) from a chapter  
of my book in preparation. The book is tentatively entitled \_Without  
Miracles: Universal Selection Theory and the Second Darwinian Revolution\_  
and the chapter is "Education: Transmission of Truth or Growth of Fallible  
Knowledge?"

I currently feel that it is indeed possible for people (e.g., teachers) to  
influence long-lasting changes in others' (e.g., students') control  
systems. Although the following was not written to make this point, I  
think it is compatible with it. Reactions (especially from Greg Williams  
and Bill Powers and Chuck Tucker) are eagerly anticipated, but I don't see  
myself engaged in a protracted Powers-Williams type discussion  
.

> **···**
>
> =============================================================  
> To apply the perceptual-control-theory notion of reorganization to  
> education, let us use an example--a person learning to swim. In its most  
> rudimentary form, being able to swim can be defined as staying alive in  
> water which is deeper than one is tall, that is, being able to "tread  
> water." One way to "teach" a non-swimmer to swim is the throw the person  
> into a body of deep water (we could call this the "immersion" method  
> swimming instruction). This will likely create error in the student since  
> she will have difficulty keeping her head above the water in order to  
> breathe. This perceived error in a crucial variable will trigger  
> reorganization so that the student will immediately begin to vigorously  
> move her arms and legs in random patterns in order to find some way to  
> maintain her nose and mouth above the water's surface. If a behavioral  
> pattern (actually a perceptual-behavioral control loop) is found which  
> allows her to breathe (if even only a few gasps before disappearing below  
> the surface again), the randomness of the movements will decline until the  
> student is able to constantly keep her head above the water, at which point  
> we would say that she has learned to swim. In effect, the student has now  
> gained control over a variable which she could not control previously and  
> so by our definition learning has taken place.  
> Since the student did not initially know how to swim, the initial movements  
> were of necessity blind attempts to swim. But while the student did not  
> know how to keep her mouth above the water, she could perceive how  
> successful she was in her attempts (getting her eyes above the water is  
> better than below, but not quite good enough). This then provided a  
> criterion for selection among the various behavioral patterns attempted and  
> allowed the student to learn from her mistakes, eliminating those patterns  
> of movement which did not succeed in getting the head above the surface and  
> retaining those which did.
> 
> We can also easily imagine that the learner in this example would be very  
> highly motivated since failure to learn could result in death. From a  
> perceptual-control-theory perspective, motivation simply refers to error  
> (that is, a difference between a perception and the reference level for  
> that perception) which results in action to eliminate the error (see Figure  
> 7.1). From this perspective, motivation is considered to be internal to  
> the student since the reference level of the controlled variable is  
> determined by the student, not by the environment.
> 
> We need to point out, however, that this immersion method of swimming  
> instruction may well fail for any particular student since there is no  
> guarantee that the student will come up with an effective control system  
> for treading water within the few minutes available before lack of oxygen  
> leads to loss of consciousness and death. Clearly, a less drastic approach  
> to swimming instruction is needed. There are a number of ways in which  
> this method could be improved. First, we could simply allow more time for  
> learning to take place. This could be accomplished by allowing the student  
> to practice at the edge of a swimming pool so that she could reach out and  
> hold onto the edge of the pool when she felt herself going under water. Or  
> she could be allowed to practice in water that was only neck deep so that  
> she could simply stand in the water at any time to breathe. Given more  
> time to try out new patterns of movement and eliminate those which are  
> ineffective, the likelihood of successful learning would be increased.
> 
> Another approach to facilitate learning would be to attempt to accelerate  
> the learning process itself using verbal instructions ("move your hands  
> horizontally in the water from your sides to the front and back again") or  
> demonstrating a model for imitation, or a combination of the two ("do it  
> like this"). Such instruction could be useful in constraining the attempts  
> made by the student (for example, the student would not now attempt  
> vertical movements of the hands). But such instruction, no matter how  
> effective, can in no way transmit the skill to be learned from teacher to  
> student. Even if the teacher provides a model to imitate, the student must  
> still learn on her own how to imitate the model. The perceptions the  
> student has of the teacher demonstrating a technique are very different  
> from the perceptions the student will have when she is able to successfully  
> perform the technique herself (watching someone else swim is a very  
> different experience than that of actually swimming oneself). Models and  
> instruction can provide useful information in the form of constraints of  
> what not to try, but they cannot provide explicit instructions concerning  
> exactly what to do.
> 
> # In addition to allowing more time for the learning to take place and providing constraints in the form of models and verbal instruction, the teacher can also provide easier access to the knowledge or skill by providing a series of less demanding intermediate goals. One way is to break down the skill into a number of subskills and provide opportunities for the subskills be acquired. In the swimming example, the teacher could have the student stand in shoulder-depth water and have her make horizontal movements with her arms until she feels an upward force lifting her weight from her legs. After this is mastered, the student could learn to move her legs by holding onto a float and kicking her legs until she feels herself rising from the water. After practicing the arm and leg movements separately, she could then attempt to combine them, first in water shoulder high and then in deeper water. By breaking down a complex problem into easier subproblems learning is facilitated since the probability of finding a solution to each subproblem is higher than that of finding a solution to the more complex problem--success in learning to make effective arm alone in swimming is more likely than success in learning to make both arm and leg movements together. A selectionist-reorganization view of learning sees the teacher as constantly aware of the student's current abilities and continually imposing upon her problems which are just a bit beyond these abilities. Assuming that the student wants to be able to gain control over this new situation, reorganization will take place until control is achieved at which time new demands are imposed (after learning to tread water, the breaststroke is attempted; after addition is learned, subtraction is introduced). Such a view of learning is consistent with Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky's (1896-1934) notion of the "zone of proximal development" in which the student is able to try and eventually successfully master new problems which are beyond her independent capabilities but which can be learned with the assistance of a teacher. Note that the teacher's role in this learning is not one of a transmitter of information or knowledge but rather one who provides support to the student and arranges the student's learning environment in such a way that the student is continuously challenged by situations and problems which are just a bit beyond her current competence. In other words, the teacher arranges the environment so that the student is continually encountering error, but error that is not too large so that the student's reorganizing efforts are likely to be successful and set the stage for the next introduction of error. This view is also consistent with the idea now popular in education that a successful teacher provides educational "scaffolds" for his students. Such scaffolds can be seen as teacher-provided support platforms which provide support in breaking down complex physical and cognitive problems into more easily mastered subproblems. While we used the physical skill of learning to swim in this example, all that has been said is also applicable to other more cognitive skills such as those involved in learning mathematics and developing reading comprehension and writing skills.
> 
> # P.S. The idea of using swimming as an example was inspired by the Robertson and Power's text.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------  
> Gary A. Cziko Telephone: (217) 333-8527  
> Educational Psychology FAX: (217) 244-7620  
> University of Illinois E-mail: g-cziko@uiuc.edu  
> 1310 S. Sixth Street Radio: N9MJZ  
> 210 Education Building  
> Champaign, Illinois 61820-6990  
> USA  
> ------------------------------------------------------------------