Learning As A Way Of Being
Strategies for Survival in a World of Permanent White Water
Vaill, Peter B. 1996, Jossey-Bass, Inc., San Francisco, CA. 

• The book focuses primarily on the turbulent environments of modern organizations in the rat-race of the information age, and thus is meant for readers holding or interested in managerial roles, in the industrial, cultural, or economic spheres
• Vaill argues that the only way today’s managerial leader can cope, survive, and be successful in this white water world is to become a continual learner. 
• The book’s central question is, “What would learning be like in permanent white water?” (p.42)

In Vall's view, in the current model, learning is believed to take place primarily in
an institutions, and that belief is the fundamental error.  Vail states that:

• The essence of the philosophy of "institutional"  learning rests on:       

• It uses the criteria of efficiency, speed and volume to evaluate the process.
• The implication is that institutional learning is likely to be 

• answer oriented
• generating an obsession with "getting the right answer". 

• The model assumes that learning is sequential and cumulative.
• Physical design of the learning environment communicates to the learner "the  
  people who set up this room and this program know what you need to learn; your job is to learn it".
• The environment also suggests that who is in the room is not important, your
   co-learners do not have relevance to your learning process.
• There are rules to be followed.

Vaill couples the concept of the "learning organization" -- continual, on-the-job education and training for managerial leadership -- with the continual change that permeates the modern workplace to create an innovative method of "learning as a way of being",  based on self-direction, creativity, and expressiveness. 

• Self-directed learning -  LWB1

• in contrast to pre-structured, rigid mass indoctrination
• the learner has substantial control over the purpose, content, form and pace of learning and is the judge of when sufficient learning has occurred. 
• a systematic self-directedness is crucial in understanding the problems to be addressed and the learning entailed in the process of solving them

• Creative learning - LWB2

• exploratory learning, goal-less and without a measurable criteria, process-creation

• Expressive learning - LWB3

• in contrast to conventional classroom learning, in real experimentation
• learners often do not know what is going to happen, whereas pre-structured classroom demonstration filters out the complexity.
• The fragmented nature of classroom, learning often deters learners from seeing how different parts of the learning processes relate to each other and to the whole.

• Feeling learning - LWB4 

• developing self-acceptance of the feelings that arise during learning
• Vaill notes that learning something new (i.e., being a beginner) often causes people to be anxious, fearful, and occasionally panicked. These feelings need to be included as part of the learning experience., as well as to develop learning attitudes of curiosity, courage, trust, self-respect, optimism and perspective
• Feeling learning also consists of learning about meanings, "how meanings are formed, how they are challenged or lost, how they can be sustained and revitalized" (p. 46)

• On-line learning -  LWB5

•  learning that occurs simultaneously with other processes
  .
  "The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school building and nowhere else."

From J. W. Gardner, 1964, "Self Reknewal" HarperCollins, New York 
 

• Continual learning -  LWB6

• continually exploring the meaning of all the qualities of learning as a way of being for their interrelationship, open-mindedness, willingness to be a beginner

• Learning, in this light, is an ongoing lifelong process, constantly occurring in the midst of working and living

• Reflexive learning -  LWB7 

• thinking and learning about our own learning process. 
• this type of learning captures the concept that "human consciousness is naturally reflexive. It notices itself, and it notices itself noticing itself" (p.85).

• http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~hepg/HER-BookRev/Articles/1997/1-Spring/Vaill.html
• http://www.bme.ohio-state.edu/cid/library/Learning.html