From: learning-org-approval@world.std.com on behalf of Chau Nguyen Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 1996 1:18 PM To: learning-org@world.std.com Subject: Intro -- phuoc-chau nguyen LO6569 I'm phuoc-chau nguyen, a refugee from the far East . I work in Silicon Valley for a high tech firm, serving as S/W dev manager, Dev program mgr, project mgr... My experience with learning came from being born into this world, as a refugee, as a manager, continuing on through my school work. Recent inquiries and dialogues about learning prompted me to write in hope that I can somehow contribute to our "knowledge bank", by offering another cultural perspective. Here are my thoughts: on learning: real learning takes place when the self is free of greed. What we are doing here is all for the self, we participate in this discussion to accumulate our knowledge and better ourselves, in one way or the others. We do this to GAIN. We are still trying to figure out the look and feel and implementation of learning. we are still driven by our five senses . you only truly learn in the deepest sense of learning when you have no stake in the situation or the ourcome ..when this happens, the self will be used only as a medium to observe, but does not give you any bias direction which may interfere with learning. we must accept the fact that we are not all created equal. some are sages, some are idiots. We all have different parents, sibblings, genes... and the reproduction process does involve CHANCE. with that in mind, there will never be a learning definition for the human race, that includes corporate america. in underdeveloped countries such as mine, learning is a very personnal thing and was not forced upon the population until the French came over 100 years ago. With that, came the compettion, the measurement, and the true learning as defined by nature stopped, and the new "thing" that we called learning started. It is sad to say that once this is started, you can not stop it nor go back to the old days. You're tained. Learning in the modern world goes well with greed. I learn more so I can either be more respected or make more money or so that I can talk the language or subject that others can't, so I can have a different status... An incident occured last year when I went home that made me think more about how learning occurs. After twenty years away from home, I went home to visit my mother. Living conditions are bad. The first night I was there, after I laid down to sleep, i looked up at the ceilling and saw a few gekkos. I was terrified. The gekkos, however, were just there, going about their business. I had this fear that they would drop and land on my body. the next day, i asked my mother for a rubberband. she got very suspicious "why do you need one" she asked. I told her that I wanted to get the gekkos, they should not be allowed to romp around the ceilling like that. My mother simply said to me "the gekkos live here permanently, you're only being here on a visa". She said it with love and a firm tone, walked away, and i never did get any rubberband. one simple statement from a 76 year old woman taught me more about humanity and learning than my twenty years reading books, getting a degree in OD and so on. because at that moment, the self with all the ambitions and greed was absent, and the only naked self was there to receive. western culture equates learning to power and wealth, and that leads to competition all by itself. in our culture, learning carries the same connotation as wisdom. knowledge comes from education and training, it is the human doing. learning comes from living, and wisdom is never associated with wealth or power, it is the human being. . we put people in catagogies here, and we rate them and we dehumanize them. people with wisdom don't neccessarely want others to know or to come to them, but people with knowledge do. the next time when you see someone who is quiet, mind their own business, makes very little money, has a low level job in corp, you may want to think twice about passing him/her by without asking for his/her opinion. knowledge can be aqquired from others, learning can only be aqquired from within. knowledge is external, like a bank. you deposit money in it, accumulate it, and it does yield interest. we have mistaken that "interest" as learning. but it is not. when a child is born, learning begins. when the child enters school, knowledge begins. Learning starts with birth and ends with death. when we send our kids to kintergarden, we open an intellectual bank account for that child. Depending on how much you deposit, the interest will grow accordingly. But the interest is in the same currency, just more of the same. Wisdom carries a difference type of currency, and it does not come from the bank of knowledge. you don't earn Yen in interest in US bank. You have to exchange for it. meaning you have to give up something to exchange for other. and just like we will never have ONE currency for the planet earth, we will never have a learning way for everyone. it's all different, and it all works. perhaps we should not try to analyze what works where and try to apply it here. the challenge for western society is that we have invested too much into one currency. how many of us are willing to give up this currency, where the interest continue to mount, the social status continue to rise, to trade for some unknown currency(and maybe unvalued and unaccepted) by society. The worst (or exciting) thing is, we don't even know where real learning will take us...it may even prompt us to check out of this life... learning is not associate with emotion, like fear or hope or anger or sadness or happiness but knowledge does. learning is pure and simple, is intrinsic, is natural, can't be taught, can't be valued, can't be measured. Is not owned by our head or our heart or our soul but our whole being. on expiration on degree: degree can't have an expiration date. It is the validation of one's effort and accomplishment. And that's why we have license. License has expiration date, because license validates the knowledge. phuoc-chau nguyen (chau@corp.sgi.com) Silicon Graphics, Inc. -- "Chau Nguyen" Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: -or-