Understanding as the transformation of what is already known

The conventional image is that we (and other students) reach an understanding of something after a period of puzzled wrestling with the material. Understanding is the end-point of learning. However, there is an important sense in which understanding (of a rudimentary kind) precedes effective learning. Trying to develop this conceptually, I draw on Heidegger's account of hermeneutics in Being and Time (1962). The individual is seen as dwelling in an already-interpreted world with which they have to come to terms. The focus (especially in university and other adult education) becomes the learner as the puzzled, would-be interpreter of the writing and speech with which they are confronted. The interpretation is attempted on the basis of what is already known. However, the struggle is not purely individual. I argue that the paradigm of meaning-interpretation in the context of learning is conversation in that human learning is best considered participatory.