Does teaching make us uniquely human?
Some thoughts about the nature of teaching and human being

What makes us uniquely human? This is a question frequently asked in the field of primatology. Primatology is a field of study that deals with the behaviour, biology and evolution of great apes. These areas are often studied in relation to that of human beings in order to understand the differences between us — in other words, what separates us from other nonhuman primates, and what makes us uniquely human?
This question has been bugging me in the past several months. I must clarify that I am not a specialist in primatology. I am an educational student specialising in education and technology. I have no formal background in neither primatology nor anthropology, but this question grabbed me and wouldn’t let go ever since I saw the video of Ayumu, a very intelligent chimpanzee from Japan, who can count and memorise numbers. It was in a course on cognitive sciences that I took as part of my Master’s degree studies, and the professor presented us the video of Ayumu being tested on his understanding of numbers. Watching the video made me realise that chimpanzees are very close to us in many ways. They look close to us, they sometimes behave like us, and they can even count numbers and memorise letters. They can even use computers to take tests. Then, what are the things that differentiate us? What are the things that they cannot do and that we human can only do? What makes us uniquely human?

I immediately thought about education. Do animals educate? In order to answer this question, we need to be aware that education can take various forms. It talks about both teaching and learning. It can be teacher(adult)-led or student-centred. The level of learner engagement can also vary; it may look quite passive or proactive.
The video of Ayumu provides a solid evidence that animals, or at least great apes, can learn. But how about teaching? Do animals teach? I know that some animals have a capacity to show others how to do things. Five years ago, I saw a wild whale in the South of Japan who was showing her offspring how to jump. The pair of wild whales practised jumping several times until they finally dived into the deep ocean. The mother whale was obviously trying to show her how to do things. But can we say that she was teaching her offspring how to jump? This question takes me to a fundamental question of what teaching really is.

What is teaching?
Oxford Dictionaries defines the word ‘teach’ as to: “Impart knowledge to or instruct (someone) as to how to do something.” Then what does it mean to instruct someone? According to Oxford Dictionaries, it is to: “Tell or order someone to do something, especially in a formal or official way.” This definition indicates the instructor’s verbal and/or physical involvement in the learning process.
Historical definitions offer further insights into what teaching entails. For example, Paul Hirst, a British sociologist, contends that teaching should include “considering people’s feelings, experiences and needs. Teaching is only teaching if people can take on what is taught” (1975). For him, teaching requires emotional capacity and intelligence to consider learners’ feelings, experiences and needs, and adapt the way of teaching to cater to the learners. Do great apes have the emotional capacity to understand all these?
Further insight is offered by Jerome Bruner (1966), who argued that:
Teaching is vastly facilitated by the medium of language, which ends by being not only the medium for exchange but the instrument that the learner can then use himself in bringing order into the environment.
If we borrow Bruner’s definition, it then means that animals, including great apes, cannot teach because they cannot use the language.
Still, some theorists object to Bruner’s definition, arguing that he does not pay much attention to emotional skills that take in teaching, and that he equates symbolism with verbalism (e.g. Jones 1968).
Can animals teach?
So if, for now, we exclude the language aspects of teaching and focus more on emotional and physical aspects, can we still say that animals could teach? In other words, do animals show any kinds of emotional compassion to others, which in turn leads them to physically intervene with others to help them learn?
To answer this question, I read several books about great apes and also took an online course (MOOCs) about primatology provided by Kyoto University in Japan. The MOOC was led by Tetsuro Matsuzawa, a renounced professor in primatology, and focused on similarities and differences between the mind of humans and chimpanzees. One of the video materials in the course showed how chimpanzees learn to crack open nuts. According to Matsuzawa (2016), there is no active teaching from adult chimpanzees to their infants in their learning of how to crack open nuts. Professor Matsuzawa further contends that their education is always in the form of ‘master-apprenticeship’, where infants (apprentices) learn from adults’ (masters’) behaviours by watching them do things. One of the characteristics of this master-apprenticeship in chimpanzees is “no active teaching” from the masters. Another video in the course confirmed this theory. The video showed a group of Japanese monkeys that are known for their unique behaviour of washing potatoes in the seashore. The video explained that the behaviour originates in one female monkey in the community, but there is no evidence to show that any active teaching was involved in the transmission process.

The intelligent bonobo ape Kanzi: an early form of teaching?
I continued to explore more literature in this topic and found one interesting TV documentary from Japan. It was about an extremely intelligent bonobo ape called Kanzi who is believed to understand the English language. In this video, Kanzi was trying to help his sister understand what the researcher is saying and respond to the request by providing physical interventions such as slapping, hugging and grooming his sister. The researcher, Professor Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, also writes about this case in her own book (Segerdahl, Fields and Savage-Rumbaugh, 2005). In her book she explains:
Savage-Rumbaugh asks Tamuli to slap, hug and groom Kanzi. When Tamuli does not understand, big brother Kanzi tries to teach her the meaning of words. When Sue asks Tamuli to slap Kanzi, and Tamuli does not react, Kanzi exemplifies what it means to slap someone by slapping Tamuli. He then moves back to give Tamuli a chance to reveal what she learned. (p. 82)
Clearly, Kanzi is showing his emotional capacity to consider his sister’s situation as well as her level of knowledge, and demonstrates his physical capacity to teach her how to do things. Could we say that this is an early form of teaching?

Of course we cannot generalise this case to other bonobo individuals in the wild. It could be that Kanzi is only special, especially given that he has spent all his life in captivity and received a special kind of education. But can we say that what he is showing us is a potential capacity of bonobo species to teach others? I would rather not go deeper into answering this question as a non-specialist in primatology. However, I would continue to explore this topic from a pedagogical perspective, because thinking about what teaching is will give us insights about what human being is, and what makes us uniquely human.
Bibliography
Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction (Vol. 59). Harvard University Press.
Hirst, P. H. (1971). What is teaching?. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 3(1), 5–18.
Instruct. (2017). In Oxford Dictionaries.com. Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/instruct.
Jones, R. M. (1968). Fantasy and feeling in education. New York: New York University Press.
Matsuzawa, T. (2016). KyotoUx: 0007x Origins of the Human Mind [MOOCs]. Accessed at https://www.edx.org/course/origins-human-mind-kyotoux-007x.
Pring, R. (2012). Bring back teaching. Nottingham Jubilee Press.
Segerdahl, P., Fields, W., & Savage-Rumbaugh, S. (2005). Kanzi’s primal language: The cultural initiation of primates into language. Springer.
Teach. (2017). In Oxford Dictionaries.com. Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/teach.
