Learning: Is it through Repetition or Recurrence?

For the last several decades there were certain enquiries that resulted in findings on how learning happens with all organisms, especially with human beings. The foremost finding is that, learning happens through repetition of the content or lesson to be learned. Learning theorists from Pavlov, by the end of the 19^th century onwards are of the claim that learning happens through doing same thing in a repeated way. They experimented animals and birds to test this hypothesis on learning.

1. Historical Background 

Thereafter the teaching world embraced this finding as the basic theory on learning, and repetition became the mainstream pedagogy in education. All educational activities, like; teacher development, formulation of curriculum, creation of textbooks, planning of transaction process and evaluation were influenced with the finding that learning happens through repetition.

Classroom process for transaction was totally pivoted on repetition theory, by which teachers demanded drill or doing learning activity again and again, and thus the content was reinforced to be sustained for a longer period. They believed that, without repetition, the learning outcome would be shaken with the learning of other subjects and other units of lessons, and thus learning outcome would be short lived. So that, repetition became the hallmark of face-to-face teaching. The teacher who demanded repetition and drill from the learners became the most committed teacher. The learners who co-operated with repetition and drill became the most obedient ones.  The learners who completed pages of copying exercises as homework, were the most studious.  Though many well-wishers of children had noticed the drudgery and tears of the doers of such drills, there was no way out, as well as an alternative theory to emancipate the learners from the mainstream theory of repetition.

But when the philosophy of cognition became stronger by the second half of the 20^th century, and later when the outlook on construction of knowledge challenged all the learning paradigms until then, at the end of the second half of the 20^th century, the very foundation of the theory on repetition and drill, got jolted. Now the challenge from the theory of recurrence has become so stronger that it could never be discarded from any discussion on learning.

2. The new Challenge

Theory of recurrence considers learning not as a result of repetition, but as a result of recurrence. If we take the dictionary meaning of recurrence, it is like this; to happen or occur again.

When something is happening or occurring again in new form, it is not at all repetition.

Humans can’t repeat anything. Only machines can repeat the activity. The activity is programmed or it had been set already in a special manner. But, can anybody set or programme the behaviour of a human being externally, as done in the case of machines?

We can understand the difference between a programmed action of a machine and a non-programmed action of a human being with the following example;

3. Illustrations

You enter the ATM cabin to withdraw money. You open the door, insert the card and open your account keying with your PIN. Then next menu is opened and you press ‘withdrawal’ button and gets money. After one hour, suppose you have a requirement of same amount of money on an eventuality and you approach the same ATM and initiate all the set processes, you get the money, as you have a good balance. And suppose, you have yet another requirement of same amount of money after one hour due to some contingency. You enter the ATM cabin and order the machine to repeat the process of withdrawal, the machine obeys and you get the money. What the machine does for you is the repetition of paying money. With every repetition the machine is doing what is supposed to be done by that.

 

Is it repetition, for the person who withdraws money from the ATM three times at an interval of one hour? Never, because every time that person is coming into the ATM cabin with a mental set that had been contributed to her/him according the emotionality and thoughts. Thus that person's facial expressions, pacing of movements, communication, and body language change. Her/his actions are not programmed and the actions are not repeated.

Shall we see one more example to understand the difference between repetition and recurrence? You take black coffee every morning at 6.30. Technically you can say that you take black coffee repeatedly. But when you analyse this practice closely, we can say that, it is not at all a repetition. Though every morning at 6.30 you sit for black coffee, your mental set before, during and after are not one and the same. On one day you have a news that makes you happy, but next day some other information makes you worried and the third day still another thing makes you frustrated. Sometimes this happiness, anxiety or frustration may not be stronger and long living, still you take coffee on the current mental ecology. The warmness, flavour and taste vary according to the mental set.

4. Features of Recurrence

So with regard to taking of coffee, every day it is newer and newer experience. Otherwise we can say that taking of coffee is happening again and again with variations in the way of consuming it, in the way of tasting it and in the way of enjoying it.

In other words we can say that the above example of taking in coffee is re-occurrence, means that it falls out or passes with newness in its frequency and intensity.

From the analysis, shall we reach a fact finding that, repetition is an overt performance of a programmed action, and recurrence is something happening again and again with varied objective and environment in which it is happening.

 

If this is our finding on recurrence, and is agreed as a reality, what is the logic of demanding repetition of  words in oral form or written form, rote learning of answers and writing imposition or doing same mathematical problems repeatedly as a learning method?

The thought on reinforcing the content might be the reason behind repetition. If it is the argument, there is a counter argument. Without repetition and drill, there happens learning in our daily life. If so, is there a need for repetition and drill? For example, is it through repetition do we become confident to drive in a new city with complicated network of roads and lanes, or is it through recurrence?  How does the child learn wise shopping? Is it through repetition or recurrence?

It is through recurrence that one becomes confident to drive in a new city. Means, the driver is not repeating the driving,  like the children write imposition of an answer 10 times. One day the driver goes to one point in the city to drop a friend. Next week at a different time he takes a trip to the railway station to pick up a traveller. On the third month he drives the car to go to consult a doctor for himself. Each trip is with clear objective and each time the driver is with different emotion, feeling and need. Each trip is each event or each trip is different from the earlier ones or the trips yet to come.

Likewise, it is not through repetition a child learns successful shopping, were selection of commodities are made wisely and cash is handled accurately. One day the child goes to the shop to purchase two or three commodities as per the list of mother, when there was nobody else to go to the shop. Next time, after two days he goes to purchase one commodity, when he was getting ready to play with his friends. This time he felt some hatred to father who asked him to go to the shop while he was getting ready to play with the friends. This time he was running to and fro. Need not to say, each shopping activity was different, they were re-occurrences, not repetitions.

5. Teachers' Role

To conclude the ongoing discussion, shall we reach a premise that the natural way of learning is through recurrence, not through repetition. If the teacher or parent implements the method of repetition, the learner becomes intolerant and, the learning attempt becomes unsuccessful. The learning outcome would be too minimum. But, if classroom experiences become newer and newer and free of repetition, there would be maximum benefit and all attempts would become successful. Let teachers make an attempt to design recurrence in their classrooms.   

Learning: Conscious or Non-conscious?

There are different findings among psychologists and educational practitioners on ‘how does learning take place?’ One of the findings is that, learning happens in a conscious attempt of the organism (a living thing). That means, learning is something intentionally conceived with the awareness of the surroundings and sensations and thoughts.

For decades this finding got acceptance among the academia, teachers and general public. But, in the second half of the 20^th century, this premise was questioned from different corners. The belief that learning is a conscious process had been shaken and the new parameters were formed as the rudiments of learning theories. One among this parameters is that, learning is non-conscious.

When somebody says learning is a conscious process, it has three assumptions;

a)   Organism does it intentionally.

b)   The providers (those who teach) give it so as to sensitize the organism of learning.

c)    The teaching system makes the organism aware of the need of learning and success of learning.

On the basis of above three assumptions, teachers or anybody who teach anything  think on the three following basic questions;

a)   What are you (learner) going to learn?

b)   What are you learning at present?

c)    What are yet to be learned?

Teacher’s planning for day-to-day classes, preparation for student assessment, and construction of learning materials, like; text books and practice books, were justifying this feature of consciousness.

a)             Consciousness is illogic

How does this feature of consciousness become illogic and unscientific?

The instance of language acquisition is a good one to show the baselessness of learning as a conscious attempt. One acquires one’s mother tongue in a non-conscious way. That means, child, the learner doesn't learn it intentionally. There are no teachers and formalities, like; text books, examinations, repetitions, drills for the child to acquire the mother tongue in the home atmosphere. The child interacts with the parents and relatives, plays with the peers or moves with the neighbours. In such contexts child operates the language in a non-conscious way. Those who interacts or talks with child do not sensitize the child of anything, like; structure, forms, tenses or grammar. Without such direct sensitization by anybody, children learn language of the region. Not only children, adults also learn a new language without direct teaching or sensitization. Almost all Indians migrated to the Gulf for job speak Arabic, which was an unfamiliar language for them before they reach there.

But on the other hand, the writer of this blog had seen big failures in the attempts of learning Hindi by the people in non-Hindi regions of India, though years of formal teaching was given to the learners. This type of dichotomies might have been noted by you, readers also.

So from the above analysis, one thing that we derive is, the way of language learning that human nature demands is non-consciousness.

b)        Non-consciousness is natural

From the above analysis, yet another question arises is that, is non-consciousness applicable only for language learning? No, this feature of learning is applicable with day-to-day life learning activities of cooking, cleaning or washing. There are elements of learning with all these activities. But, nobody is conscious of the elements of cutting vegetables, putting the vessel over the stove or adding the ingredients, in the case of cooking. The person, e.g. mother in the house who cooks curry has only an intention to complete a successful cooking before the guest arrives. She is not at all conscious about the activities of   cutting vegetables, putting the vessel over the stove or adding ingredients. Her thought might be about serving the tasty food to the guest.

With such attempts in other occasions, she learns cooking in a non-conscious way. There is no conscious attempts of learning of cooking in terms of rules and taste of ingredients.

Likewise, one acquires to use the complicated functions of the smart phone within a short period of time, in a non-conscious way. When call comes or alert of SMS is heard, the user’s conscious mind gets ready to respond the communication, she/he forgets how the phone works. The operation of functions becomes non-conscious process to her/him.

So we can reach the conclusion that in nature, learning process is always non-conscious, when it is made conscious the result will be too little. If there are conscious attempts, the organism will identify and repel the content to be learned.   

This variation between conscious and non-conscious attempts be clearly understood by the teachers and pedagogy planners. Then only they can plan the classroom process so as to provide experiences to make learning a non-conscious attempt from the part of the learner.