I remember years ago reading Edward T. Hall, the anthropologist who wrote "Understanding Culture" in the 1950s. If I recall correctly, he used the terms "high context" and "low context" to describe a continuum of cultures. High context cultures are those in which there is a tremendous amount of information in a shared "field," meaning that explicit communication is somewhat redundant. These are cultures in which subtle body language and knowing looks are all that is needed to communicate. "Low context" cultures require a great deal of elaboration to get messages across, because there is little in the way of shared and common context in which to embed every day communication.
I always thought of this as an interesting counterpoint to the "Oral/Written" designation. It seems to me anyway, that writing, talking and sensing are all communication strategies, and while certain cultural contexts will select some strategies over others, all strategies are available to everyone, even if reading is a skill that has not yet been learned by individuals. What put me in mind of this was my exposure to the Visual/Auditory/Kinesthetic learning styles work (more at: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/learning/styles.html) as well as the fact that most Aboriginal people I know claim to be part of an oral tradition, but tend to describe themselves as visual learners. When I work with Aboriginal folks, I always set my default note taking style towards the visual, and I use mind maps, pictures, flow charts and squiggles to record and order information. So how is it that self described "oral" cultures in North America tend to rely so heavily on visual learning strategies? Well, in fact here on the West Coast, you probably have heard of totem poles and potlatches, which are elaborate ceremonies and cultural products that are as much about the visual pageantry as they are about the content. And within these things is a message that is transmitted orally, although the reminders are all visual and kinesthetic: dances, masks, carvings, and so on. All of these things "carry" the story with them. What is happening here in fact, is that there is a very high context, in which the culture operates, and relatively small numbers of representations are able to animate the entire culture. Nothing happens in a potlatch that doesn't have about 5 or 6 meanings, and everyone nods knowingly when certain dances are danced and certain foods are served. So this has some interesting implications for being culturally sensitive when working with information. A high context culture may require little more than reminders to help people recall all that has been talked about and dealt with over the day, what Bernd gets at by asking people to "recall in mind" rather than "reading the news." Low context cultures, in my opinion, tend to be less comfortable with the limited information that sometimes comes out of Open Space small groups, where people have been too engaged in the process of conversation to write down much of what was said. This can lead to some people expressing absolute joy at the conclusion of an OST meeting while others will appear to be completely flummoxed by what just happened, and reading the reports in no way helps to explain to them why it was such a high for so many people. Of course this is a somewhat tangential discussion to the one about literacy. Very often, illiterate learners will compensate for their inability to read by being strong in other areas, but it is often true that illiterate learners are very visual people too, and able to employ their right brains phenomenally. A friend I work with, Brent Cameron, (http://www.wondertree.org) has had a lot of success facilitating these kinds of folks to learn read by helping them to see words as pictures and encouraging them to become elaborate with the language. Other learners who are more kinesthetic can learn to read by making letters and words out of tactile substances like wood or metal and actually manipulating them into words. In designing any kinds of process, attention to learning styles is a huge part of my preparatory work. It's not that I try to guess who learns in what way, but by covering lots of bases and having lots of options available to people, I try to make sure that everyone is able to find a comfortable way of learning and contributing. The recent discussions about ways of recording OST events are marvelous, and contribute a lot to my own learning and thinking about how to do this. Chris --- CHRIS CORRIGAN Consultation - Facilitation Open Space Technology Bowen Island, BC, Canada http://www.chriscorrigan.com [email protected] * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
