Genie: An Inhumane Learning Experience

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Recommended: Explores the similarities and differences in psychodynamic, behavioural and cognitive theories

1. Intro

This essay will use cognitive, sociocultural and humanist teaching theories to discuss how it is we learn. “Genie” will be used to see the result of a complete disregard to theses theories and a possible result of an inhumane learning experience.

Learning is a complex word to define as it varies on the theorist asked. The premise of learning which is conventionally agreed upon is that “its an acquisition of knowledge or skills, experience, or being taught”(Oxford, 2016). There is a premise that can be considered to be generally agreeable within pedagogy about the more complex issue of how we learn. As humans we have a “nærmest ubegrensede forutsetninger for å lære”(Befring, 2014, p 142). Meaning that we learn as a result of being …show more content…

This resulted in a stunted physical and cognitive growth:

When she entered Children’s Hospital at the age of 14 – still in diapers- Genie was the size of an 8-year-old with the language and motor skills of a baby, speaking only a few words – including “stopit” and “nomore” (James, S. D, 2008)

2. Sociocultural …show more content…

The humanist theory has been criticized for being subjective in its research as opposed to cognitive theory, which has a “large amount of supporting data to back up their theories”(Hobbiss, n.d) and from a practical stand point; applying the theory can be challenging as it is “highly dependent on the skill of the teacher”(Hobbiss, n.d). Considering what happened to Genie, she didn’t learn properly because she wasn’t catered to as a human being. According to Edvard Befring (2014), the student should be considered as someone with “personlige intensjoner, interesser og drømmer”(Befring, 2014, p 12), and by not harnessing these the teacher doesn’t have “grunnlaget for effektiv læring”(Befring, 2014, p 12). So the reasons leading to her reoccurring “silence” would be derived from negligence; as the “team members were divided into combative camps, accusing one another of exploitation. Butler criticized the team members for overtesting the child”(James, 2008). This resulted in her being transferred to different foster homes, several of which were abusive where she “immediately regressed”(James, 2008). People learn when they are engaged as human beings with expectations to

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