Mary Catherine Bateson (1939–2021)

Most learning is not linear. [30]

"Peripheral vision" serves Bateson as metaphor for a juxtaposition of ideas (from cultures, situations, languages, etc) prompting linkages and meaning otherwise unlikely to emerge. Contrast is key for learning, and rather than describing a linear path, learning typically is helical, layered, a "rising spiral". [82]

Participation precedes learning. [41]

In contrast to an increasingly predominant outlook, which insists upon knowing all the rules, and perhaps even a mastery of their application (acquired, for example, in private practise and exercise) before fully participating in the real thing, Bateson explores the ubiquity of social interactions which proceed in the opposite fashion: a person is dropped into a performance in medias res, immersed, a participant observer, and picks up how things are done precisely as they unfold around and against oneself.

Bateson makes a further point: formal learning, as in school or in professional training, often adopts the first outlook; informal learning, the second. While it is commonly held that informal learning occurs throughout life, formal learning frequently is expected to occur at certain times of life, and less frequently the older one gets. [74] Bateson suggests both approaches should remain options throughout life, and a key tactic is an appropriate conception of self: clinging to a belief in a fixed self turns out to be a barrier to learning. [64-65]

Because the self is the instrument of knowledge, different concepts of self offer different criteria for truth, whether social or private. [65]

In seeing juxtaposition of all sorts (cultures, personal roles, identities, experiences at different times, different experiences at one time) as an opportunity for recognising patterns or linkages, and therefore as a catalyst for insight and learning, Bateson suggests we cultivate such juxtaposition. This principle leads to some surprising conclusions: for one, that boredom is a learned behavior, and effectively countered by an attitude of learning. [Chapter 8] For another: specialization and efficiency are forms of toxicity, both because "by emphasizing a single thread of activity, we devalue the learning running throughout" multiple activities which overlap [108], as e.g. frequent interruptions or multi-tasking offer [97]; and because "those who will one thing are the most dangerous people around, even if that one thing is apparently something good." [104]

There is in Peripheral Visions some consideration of pedagogy but primarily Bateson's focus is upon learning, not teaching. Implications for teaching are plenty, of course, but typically not explicit. I remarked one exception: stating her intentional use of examples from at least three different cultures to avoid the human predilection for assuming one of just two examples is "superior" to the other. [24]

Knowledge is like the Biblical loaves and fishes, increasing when it is shared. [181]… (altro)