Connectivism

This is the concept from the reader that I have found the most challenging and I think this is mainly because I like social constructionism and connectivism in some ways contradicts it.

“Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organisation or database).” (Siemens, 2004)

I do not entirely agree with this statement. I do not believe that learning can exist outside of a person. I think information can exist but that learning is about comprehension and it is people who possess this ability. With regards to an organisation learning I believe this occurs because the people within the organisation have a new understanding and therefore collectively implement change. It is however still about people.

 If learning happens within a person and experience is how we truly make something part of our understanding I could not see how connectivism could have any truth or importance, particularly in relation to my practice and professional networks. I then read this quote by Karen Stephenson:

“Experience has long been considered the best teacher of knowledge. Since we cannot experience everything, other people’s experiences and hence other people become the surrogate for knowledge” (Stephenson, undated).

Firstly I like that this statement acknowledges that the best way to acquire knowledge is through experience but it also tries to address what happens in the absence of experience and whether in these circumstances it is still possible to learn. I began to consider the statement carefully and realised there was truth in it, and that it applies directly to me.

As an actor you are required to understand and emotionally connect with a character you are playing so you can give as honest and believable a performance as possible. You are also faced regularly with portraying things that you have never directly experienced. For example, if you were asked to portray a rape victim (and pray to God you had never personally experienced it) the closest way of understanding it would be to read about it, or talk to someone who had experienced it.

Where does that leave us with regards to only really comprehending something if you experience it? I think reading about it or talking to someone is not enough to fully understand the emotions involved. This is where I think connectivism comes into its own. As an actor you would then relate the emotions the rape victim describes to your own experiences trying to find connections and common ground that would help you understand the event and play it truthfully. It is knowledge through thinking and reasoning but it is still connected to your own experience and understanding. It is about empathy and I think would prove easier for a person with ‘intrapersonal intelligence’ (Gardner, 1983). Perhaps this is why in my experience the best actors are always very empathic people.

If to understand something you have not experienced you need to make connections with things you have experienced it then follows that the more you have experienced the easier it will be for you to comprehend things outside of your experience. Therefore there appears to be a distinction between children and adults here. Children may be in more need of experiencing something to understand it than adults because their current pool of experience is small and it is therefore harder for them to make connections.

As an actor the more life experiences you have the easier it is to understand and connect to experiences you haven’t had. Perhaps this is why drama schools usually accept students who are slightly older (between twenty-one and twenty-five).  This is something that does not happen so much on musical theatre courses. Usually people are eighteen and indeed in some cases younger (there were several sixteen year olds on my course). I think this is probably because in musical theatre it is also important to be a good dancer and as a dancer you have a short working life. I am beginning to wonder whether this realisation relates back to my inquiry blog. Is part of the reason musical theatre performers are generally considered less good actors because they are too young when they train as actors? Perhaps their life experience is too little at that point so they never acquire the skill of making the empathic connections between their experiences and other people’s.

This thought may also have connotations for Melissa’s inquiry. She is wondering about the differences in training between American and British performers. There is a really interesting statistic that states that on average a Broadway cast is ten years older than a West End cast (I don’t know where the statistic comes from or if it is exact but from experience I know the principle to be true). Could Americans place more value in age and experience than we do here in Britain (something that is important for both connectivism and social constructionism)? Even if you are a young performer on Broadway you will have had the opportunity to work with many much older more experienced ones, who will in turn improve your understanding. I have found chances to mix with really seasoned professionals quite limited here in Britain, with the oldest person being under thirty in some casts I have worked in.

Connectvism has made me appreciate that as an actor your professional network is suddenly unlimited. Acting is about imitating and recreating life, “to hold as ‘twere, the  mirror up to nature” (Shakespeare, 1601). As such your professional network suddenly incorporates all the books you have ever read that you have emotionally learnt from, the documentaries you have watched that have taught you and moved you, the people you have watched arguing at the bus stop because you think they would make a good character study, and so on.

References:

Durrant, A. (2010) The networked professional reader.

Gardner, H. (1983) Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences, New York:  Basic Books.

Greenhough, M. (2010) Inquiry - what are the differences between the ways English and American dancers are trained, http://melissagreenhough.blogspot.com/2010/11/inquiry-what-are-differences-between.html accessed 7 December 2010.

Iles, M. (2010) Inquiry, http://markgraemeiles.blogspot.com/2010/11/inquiry.html accessed 7 December 2010.

Shakespeare, W. (1601) Hamlet, [Jenkins, H. (1982) , 2nd ed, London:  Arden].

Siemens, G (2004) Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age, http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:5HZrx9Kfgl8J:scholar.google.com/+Connectivism:+A%20+learning+theory+for+the+digital+age&hl=en&as_sdt=2000&as_vis=1 accessed 5 December 2010.