Reflection On Emergent Change

Chapter 2

Emergent Change

A subtle but fundamental difference presented throughout my work and the conventional wisdom of the formal education community is that I believe learning is personal and we learn all the time. Here the difference is very slight. I believe the ‘education establishment’ supposes that we teach children – the quality of the learning is dependent on the quality of the teacher. From my point of view it is that learning takes place in an environment and what is learned depends on how that environment meets the child’s needs. My ‘quality teacher’ is one who provides an environment that satisfies all needs and allows the child’s curiosity to emerge.

The underpinning principle of the approach taken by the author is that learning, including behaviour and change is an emergent property. Therefore all behaviour including what is described as severe, dysfunctional behaviour is functional for that person’s internal and external context. That such behaviour has been the ‘best’ for allowing a child to get their body into homeostatic equilibrium in the context of their living environment. That is what we describe as dysfunctional is functional for that child in that circumstance at that time.

The issue is these behaviours are learned in early childhood, at a time when the formation of the brain becomes a blue print for the future. To facilitate the complex development of a child’s behavioural repertoire all early learning becomes ‘hard wired’ so it is easily