Aptavakyam as a Strategy o

APTAVAKYAM AS A STRATEGY OF LEARNING

Dr. P. Subbarayan

Knowledge is universal. In achieving it two different approaches viz. esoteric, and scientific are witnesses. Each approach has its own merits and demerits. Just as a coin has two sides, every established theory has its advantages and disadvantages. As human beings we cannot attain perfection in any endeavour. The best we can do is pooling up the knowledge acquired by different approaches and thereby infer the truth just as the six blind men conceptualised the elephant.

One optimistic trend developed during this century is an attitude to synthesise western and eastern lores. One is empirical, objective and scientific while the other is experimental, intuitive, speculative and subjective. So far, a linguist, a mathematician, a physicist or a psychologist arrived at the conclusion that the east and the west differ only in their approaches. They also felt from their scientific approach that the West missed the benefit of human touch. More over, all could realise that both esoteric and scientific approaches are complementary but not contradictory to each other. Capra (1984) wanted a dynamic inter-play between mystical, intuitive and scientific analysis. Murphy (1962) remarked that both the East and the West are coming dose very fast. Orinstain (1972) contended that what the West missed by training the left hemisphere of the brain alone can only be compensated by following the esoteric methods of training the mind.

The present paper is prepared with a view to supporting the said trend with one more specific case. The theme around which I weave the thread is the process of ‘Learning’. Needless to say that learning is universal in both animal and human kingdoms and that there is neither life nor progress in this world without learning.

The history of learning is as old as the life on the earth. Whether philosophers, educationists and Psychologists identify, understand, measure, predict or control the process of learning, it goes on. To under stand the process of learning countless efforts were made, are being made, and will be made in the East as well as in the West. In the East, mainly traditional ways were in vogue. The understanding and application of learning was inherent in their philosophical enquiries. In the West, at the beginning of the century when efforts began to isolate psychology from philosophy and crown it off as a positive science of behaviour of organisms, the topic of learning appeared on the scene in its full colours. Psychological enquiry upto the sixties was dominated by the study of learning alone! But during the remaining decades of the century the enthusiasm died. Today, we, the psychologists and the educationists, show vested interest in research on learning.

Notwithstanding the rise or fall of the enthusiasm in learning research, let me consolidate the scene upto date. All in all, we have more than thirty theories of learning developed in the West alone. There may be more theories buried in esoteric psychologies, indigenous educational systems, religious practices, and eastern philosophies. The western theories of learning can be broadly classified into two big families - S-R conditioning theories and cognitive-field theories. They inherited the two philosophical schools, scientific realism and positive relativism.

S-R conditioning theorists maintain that learning can be understood by S-R bond. The relationship between stimulus and response can be measured, predicted, and controlled. There are differences among these theorists with respect to their emphasis on stimulus, response, bonding, reinforcement or continuity, the organism, the environmental forces and so on. But most of them wedded themselves to one principle that man is nothing more than a machine. They do not allow any change for subjective concepts like awareness, consciousness, introspection etc. More importance is attached to the practice, randomness of trials, drive, need, habit formation, extinction, discrimination and the like.

The second group of psychologists started with the reaction of the organisms as a whole. They argue for molar behaviour, purpose, insight etc. They define learning as the reorganisation of the perceptual field. They take into account the awareness, consciousness, introspection and other concepts related to subjectivity. Of course, some compromised the two enemy camps and forwarded their learning theories to the best advantage of understanding it.

Very recently, some psychologists could find new trends in explaining the learning. For example developmental psychologists like Piaget and Bruner. The adherents of humanistic psychology like Rogers, and Maslow developed the learning theories with a high degree of human touch. Those psychologists with better sociological ground put forth the social learning theories. Among this group it is worth to mention the names of Dollar and Miller, Rotter, Bandura and Waltairs. The gravity of their theories is that learning is possible by observation and imitation in a social setting, rather than in laboratory conditions.

We can classify the learning theories based on one more criterion. Every psychologist has base in one discipline and tries to develop a theory with the concepts and principles of that subject. In the early periods philosophers made their learning theories based on the principles of philosophy. For example mental discipline, a perception and self-actualisation theories. Watson, Pavolv, Bolles and others developed biological models. Hull’s model is mathematical and he imitates Newton, while Estes model is statistical. Wertheimeir, Kohler and Kofka Gestalts and others based their theory on perceptual laws. Lewin borrowed the concepts of physics and chemistry. Bandura used the sociological approaches. As such there is a change for me to discover a learning strategy based on the Indian philosophy.

I would like to suggest that learning by verbal instruction is very important in animal and human learning. Its role is changing the behaviour is direct, simple and effective. It is not at all an over statement if we say that most of the stock of knowledge of human beings is possible not by perception, inference or imitation but by verbal testimony. Dollard and Miller hinted at the same. Bandura supported its importance.

The nature, importance, mechanism, significance and applications of learning by verbal testimony were identified, developed, felt and applied in India about two to three thousand years . Learning by verbal testimony was developed by Indian philosophers who were mainly theistic, orthodox, speculative, subjective, intuitive and religious.

Epistomology of Indian philosophy, like any other epistomologies is concerned with the nature of knowledge, its means, and acquisition. The famous six systems of Indian philosophy all in all accepted six means of acquiring knowledge. They are perception (pratyaksham), anumanam (inference), analogy (upamanam), arthapatti (implication) and anupalabdhi (negation). There was an acute need for them to prove the existence of the ultimate reality, atman etc., which are abstract concepts. Perception, inference, analogy, implication, and negation suffer from serious defects and are not fit for teaching abstract concepts. Ultimately they had to depend on Sabda. These six means have been named as pramanam (to give the meaning of measure, standard, or instrument). They measure, standardise or acquire pramiti (i.e. true, knowledge) of things.

The words Sabda pramanam, aptavakyam, aptopadesah, aptavacanam are Sanskrit synonyms. Aptavakyam conveys the idea that the intention of a trust worthy person brings about a change in the knowledge, actions, and or attitudes, values, and beliefs etc. In terms of modem western psychology we call this change as ‘learning’. Thus it is deduced that aptavakyam is a learning strategy. In ancient times Mimamsakas defined dharma, the duty, as those acts or behaviours of individuals as prescribed by the veda. In this case the Veda is apta and the regulation of behaviour of individuals by aptavakyam is learning.

The mechanism of aptavakyam learning is based on the psycho-linguistics of verbal conditioning. It can be described as follows. The apta communicates his ideas, mostly through sentences. Sentence is nothing but a group of words expressing an intention. The verb in the sentence is very important in the context of aptavakyam learning. The verb when used in the injuctive mood (with in suffix in Sanskrit) it conveys five types of meanings viz. command, invitation, permission, politely express a wish, and ask question. The learner from the early stages of life through out his language development gets conditioned to the words in the injuctive mood. He acts automatically when he listens to the verb in the injuctive mood. What action he has to do will be determined by the root of the verb­ word. This is the psycho-linguistic principle that is responsible for aptavakyam learning.

As to the query who is an apta, they defined the term apta as one who has real knowledge of things, and who tells the truth. He should have a desire to convey the right thing to the learner. The learner with some degree of belief changes his behaviour in tune with the apta’s intention. By the mechanism of stimulus generalisation the learner gets conditioned to any apta.

            Aptavakyam learning like any other learning takes five steps. The first step is an awareness of the problem. It may be on the part of the learner or apta. The second step is the development of a strategy for learning. This may be by the learner himself, or by apta or by both. The third step is acceptance of the strategy by the individual. The acceptance may be voluntary on the part of the learner, by persuasion, or by the pressure from the apta. The penultimate step in implementation of the strategy by the learner himself or with the apta’s guidance. The final step is acquisition of the learning with a sense of accomplishment by the learner as well as by the apta.

            Aptavakyam learning is both a mediating and non-mediating process. It is a natural way of learning because it generally starts with cognitive and ends with affective through cognitive or the vice versa. But some times, like in S-R learning it starts with cognitive and ends with cognitive or affective. However, the order depends upon the individuality of the learner i.e., his intelligence, capability, attitude, interest etc. For an intelligent individual the learning is in its natural course i.e. from cognition.

Learning is caused in the learner by an external force in aptavakyam learning and hence it can influence the learner’s learning at any stage. As a mediational learning it is pervasive in nature, i.e., ahead of the reciprocal model suggested by Bandura. He balanced the importance of the factors of the learner, and the environment equally and advocated their reciprocal nature.

            Aptavakyam learning is a life-long process. Right from the time of birth of child to its death it brings about a change in its personality for eg., the doctor or the prophet may be an apta just before the last breath. Through all stages of developments neo­natal infancy, baby-hood, child-hood, adolescence, adult-hood and old age, the apta changes behaviour of the organism depending upon the characteristics of that particular stage.

            Apavakyam learning is highly, a humanistic model. It is subjective. So it always has an in-built capacity for sympathy, empathy, love for all human feelings. It is the simple, direct, and effective way of learning of attitudes, beliefs, values, interests, emotions and so on.

            Aptavakyam learning is controlled trial-and-error learning. Where an apta guides the individual to associate or contiguite, particular response to the stimulus naturally, the randomness of efforts gets reduced. The individual gets the benefit of avoiding unnecessary, unhealthy and harmful trials. The guess work on the cognitive part is taken care of by the apta. The individual had to co-ordinate the muscles only by practice.

            Aptavakyam learning is a guided insight. Insight according to Gestalts is transfer that is due to an understanding of basic principles, the modes of attack, or to any other type of non-specific transfer. It is described as sudden unmistakable and immediate apprehension of the real. It’s a spontaneous occurrence of a fertile idea or a reconstruction of the situation. If the individual is intelligent enough, he can understand the problematic situation as a whole and can arrive at a solution by mentally reconstructing the situation. An apta can help the individual in cognizing the situation, correlating its various parts to comprehend and give meaning to the whole situation. It makes the obtained insight unmistakable and real.

            Aptavakyam learning is an extended imitation learning. It is essentially a social learning theory because a wide variety of social behaviours are learnt from. Bandura recognised three types of reinforcements: direct external, vocatious, and self-administered. Aptavakyam learning extends to one more reinforcement named aptavakyam reinforcement. Bandura’s learning model assumes reciprocal inter­action between the learner and the environment. More over, it can act on R overt or implicit, S from any direction directly, R, awareness, or rewarded R++. Hence it is termed as, pervading reciprocal inter-action.

            Aptavakyam learning is at the peak of the humanistic learning. It is the effective learning to inculcate attitudes, beliefs, and values. The unconditional affection and voluntary service of the apta develops self-­actualisation tendency in the learners. It is always inclusive of sympathy, empathy, warmth, soothing and love. It can prevent the erosion of human values.

            Aptavakyam learning has its applications in child-rearing, education, counselling, psycho-therapy, industry etc.

In ancient Indian educational system aptavakyam, learning has done a good job. Each and every fact need to be learnt by observation, experimentation, and learning strategy to teach many things. In fact, aptavakyam operates through holy scriptures, cultural heritage and it is an agency of education. We have many applications of aptavakyam learning in education, for eg., deductive method, heuristic method, problem solving method, teaching of concepts, inculcation of attitudes, beliefs, values etc.

Counseling is a field where the counselor makes the individual to identify his own problem, and solve the problem. Though counselor is the central figure much has to be done by the counselor himself. The counselor as an apta can produce a healing effect.

In behavioural therapy many things are settled by aptavakyam. Apta’s image, form, thought, sight, gestures, look, word, injuctive, sentence, explanation, guidance, counseling etc., is a modifier of an individual’s behaviour. In any country or religion, most of the mental ill health cases can be cured by a prophet. The principle behind this curing effect is the aptavakyam learning.

I have presented a case for synthesis of eastern and western out-look on ‘learning’. Despite my handicaps in terms of resources and exposure I could visualise a concept much in vogue in ancient times and at present. Aptavakyam learning is a current flowing behind a vast majority of affairs of learning. We experience its applications in child rearing, practices, education, clinical settings, counseling, industry etc. The aptavakaym learning has its firm ground in philosophy, psychology, sociology and culture. I could identify it with my understanding of Indian philosophy, western psychology and their inter-dependency.

Really, we have a gap, even today, in our understanding of learning. As Hill (1977) rightly pointed out we need a learning theory covering the following aspects

1. Ideally covering the whole range of learning phenomena in human beings and animals;
2. Dealing with complexities of human symbolic learning and problem solving insights,
3. Taking into account the development,
4. Effectively dealing with the topics of motivation and reinforcement, and
5. Emphasising acquisition of skills and also learning of motives and emotions from the ­developmental point of view.

It appears to me that if we can develop a theory of learning by name aptavakyam theory of learning it may add something more to the already existing learning procedures. I have been also experimenting with aptavakyam learning in my psycho-pedagogic laboratory. Most likely, by the time this essay reaches the readers, my second one on this issue reporting experimental evidence will be taking its shape.

In this context, I appeal to the readers to provide me a feed-. Can aptavakyam learning which has been in practice in the east for centuries really be translated into the western psychological frame work? What I intend in this volume is only of a speculative and reflective thinking. Can we develop it into a full-fledged learning theory and is it necessary?