A Pattern Language — Pattern 18. Network of Learning

Christopher Alexander is monumental. I finally got to his Pattern Language.

Pattern 18 talks about Network of Learning:

In a society which emphasizes teaching, children and students—and adults—become passive and unable to think or act for themselves. Creative, active individuals can only grow up in a society which emphasizes learning instead of teaching.

And later:

Schools are designed on the assumption that there is a secret to everything in life; that the quality of life depends on knowing that secret; that secrets can be known only in orderly successions; and that only teachers can properly reveal these secrets. An individual with a schooled mind conceives of the world as a pyramid of classified packages accessible only to those who carry the proper tags.


New educational institutions would break apart this pyramid. Their purpose must be to facilitate access for the learner: to allow him to look into the windows of the control room or the parliament, if be cannot get in the door. Moreover, such new institutions should be channels to which the learner would have access without credentials or pedigree—public spaces in which peers and elders outside his immediate horizon now become available.…

Between 1977 and 2021, the thing that has changed the most in education is development of online tools, resources and connections that can be fostered through online presence. I don’t know if this ideal design of physical space could ever be achieved (although my nerdy teenage self would be drooling over this concept). But evolution of online courses and such massive storages of information as Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg and many more, is the kind of new educational institutions that Alexander talks about.

Naturally, with massive amounts of useful things, there is abundance of distractions and time-wasting resources as well. What young and old minds alike need is the ability, skill and habit of curating the vast ocean of information and entertainment there exists.

The difference between how Alexander imagined the new system of education, and the internet as we know it, is that there are no designated architects, administrators, and pedagogues. Anyone with a YouTube channel can become a pedagogue (or a preacher, for that matter). The question, again, is that of individual choice and curation — leading into matters of authority, and dispersed administration.

There still are a lot of unsolved issues raised by “A Pattern Language”, like that of tighter communities, gap between cities and country, or personal vehicles that are causing divide and raise other concerns. It’s good to see, on the other hand, how the flow of time and progress resolves, or at least, evolves some of the matters.

Tea and meditation

“I meditate to be more productive” (or efficient, or focused) is like saying, “I drink green tea to fight possible dementia.” Possibly, reducing risks of getting dementia (or Alzheimer’s, or ) is one of the benefits of tea. But no one drinks green tea like this, as a medicine. Depending on your preferences and effort you want to put it, you can keep a stock of your basic sencha or hunt down more expensive limited harvest gyokuro or anything like that, and that’s going to be for something other than medical reasons. You’re someone who enjoys tea. Who values it for its own qualities, and not for the side effects. Surely, you can take your tea as medicine, but I doubt anyone actually does that.

Meditation is the same way. It’s because you believe that it’s the right path for you. Be that enlightenment or something else you’re seeking. Or maybe you’re there in your practice that you don’t seek anything, it is just the way you live your life. But it’s not a hack to stay organized in the things that are very far from everything that meditation stands for or is part of.

And yet, the author here is ready to contradict herself. Who can judge what the day is for someone else? Maybe someone starts off meditating as a therapeutic measure, and finds something more than that.