David Boulton – Learning Activist

Unlike other creatures whose evolution is almost entirely based on the mixing of genes, human evolution, throughout the history of our existence, has been based on the sharing of learning. We live very differently today than our ancestors did 10,000 years ago, not because our genes are different, but because our learning is different. Like no other life forms, we learn to become ourselves – our consciousnesses – within worlds our predecessors learned to create.

There isn’t anything we can say
about anything we know
that exists independent of our learning it so.

Not just how we come to know what we know, how we come to become who we are.  Our sense of self is learned. Our “feelings” are learned.  “I” am learned.

Though learning is the central dynamic of every moment of our existence, most people think of learning as something they turn on and off and only sometimes do in order to gain knowledge and skills. The gap between the real effects of learning and the effects we attribute to learning is filled with misattributions that misdirect our ongoing learning. “Raised to believe”, “pay attention”, “socialization” – we have a great number of ways of describing learning and the effects of our learning on our lives that direct us away from realizing the effect of learning on our lives. Everytime we misattribute the effects of our learning to other causes, the misattribution directs our learning away from realizing the true cause and in doing so decreases our agency to healthily learn onward. The pervasive and chronic misattribution of learning’s effects is itself humanity’s greatest learning disability.

Just as looking back we can see the history of our learning, our future will be what we learn it to be. All the hopeful future outcomes we can imagine depend, absent miracles, on learning together. Absent miracles, all hope depends on a more learning oriented population learning together. 

The two biggest impediments to a more learning oriented population are 1) our learning disabling conception of learning and 2) the commonplace acceptance of predatory and/or parasitic value extraction (that induces and exploits acquired learning disabilities).

My work is an attempt to make the case for learning to understand learning differently because I think everything depends on us doing so.

Bio / Background

Personal Opinion Blog dAilogues (deep dives with AIs)
Comments about my work from scientists and educators.

Main Websites:
Main Blog
Core of my Work: Learning Stewards (this site)  *KEYS*
Politics and Ethics
Archives re Learning: Implicity.org
Children of the Code Documentary Project (Background on “reading”) Children of the Code
Stewarding Learning to Read – OLSN – the Online Learning Support Net
Magic Ladder / Interactive Orthography (learning to read system): Magic Ladder Library   Magic Ladder Ebook Library 

YouTube Channels:
Children of the Code
Learning Stewards
Implicity

Social Media
LinkedIn Profile 
Facebook
Facebook Learning Stewards
Facebook Magic Ladder
Facebook Children of the Code
Twitter

alternate incomplete index 

The following clips are two of 28 clips excerpted from a “Curiosity Invited” conversation between Dr. David Bryan and David Boulton that took place on March 7th, 2022. For the other clips visit:  https://learningstewards.org/clip-redefining-learning/

THE ARENAS