Importance of Cultural and Social Influences on Learning

Frozen Fluidity

The transfer model of learning, when taken to its extreme, assumes the act of teaching implies that learning occurs (Schraube & Marvakis, 2015). From this perspective, as long as the teacher teaches, the student will learn. The flow of knowledge is therefore unidirectional. More contemporary theories of learning account for an individual student's motivation, willingness, and ability to learn, while other models incorporate reciprocal interactions between teacher and student. When the student seeks to expand their influence over their lives, through a process called expansive learning, society necessarily influences the learning choices made by the student because expanding one's influence over their life requires consideration of cultural and social expectations. Learning can therefore be a mechanism through which a person increases their ability to make cultural and social contributions, which in turn increases their value to society and thus security. The expansive learning process, according to Schraube and Marvakis (2015), takes place at brick-n-mortar colleges and universities.

The expansive learning process stands in stark contrast to the digital revolution in formal learning environments (Schraube & Marvakis, 2015). Once again, the transfer model appears to be emerging as the dominant model in the learning 'marketplace.' Course content, institutional and instructor reputations, and convenience are commodities to be bought and sold. What is lost is the community of learning that can only be found on a brick-n-mortar campus. Accordingly, Schraube and Marvakis (2015) refer to the new commodity as frozen, because students and even teachers are increasingly marginalized from the creation of these products. The logical conclusion would be that society will suffer accordingly, because learning outcomes will be less a product of cultural and social expectations, and more a product of the education marketplace.

Brockmeier (2002) strips our pedestrian assumptions about memory and its role in our lives. An individual's mind and its remembering and forgetting processes are like a finger stuck into the stream of time, only instead of a continuous flow in one direction the finger finds a place filled with eddy currents. Our minds are therefore continuously buffeted between past memories, the influences of our present cognitive and psychological state mind, and our expectations for the future. Since our mind is the main player in this interpretive process, a Freudian perspective would assume the interpretations of past events are influenced by both the conscious and unconscious mind. This model places equivalent importance on the processes of remembering and forgetting, which stands in stark contrast to a historical emphasis on remembering as the only 'good' memory outcome and villainization of forgetting.