Attention as the core of education: Collaborative learning from experiences in GP vocational training in the Netherlands

This chapter explores the value of a form of education at the Dutch training for General Practitioners: Learning from Experiences (LfE). LfE is quintessentially different from most other forms of medical education. Although the value of LfE is widely acknowledged by teachers and GP residents, the ‘active ingredients’ that contribute to its merit remain hidden when using a cognitive psychological perspective. They become visible, however, from a phenomenological perspective that describes LfE as ‘embodied education’ that is closely connected to the profession for which it is an education, including the historical development of this profession. What matters for this educational form has more to do with the interaction that is allowed to emerge in the setting. The interaction functions as a site of socialisation, qualification, and subjectification and trains residents’ ability to direct and distribute their professional attention. This allows the affordances of the profession to shape these educational sessions, instead of the other way around. Rather than ‘micro-managing’ learning, the GP institute provides a setting and teacher professionalization training on how to facilitate interaction, and the trust that the participants will use the resources to create and recognise that these sessions have educational value. In that sense, we conclude, the educational philosophy that inspires the doings and workings of Learning from Experiences can be a model for meaningful education in other professions.