I have realized that learning is a process, now that may even seem kind of obvious at the moment, seems like it would be common sense, and yet, we don't live according to this basic fact, at all.
I mean, as parents we'll judge and react to a child who is doing something in a seemingly 'strange' way, simply because they haven't yet 'learned' how to properly do it. As parents, we'll get frustrated when we've told our child to do something a certain way but they don't get it right the first time and we'll get annoyed like I can't believe I have to explain this again, weren't you listening?? Listen when I tell you something! And here the child learns to associate 'not knowing something' as being 'bad' or 'negative'.
This will even lead to things like trying to hide what you don't know. Take for example the ability to read. That's kind of a biggie that we'll react to in various ways. Maybe feeling pity for an adult who can't read. And for an adult who doesn't read they can fear being stigmatized or feel like they are stupid or 'less than' in some way because they didn't learn to read for whatever reason. This also goes along with reading disabilities like Dyslexia for example, where individuals will feel embarrassed or ashamed for not being able to read effectively and it is to this day, actually treated like this is some problem with the person like there is apparently something wrong with them, because how learning works just isn't understood, at all.
What's fascinating is how we can have schools and educators that are trying to effectively teach but yet learning is still not understood. And that's because when learning is not understood by anyone, then the educators haven't effectively learned how to be effective trainers themselves. I mean, imagine trying to teach someone how to bake a cake if you don't even know how. This is basically what is going on now within our education systems, and why the majority of our cakes are coming out half-baked. That is to say, why our education system is not turning out effectively educated individuals, and why they have to keep lowering the standards just to make it look like they aren't really failing.
What we forget, is that learning what we know now took a process. If you can speak/read/write – it took years to learn that, years of daily application and practice in school. You had to actually sound out the letters and words, you had to move your face and mouth and learn how to shape the sounds into the words of the particular language of the society in which you grew up. You had to physically move your hand with the pen/pencil to shape the letters. And it did not come out perfectly at first. It was a lot of wobbly scribbles and goo-goo's and ga-ga's.
You have to actually go through a process of application over time moving yourself to learn a new skill/ability, we're not born with these abilities, we have to develop them. So, it really doesn't make any sense to judge or react to another being when they don't know something because – it is simply an indication of what they haven't learned yet. Which doesn't mean that they aren't able to learn it with time and application.
So, we've got it all backwards when we go into judgment toward another for not knowing something yet, because it's not that they are in some way lacking in themselves, because they may very well possess the potential and capability to learn the skill/ability, they just require to go through the necessary practical application steps to develop the ability.
So this misunderstanding is really a shame when we consider how children are being treated in our education systems as if there is some disability they have just because they haven't learned something effectively yet, because it takes time and they may just require some more time until they get effective at it. We don't all learn at the same speed – which is also an important factor to understand within how learning works, and why our education systems fail so many – because the school does not have the ability to cater to an individual child's needs. This is even the case in college as well.
There is no care to ensure that every student has effectively learned the material they are studying to their full potential, no – the way it is currently designed is you all have to go through the material at the same pace, and those few that can learn fast enough will be able to learn most of the material while the majority are not going to get all the material, and that's why you have so few at the top of the class making A's, while for most it's B's C' and D's and beyond. And the grades you get/how well you do in school are going to play a major role in what kind of life you are going to have, whether you will have enough money to have a dignified life, or not.
So the stakes are high, and we go through a lot of stress because of this point. In a post to come I'll share my personal experiences in how not understanding how learning works impacted my life, and how things have changed so much for the better now that I understand how it works, so that you can benefit from this understanding too.
For a real in-depth understanding in detail of just how the learning process works and how we have a natural learning ability, check out the interview series on Eqafe:
This series has been so valuable in that it is some of the most informative interviews I have ever heard about a subject that is so important as it affects all of us in all aspects of life.
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