Incidental Learning

You drop your keys, you hear them fall and you pick them up. You see a flicker on the phone to tell you there is a message on your voice mail. While walking around your college campus, you over hear a conversation and find out there is some free food in the next room. These are occurrences that happen every day that are so incidental, you are barely using conscious thought while taking action from the cues of hearing keys fall, seeing the flicker or over hearing the conversation. This is essentially a person who is connected and in sync with their environment.

Incidental events are all around us, in constant motion, appearing randomly. It is information, input and stimulation to connect you to your environment. It is knowledge and awareness. Incidental learning is also prevalent in the workplace. Below is an expert from Wikipedia on Incidental Learning:

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In terms of learning in the workplace, where everything is focused on performance and performance is everything, the informal element of learning needs to be factored into the equation for any real learning to take place. Companies need to add those accidental, informal intersections of learning and performance into the process. They need to understand that the informal side of the equation requires real people in real time: mentors, coaches, masters, guides, power users, subject-matter experts, communities of practice. What needs to happen is that companies and schools need to foster informal moments of knowledge transfer.
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What does this all mean to a person who is deaf-blind or in-between deaf-blind? The activities that go on around a person with a hearing loss and a vision loss is not absorbed in the same way as someone who has average hearing and average vision. Their incidental experiences are not going to be the same. It will be different. I could be duller, brighter, and with some vision problems, they could see double, triple or more. Depending on the frequency loss in the hearing, it could sound very different, creating an experience not like the average person. Like filters in a camera that changes a perspective in a photo. What is seen in one photo, may not appear in another. The angle could give a different view, and a different story.

When one person has a standard camera lens, and another person has a different kind of lens with filters, the same item photographed by these two people may have a drastically different image. These two people would have to communicate an understanding of what their image is, because of their lenses and filters they see a different world. This is like the comparison of a person who is in-between deaf-blind and a person with average vision and hearing. They see and hear different worlds. The input from their environment will be different. They will problem solve differently. Openness and patience with each other while the two photographers communicate to each other, is important for true a true understanding. Otherwise, they won't be able to connect. One will think the other is stupid because they do not have the open mind to realize what they see is different from what the other sees. 

I have had jobs where I had patient and wonderful people who instinctively knew where to cue me in on things I may not have heard or seen. They didn't have to instruct, over explain or patronize me. They just cued me in where I needed. This insight helped me in the beginning of a new job and a new environment. Co-workers would point out things that a person with vision or hearing take for granted. The little extra time the person would take to cue me in or fill me in, initially saved me so much more time later and I was on my way. I had the foundation I needed to take off like a rocket. My co-workers realize this has nothing to do with being slower than others, it is only that  my input systems are faulty, like old wires or like channels broken where other channels are utilized to get the information too me in a different way. Once information can be appropriately inputted into my brain, and I have the pieces, I then can function on my own and be independent. But without this initial input,  the cueing in, or the foundation, it could take years before I fill in the holes of missed information.

In situations that I don't get the simple cues and incidental fill ins, I'm isolated. Feel extremely shut out and I have to work extra hard to fill in the gaps of extra hours of reading and studying. Some workplaces have been like this and over the years it can get exhausting. Even if I have been at a place for awhile, and I do not get the chance to blend with the work culture, co-workers will assume that I have been there for years, I should know all the basics by now. But that isn't the case. If the channel they use is open to them, and mine are broken, I will never get that information they have. This then becomes a stressful environment. I become fatigue trying extra hard to fill in unknown gaps and holes. I'm lost in the dark while others have the light on to search, I don't have the light to utilize to find my way. This can lead to exasperation, frustration and stress. It is similar to someone trying to get instructions and one major piece of turning right or left on a particular street is missed. You now have to back track and find where you missed that crucial information to get where you are going. Sometimes this means you may waste hours of finding that missed piece of information. Finding that missed information when you don't have the keywords is maddening.

If someone doesn't understand that this is not about intelligence, being smart, aware, there will be misunderstanding. This misunderstanding leads to being critical, judgemental, patronizing, and demeaning. Not a fun environment. Asking questions are faced with demeaning statements. You feel as if you never can get ahead of the game. This is not a positive learning environment, but hostility. The teacher or the person with the knowledge need to think out of their box, and learn where the person is coming form in their perspective, not demanding they need to be at a particular learning level. 

Twenty years ago I worked in a veterinary hospital. I struggled with the job for many reasons. One person noted how difficult it was for me because he mentioned how he could be standing a few feet away from the door that was slightly cracked open and hear the veterinarian talking to the client. He could over hear if the veterinarian wanted to do some blood work, or x-rays, or fill a particular prescription. Before the veterinarian would come out to tell the tech what to do, he either had the x-ray machine turned on almost ready to go, or the vials, syringe and needle ready to draw blood or had half the prescription filled. He was tuned into his incidental world. I did not have this advantage.

Incidental is informal learning. It isn't formal classroom instruction, reading regulations, directives, manuals or policies. It is all this stuff that floats around that isn't formally written. It is information that could make life easier for you that is passed on by mentors and other people. Things that cue us in to get ahead of the game and that get that edge is usually absorbed by incidental means or through informal avenues. Connecting with people in discussion, mingling, having exchanges are apart of this edge that is learned by informal events and informal learning. This is how we stay connected and respected as someone, "in the know." Missing out on these oppotunities can put a person at a real disadvantage. Peer pressure will look at them as if they do not have it together.

No one learns from classroom instruction alone. It is even said that those with Ph.D. are not  well rounded until they are out in the world. Their knowledge needs to be experimented in the real world first before they can be considered as having it. They gain their experience after receiving their Ph.D and now can be considered well rounded. Very seldom is someone who just got their Ph.D. considered well rounded in their field until they gain the experience.

The movie, "A Few Good Men" has a scene that demonstrates well that not everything we need to know is written. Tom Cruise plays Lt. Danial Kaffe. Kevin Bacon played Capt. Jack Ross. In this one scene there is a witness on the stand played by Noah Wyle named, Cpl. Jeffery Barnes. Capt. Ross asked the witness if he was familiar with the Marine Corps Outline for Recruit Training and Cpl Barnes said, "yes sir" Cpt. Ross asked, "Can you please turn to the section for code red?" Cpl. Barnes was puzzled and could not because in none of the manuals was there anything on code red. Then Lt. Kaffe came up and asked Cpl. Barnes, "Can you open this book up to the part that tells you where the mess hall is." Cpl. Barnes informs Lt. Kaffee that that isn't in the book either. Lt. Kaffee sarcastically says, "You mean to tell me the entire time you have been at Gitmo, you haven't had a meal?" Cpl. Barnes informs Lt. Kaffee that he has had three squares a day.

Although this scene is trying to prove a point that a code red could happen even if it is not in the manual, I use this as a great example in both the code red and the mess hall that these are events that are not written down. The information is passed on in other ways. When you are deaf-blind, you need to be informed of these things or you most likely will not know about them. What may seem obvious to a sighted and hearing person, may not seem obvious to a deaf-blind person.

A personal story about trying to find a mess hall, is when I went for training in South Carolina for a position I held. I came in the evening before after dinner was serve, so I hadn't been to the cafeteria. The next morning it was pitch black. I wanted to get an early start so I wouldn't be late for my first class day. Looking for breakfast was a challenge. I do not see well when it is pitch black and can be considered legally blind. The woman at the information desk, said go straight back from the back door. I asked, "Straight Back?" She said, "yes ma'am." So I went out the back door as she said and went straight back. It was dark, I could barely see anything and certainly was walking blind. Mickey had his guide dog harness on and I did as the woman said, walk straight back. After about 100 feet, I went right into a deserted building. I looked left and I look right. There was no indication of which way I should turn. I went right and went into more darkness. So I then went the other direction to see if I could find something. I was getting a big nervous as I really wanted to get to class early.

The woman who gave me the instructions how to get to the mess hall takes for granted that she can see lights at a distance and buildings at a distance. I could not. To a person with low vision literally takes straight back, as straight back. I didn't have the ability to see incidental cues to direct me to the cafeteria. I came to a point that I saw some lights, started to walk closer to them and realized as I walked up to the doors, this was the cafeteria. This detour of trying to find the cafeteria was about fifteen minutes. When you cannot see, it can be exasperating, especially when you do not want to be late on your very first day to class. You want to give a good impression. Fortunately I was early to the first day of class. I was fortunate to have Mickey with me.

Most of us may not get accurate instructions, but for a person with low vision, giving some reference points or large landmarks is extremely helpful. For me, I might not see the small subtle things or small signs that will direct me to where I'm going. Others may see the small little iron decor as a landmark, but I may not see it. Wondering to find the house with the iron silhouette of the cat. Missing these landmarks can be exasperating, while a person fully sighted doesn't think anything about it, what's wrong with you? It is so easy to find the house. If they had the same vision loss, it would have been difficult for them as well.

Those with average hearing and vision do not realize how much their incidental world connects them to informal learning. What they think is incidental is small and insignificant, but what they don't realize is this information they learned is absorbed into their brain passively that their conscious mind may not be aware they are storing this information. They have the information in their head, not realizing why they have it, but looking at a deaf-blind or in-between deaf-blind person going, don't you get it? Duh!

When a person starts reading manuals, policies or regulations, their brain is able to piece the information together by their experiences they have recorded in their brain by incidental events. It is so passive that their brain is piecing it together when they do not realize it, while getting all this input in their environment. Imagine learning a text book of science, but going out to an exploritorium, and not being able to see and hear the displays on exhibits that will enabled you to put everything you just read in the science text book together. You would struggle. Life would be abstract with little meaning. No relative experience. A deaf-blind person would rely on feeling, a different way of perceiving the science world in the exploritorium. While an in-between deaf-blind person could use a little hearing, use a little vision and use a little touching. THe person with average hearing and vision would use their hearing and vision. All three different perspectives, all three gaining different experiences, all three would have to communicate to each other in an open minded way.

People learn by relativity. If they can relate to it, they can store the information. If it doesn't make sense, it is harder for them to retain the information. Their awareness of the world around them gives them that extra glue to put it together or that extra filler to solidify the foundation of understanding. The less information you have from missing incidental events, the less you will relate to concepts and learning new things.

A deaf-blind person has to work 2-4 times harder filling in the pieces to come up with the right path to understand a concept. Getting the assistance of extra help with perhaps a key word, or someone pointing out a concept can really relieve the pressure in trying to search for something you have no idea what it is or enough keywords to search for it on the Internet. If you miss the words, you don't have the basis to do an appropriate search. This isn't an issue of not knowing how to search, it is an issue of not having access to the correct keywords to do your search. The difference between searching with one word and three words. If you never heard the other two, your search may take longer or you may never find what you need.

Finding that channel that helps you get the input of information is what at stake here, and some people just may not understand this while they stay on their frequency and judge you while they stay on their frequency, never understanding if they changed over two channels, the pathway of communication and understanding open up and then there is a win-win situation for everyone.