The Need To Know

In 'Philosophical Reasoning' the author, Nicholas Rescher, proposes that:

"At the basis of the cognitive enterprise lies the fact of human curiosity rooted in the need-to-know of a weak and vulnerable creature emplaced in a difficult and often hostile environment in which it must make its evolutionary way by its wits."

I read that as, 'the need to know is a fundamental survival trait in humans'.

This is at odds with the other better-known "need to know" phenomenon describing the restriction of information regarded as sensitive. The latter was a major bugbear of mine during my days as a dance competitor, where I consistently felt that I was being drip-fed information at a rate that hindered my development. Not that I blamed my instructors.

Not at all. The urgency was in the preparing of us for competition, and they didn't want us to be side-tracked by extraneous information. I interpreted it as their being most comfortable with a parent's "do as I say" paradigm. However the approach did rob me of the ability to tailor my development to suit best my needs; and slower, less accurate assimilation because there was only a small contextual framework with which I could associate new material. "Need to know" left me not knowing the right questions to ask.

It wasn't until my second year, when things seemed as if they would remain unchanged, that I threw down the gauntlet at my dance teachers and asked them to challenge me. To their credit, Carole and Jeff threw even the kitchen sink at us (my then partner and I); and the results came quickly - a leap in the number of re-calls to the floor.

I made a promise then, to myself, that I would not ever teach in the same way.

The principle of providing as much information as the learner can possibly take has several benefits, and just as many drawbacks.

• It is intellectually highly taxing on both parties.
• The instructor bears the burden of organising the information in order to reduce the onset of student saturation.
• It has a greater setup cost because of the larger contextual framework. Initial progress can be perceived as slow but once established, the assimilation phase of the learning process is comparatively speedy, flexible and accurate.
• The distribution of the group according ability and commitment is rapidly established.
• Highly self-motivated students benefit the most with this approach. It is not suitable for lowest common denominator teaching.

I got to thinking about this because of two recent experiences: one when I was asked to teach a group of secondary school dance students (more in a later entry); and the other with Conjunto Laloma.

We'd been working on a tremendous lot of stuff over the past week, and I realised that I hadn't done the best possible job of organising the material nor emphasising enough where the weight should lie. One cogitation session in the shower later (I do all my best thinking there) et voila! I had a firm design for the workshop. It looked like this:

Part 1 - Changing the feel between son and son montuno by altering the proportion of instruments playing the arpeggiated cinquillo-based rhythm vs guajeo rhythm.
Part 2 - Tresillo rhythm and its variations, counterweighting, and handover points. Developing a stronger handle on this fundamental motif.
Part 3 - Introducing a regular reference pattern.
Part 4 - Riffs, stabs and moñas.
Part 5- A sneak peek at the whole thing. Assembling the full rhythmic context with a regular reference rhythm, a syncopated rhythm, sobremontuno, and moñas.

I knew it was going to be a tough ask for a 2-hour-something session, but I desperately wanted to establish as much of the full context as possible. Implicit within Nicholas Rescher's statement is the requirement to act (or actively decide on inaction) upon the knowledge gathered. Conjunto's been pulling 2 workshops a week, and it was soon going to be time to employ the 'whole-part-whole' learning principle; so we could have the context of complete songs combined with specific exercises.

Knowledge means little if unaccompanied by the will to effect change.

Despite the leisurely discussions in between exercises, accompanied by tea and chocolate cake, we managed to make it through all five planned parts - albeit the last felt only the slightest of touches. It's enough to be satisfied with, and more than enough as a starting point for next week.

Loo Yen Yeo