Exploring the Biological Roots of Cognition - A Conversation with Jinan KB
Cognition is a strange word and not a very commonly used word by practicing educators. It feels academic and detached from the act of a group of young people learning in the world.
But when you look at the dictionary definition of cognition – the "mental action or process of acquiring, storing, retrieving, and processing knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses" – this seems pretty fundamental to what we do as educators. But what if our understanding of what it means has been heavily biased by the Western modern scientific paradigm? For example, in the difference between learning the world and learning about the world via the linguistic labels and symbols that we create to represent aspects of it.
My guest this week Jinan KB is offering a radically different description of what natural cognition or the biological roots of cognition actually are. I absolutely love these kinds of conversations, as they challenge me right at the edge of my understanding, given my own conditioning into particular ways of knowing (about) the world. It also feels like a really alive part of what we're being asked to do now... to explore more generously and expansively the space of what is possible, in order to think/do/be differently in the educational and societal predicaments in which we find ourselves!
Jinan is a researcher of natural cognition, cognitive autonomy, and the biological foundations of knowing. His work began with a simple but unsettling question: How do human beings naturally create knowledge? In 1991, Jinan stopped reading in order to investigate this question directly. For over four decades, he has explored this question through lived engagement with children, non-literate artisans, indigenous communities, design education, and everyday life. He is the author of Awakening Beauty and works with parents, educators, designers, researchers, and communities interested in recovering the conditions that allow human intelligence to flourish naturally.
Jinan’s website: https://www.jinankb.in/
Impact of literacy on consequence: https://youtu.be/WG9uJN-UoSc?si=0sMtaGuwLe4sn9Py
How do Children Create knowledge? How teaching is detrimental to a child's learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3A-8iI4Py4
What is Knowledge? Implicit and explicit knowledge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IhVFs4b8wA
How schools and toys are damaging children? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z72rbcSpi7o
Storytelling and Reading are damaging for children: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4ZVLDpfzLI
Word and the World form two different Cognitive systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qHZNIEwio8&t=1s
