Learning and Unlearning
A Personal Journey of an Intimate Relationship between Learning and Unlearning
This article is a personal testimony of part of my story with language, literacy, and knowledge. During the first half of my life, I acquired a lot of what is referred to as formal education or formal learning via schools and universities. Like most educated people, I approached life from a standpoint superior to that of the ‘elements’ themselves (people, things, social relations, phenomena…). I started with official and professional texts, concepts and theories, standardized measures and ready meanings – the approach followed by institutions in general and by the educational institution in particular. In the second 30 years of my life, I have been trying to listen to the elements in my surroundings, including my inner voice and the voice of Nature. In other words, I have been busy learning in a way that is radically different from formal education, a way that includes unlearning much of what I have learned during the first 30 years. I have been busy, for example, in healing myself from the assumption that thinking is superior or higher than living or doing. Being attentive to my surroundings and faithful to my experiences and inner voice, and using words rather than be used by them, became main guiding principles for me in this mixed process of unlearning and learning. It is very hard for me today to think of a situation where I would learn something meaningful without unlearning being part of it, or of a situation where I am unlearning something without learning being part of it. In this sense, learning and unlearning are as intimate as the growth and death of cells in a living body. It is hard to think of a healthy body that grows without cells forming and cells dying at the same time. Similarly with the process of growth in understanding: it embodies both learning and unlearning.
This intimate relationship between learning and unlearning was first manifested to me when I became aware for the first time, 25 years ago, of my illiterate mother’s mathematics and knowledge. This article is basically about comparing our two worlds: the world of my “illiterate” mother and the world of my “literate” self. My fascination with this comparison has been a main inspiring element in my thinking and work for the past 25 years. She continues to be an invincible treasure for me every time I find myself in a situation where I need to look at things from a radically different worldview. It is a fascinating story about how learning and unlearning are intertwined as integral parts of growth and understanding.
I first articulated this relationship in an article I wrote in 1990.[1] My ‘discovery’ of my illiterate mother’s mathematics, and how my mathematics and knowledge could neither detect nor comprehend her mathematics and knowledge, mark the biggest turning point in my life, and have had the greatest impact on my perception of knowledge, language, and their relationship to reality. Later, I realized that the invisibility of my mother’s mathematics was not an isolated matter but a reflection of a wide phenomenon related to the dominant Western worldview.[2] In this sense, the challenge facing communities everywhere, is to reclaim and revalue, i.e. learn, the diverse ways of teaching, studying, knowing, relating, doing, and expressing, and at the same time, unlearn much of what we were made to take for granted, such as believing that one can learn only through curricula, tests, and measurement.
The ‘discovery’ of my illiterate mother’s mathematics made me aware of the diversity in which people live, learn, construct knowledge, relate, express etc. It also made me aware of the role of universal thinking, solutions, claims and declarations, and of dominant forms of knowledge and texts, in contributing to the disappearance of that diversity, and to the dominance of one path for “progress” and “development.” It made me aware of how language can be used very effectively to control what the mind sees and what it fails to see. To define people in negative terms, for example, is part of the problem with the dominant discourse. To define a person as ‘illiterate’ (i.e. in terms of what s/he lacks instead of what the person has and what s/he does) is one striking example. That illiterate person can have tremendous knowledge and wisdom, and can express one’s self in beautiful ways; yet all that is ignored and what s/he lacks is stressed.
I had to unlearn that literacy is about statistical measures (how many learn the alphabet) and to learn that the main concern is our perception of the learner and what happens to her/him in the process of learning the alphabet. The main concern, for me, became to make sure that the learner does not lose what s/he already has; that literacy does not replace other forms of learning, knowing, and expressing; that literacy is not considered superior to other forms; and that the learner uses the alphabet rather than be used by it. In other words, my concern became to make sure that in the process of eradicating illiteracy, we do not crush illiterates.
The story with my mother started when, in the 1970s, while I was working in schools and universities in the West Bank region in Palestine, trying to make sense out of mathematics, science and knowledge, I discovered that what I was looking for has been next to me, in my own home: my mother’s mathematics and knowledge. She was a seamstress. Women would bring to her rectangular pieces of cloth in the morning; she would take few measures with coloured chalk; by noon each rectangular piece is cut into 30 small pieces; and by the evening these scattered pieces are connected to form a new and beautiful whole. If this is not mathematics, I do not know what mathematics is. The fact that I could not see it for 35 years made me – as I mentioned earlier – realize the power of language in what we see and what we do not see. Her knowledge was embedded in life, like salt in food, in a way that made it invisible to me as an educated and literate person. I was trained to see things through official language and professional categories. In a very true sense, I discovered that my mother was illiterate in relation to my type of knowledge, but I was illiterate in terms of her type of understanding and knowledge. Thus, to describe her as illiterate and me as literate, in some absolute sense, reflects a narrow and distorted view of the real world and of reality. In my attempt to unlearn that distinction, I learned that a more significant and meaningful distinction would be between people whose words are rooted in the cultural-social soil in which they live – like real flowers – and people who use words that may look bright and shiny but without roots – just like plastic flowers. The ‘discovery’ of my mother’s knowledge ‘forced’ me to rethink the meanings of words such as math, knowledge, literate, and illiterate; it made me unlearn familiar dominant meanings concerning these words while I was acquiring new perceptions and meanings concerning them.
Regaining the importance, ability and habit of independent investigation of meaning of words that I hear, read and use became a central theme in my life. This independent investigation of meaning naturally embodied unlearning ready meanings, which I acquired through educational, mass media, and other institutions, as well as learning (actually constructing) new meanings that were rooted in my experiences, convictions, surroundings, and culture.
The realization of my mother’s knowledge challenged several assumptions and myths, which are usually embedded in official discussions on literacy, and brought in new ones. It challenged that a literate person is better than an illiterate person; that an illiterate person is not a full human being; that s/he is ignorant; that by becoming literate, a person would be magically transformed and poverty and ignorance would be wiped out; that a literate person is freer than an illiterate person; and so on and so forth. The main myth/ assumption it brought in was that every person is a source of meaning, knowledge and understanding, and that every person is logical. [One of the biggest resistances that I experienced in working with mathematics teachers was for them to accept that there is no child who is not logical.] The fact is that my illiterate mother was neither inferior in her knowledge nor was less human or less free. Giving literacy magical powers and claims is simply a false promise. I had to unlearn all that and much more in the process of learning about her ways of living and knowing. In the process of unlearning the hypocrisy which I learned in schools and universities (e.g. in the form of saying what teachers and professors expected me to say in order to pass their tests) I had to learn again what I practiced as a child, namely, to say what I mean and mean what I say (a statement that is alien to institutional logic and to career-oriented professionals).
My engagement with my mother was neither objective nor subjective, although it included elements of both. My engagement with her touched the depth of my intimate convictions and beliefs. The dialogue between her worldview and mine helped me to remove many masks, which I acquired through my education. It was not easy for me to take them off. It took me several years before I was able to admit my new convictions publicly. I was simply risking my career, prestige and reputation.
At one point, I really thought that what was needed to make my mother understand mathematics better was to teach her how to read and write, to teach her some accepted terminology and ways of the dominant mathematics. I thought if I only could teach her how to put what she knew in terms of the categories which I studied and taught, then her knowledge would be much better. I thought that if I can mix her mathematics with mine, I might come up with something fantastic. Gradually, however, I realized that her knowledge and mine could not be mixed; it would be like mixing real flowers with plastic flowers – her knowledge being the real flowers. Her knowledge cannot be taught or transmitted by ways, methods, categories, and language, which I studied and was teaching. Put differently, language and thought cannot comprehend life in its fullness. At the same time, I realized that my kind of knowledge could not be integrated into life the way hers was. I do not like the term empowerment, but if I allow myself to use it I would say that I was empowered by my mother rather than the other way round, although dominant claims have it that my mother needed empowerment. I realised that what I really could do was to articulate my realisation of her knowledge and make it visible to the world of the literate (like I am doing here), hoping that we learn how to be humble again and become aware of the diversity of ways of learning, knowing, perceiving, living, and expressing, and that such ways cannot be compared along linear measures. I had to unlearn the arrogance I acquired through my education and to learn to be humble again.
“Literacy as freedom” is a slogan that has become popular in recent years. For me, the most fundamental aspect of freedom is “making one’s path in life by walking it.” Freedom is not choosing between path X and path Y, although it may embody this aspect. “Making a path in life by walking it” implies being attentive to and acknowledging reality, and also being faithful to one’s experiences of that reality and to one’s convictions and principles. In this sense, we are all co-partners in understanding reality and co-authors of the meaning of the words we use to express it. Understanding reality has as many authors as those who care to put an effort to independently investigate meaning of life and words. For me, personal interpretation and independent investigation of meaning are fundamental characteristics of freedom as well as fundamental human rights (which, ironically, are not mentioned in the universal declaration of human rights!) They stem out of free interaction between the world within the person and the world around the person, as well as of reflection and honest expression of that. Liberation and freedom are linked to diversity and pluralism. Thus, freedom from universals is crucial to any concept of freedom.
In this sense, I feel that my ‘illiterate’ mother was much freer than me. She made her path in life by walking it, and not by fragmenting knowledge and teaching them to her separated from life. She learned by observing, doing, reflecting, relating, and producing. She created her own path and constructed her own understanding. One big difference between my mother and me is that if I needed to find the meaning of a word I would look it up in a dictionary, encyclopaedia or some other book. In contrast, she would look for meanings through her experiences and life. My way was the lazy way. I would rarely bother to put any effort to explore the meaning by reflecting on my experience with the word; no independent investigation of meaning and no unlearning were involved. I simply learned what the dictionary said and parroted that. She was authoring her understanding. In contrast, I was an imitator, solving problems, most of which have been solved for a trillion times, in boring repetition in schools around the world for the past 100 years at least. A typical question in my type of education was “what are the dimensions of the biggest box we can make out of a rectangular piece of board?” A typical challenge for my mother was, “how to make a beautiful dress out of a rectangular piece of cloth, that would fit a particular person.” In addition, she was free in the sense of not being bound to an institution to give her a job. Her knowledge sprang from life and was connected to life. She was needed everywhere she lived. She was her own boss. She was free from the fear of losing her job. Unlike teachers, trainers, experts, and the like, her commitment was not to institutions and professionals; she did not need them to get legitimacy. Her commitment was to people whom she cared about.
One objection that could be raised here is that knowing how to read and write can help people be free in terms of not depending on others in ‘moving around’ in the modern world. True, but my main point in this article is exactly this: how to gain this kind of freedom without losing other kinds, which in my opinion are extremely crucial.
I find analogies and parables to be excellent in embodying learning and unlearning. Thus, I will use the analogy to cars to clarify what I was trying to say above. In imitation of the word ‘illiterate’, I will use the term ‘car-less’ to define people who have no cars. Instead of talking about such people as those who walk, those who use what is abundant and healthy (legs), we stress what they don’t have. In some sense, a person who has a car is freer to go to more places, and to farther away places, but s/he is bound to drive on pre-paved roads. It is much harder to make one’s own path using a car. ‘Car-less’ people (just like ‘illiterate’ people) probably cover less area, but are freer to move around and explore the surroundings. They literally make their paths by walking. Seeing the landscape from the window of a car (or a plane) gives the illusion that the person is learning about the landscape but it is totally different from feeling the soil, the plants, the fresh air, and nature’s sounds. Some may say why not have both? Fine, as long as we do not lose the ability to reach places where cars and language cannot reach. It is very hard to be wise if you travel all the time in cars or planes. In contrast, it is very hard for a farmer, a sailor, a true scientist, a true artist, or a traveller on foot, not to be wise. Wisdom is listening to and being attentive to nature and surroundings. It does not consider increasing the speed of life as a main goal or value. Gandhi, who is considered wise by many, once said, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
The biggest problem with literacy is substituting words for life, and considering concepts more real than reality. In this sense, literate people need to free themselves from the hegemony and tyranny of words (i.e., to unlearn the ready, and often designed, meanings and connotations that are propagated with the words). This is crucial in a world that is marching fast towards catastrophes that are created mainly by literate people, fully armed with science and technology, such as polluting air, land and ocean; controlling minds; and creating tools of total destruction. Nothing, for example, has done as much irreversible harm, in terms of polluting the human body, food and nature, as the science of chemistry during the past 100 years! It is crucial to unlearn that science and technology are neutral and raise questions concerning the values that govern our perceptions, actions, and relationships.
Just like any other tool, the impact of literacy depends on the values that govern society. This is crucial in how literacy affects people and to what ends it is employed. Since the main values that govern modern institutions and professionals are winning, control, and separation from life, it follows that literacy would mainly serve these values. Thus, a group that wants to be involved in working on literacy, needs to unlearn dominant values, and discuss values that it would like to be guided by in the community, and the meaning of literacy it wants to embody in its work and thought.
One thing that I unlearned recently is related to what is referred to as ‘mother tongue.’ Controlling minds through an official ‘mother tongue’ was dug out and told by Ivan Illich in his book Shadow Work. Very briefly, the story goes like this: at the same time Columbus went to Isabella and presented his plan to extend her rule and control over new lands, another man, with the name of Nabrija, went to Isabella and presented to her a plan to control her people within the boundaries of her country. He told the ambitious queen that the way to control her subjects’ minds is by teaching them one official language, which later was referred to as ‘mother tongue’, and making sure that those who speak differently feel embarrassed or diminished. He had two books ready for the language he forged from various languages that were spoken at the time in Spain: a dictionary and a grammar book. To her credit, Isabella told him he must be out of his mind to try to force a whole nation speak exactly the same language, with the same meanings. Nabrija’s ideas had to wait another 150 years, when the French picked them up to help establish the French state and French education. Other European countries soon followed.
With texts forming the main tool in education, our minds become what Gustavo Esteva and his colleagues refer to as textual minds, rendering them uprooted and homeless. The tool of the alphabet reduced me to a person able to work mainly through texts. My mind and my thinking, and the terms I used and their meanings, were confined mainly to textbooks which I studied and taught. Discovering my mother’s mathematics and knowledge helped me discover how deeply my knowledge was anchored in textbooks, how much my mind was pulled away from life and shaped by words. Education has transformed knowledge and learning into commodities, and students and teachers into consumers and competitors, and into becoming more individualistic and detached from real life. Becoming aware of my mother’s knowledge helped me realise the oppression caused through literacy, through being confined in my knowledge and learning to texts. In my attempt to cure my mind from being purely textual, I realized that we experience much more than we can understand through the mind, and we understand much more than we can express through language.
Considering reading and writing as a basic human need often robs people of what I consider to be more basic, which is the ability to express one’s living and one’s understanding in some form, which for many may not be language and literacy. My mother, for example, expressed herself through beautiful clothes, a farmer, through what s/he grows. And so on.
We can only teach by doing and loving what we do, by embodying in our lives, actions and relationships what we want to teach. We teach honesty by being honest; language, by using it creatively and meaningfully; science, by constantly observing, questioning, experimenting, and discussing.
I can say that I have been lucky with three things in my life: I lived a good part of my life in the pre-development age; a main teacher in my life was an illiterate person; and I lived most of my life without a national government. The three provided me with a worldview that is not attainable through institutions and professionals. I feel lucky because I had to rethink constantly of the meanings of words, because I had to be responsible for doing what I thought was needed, and because I learned how to live with what is available.
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[1] ‘Community Education is to Reclaim and Transform What Has Been Made Invisible,’ in the Harvard Educational Review Feb. 1990.
[2] See, for example, Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization The Fabrication of Ancient Greece, 1785-1985, Rutgers University Press, 1987.
Munir Fasheh
Director, Arab Education Forum