Day 200: Learning is a Process (Part 2) – My Personal Experience

So did not understanding how learning works have any significant impact in my life? Let's take a look.

By the way, this post is a continuation from the previous post Day 199: Learning is a Process - Did you Know That? So if you haven't read that, you'll want to start there first.

One of the first and probably the most significant ways it impacted me was in school. In the beginning I was pretty good at all the various subjects. Yet as time went on, things became increasingly more complex, there was more information to work with and more skill required, and I started making more mistakes. As I was making more mistakes, I took this to mean there is something wrong with me, because I hadn't been making so may mistakes before and took this as a sign that I am 'failing' instead of realizing that it is part of the learning process itself.

So as this pattern continued throughout school, and it is really exacerbated by the way schools are set up currently, as you don't really get 'second chances' at anything, so it's like this misunderstanding of how learning work si s built into the very structure of the school system itself, because if it was understood that it takes time and effort and repetition to effectively learn and integrate something, it wouldn't be designed this way where you have a certain amount of time to get it, and if you don't get it in that time, oh well. If it was understood that it's going to take as long as it takes for each individual to effectively understand and integrate something, this would be reflected in the design of school curriculum, where the courses/lessons would be able to fit according to what each student requires, if the purpose of school is really to educate. Because the way it is now, it is really about putting you through a one-shot course where you either make it or you don't, so there is no checking to make sure that each student has really learned the material or skill and if they haven't then making sure that each student has what they need to do so. That doesn't happen at all.

So as I progressively made more mistakes, and feeling like 'maybe I just can't do this' / 'I'm not smart' / 'I'm not good at school', this led to thinking that 'I don't like school', because who would really want to be going through such an experience of failing and thinking that it is something wrong with you, and so you are really believing that there is no real point to being in school and studying these things anymore if you apparently don't have the 'capacity' for it, because making mistakes I took as a sign that I am failing or something is going wrong, like mistakes just shouldn't be happening. Like if you're good at something, you don't make mistakes, or maybe just in rare cases. Which of course is because I didn't understand how learning works and that mistakes really are part of the process, and so they're really not 'mistakes'. I mean, if you are 'good' at something, you will maybe not make many mistakes, but I didn't realize that it takes a process to become 'good at something', it is not something just automatic/built it/part of you like magic.

I did manage to graduate from high school, and after you finish high school many students will go on to college, but I did not. I avoided college like the plague just to avoid the classwork and homework, and I said it was because I didn't have the money and that was indeed true, but I didn't even look into or ask anyone if there were any other options like scholarships or grants, which I did vaguely know about, I knew there were possibilities, but I was so 'done' with school because it was 'such a hassle', and by this point I really quite believed I just 'wasn't cut out for it'.

So these are major life decisions, that were all determined by not understanding how learning works, because that shaped even my entire perception of myself! And who I am, what I can and can't do, what I am apparently not capable of! And none of it was true. I mean, I wasn't lacking skills because I didn't have the capability, I just didn't understand that skills are acquired through a process, where you practice until you get to a point where it is now a 'natural' ability because you've integrated it so much that now it comes 'naturally'.

Now, I essentially was questioning myself in everything I'd do in my life – because I didn't have a proper understanding of what all is ivolved when one is 'naturally' 'talented' or 'gifted' or 'skilled' in something – believing this meant you could 'just do it' like magic, that the ability was just 'in you' somehow, not realizing there's a process involved, nothing comes out of thin air, except maybe our money, but that's another topic altogether – you aren't born an amazing singer or songwriter. I mean, I remember hearing interviews and comments from accomplished singers or songwriters and when asked 'how they do it' they'll respond something like 'I don't know, I just do it, it just comes naturally for me' and so perpetuating the idea that you can just 'have an ability' like magic, like in the matrix for example where you could just download kung fu for example and then instantly you can do it.

And so I believed it must be this 'knack' that either you have or you don't I mean even take the title of this show for example 'who's got talent' as if it's 'something you've got or you don't' and we often see this as meaning that either it's 'in you or it's not' like you either have the ability already within you, and if you don't then you're not an artist or singer or songwriter or whatever. Because we often only see the finished products, we don't for the most part see the practicing and the 'mistakes' and all the effort that was involved in creating the finished product. We hear a great singer perform a song flawlessly and we think 'wow, how on earth did they do that?' / 'wow, they're so talented'.

But it is actually a simple common sense reality point, where if you knew that someone is practicing something say everyday, what would you expect to happen eventually – they're going to get better at it. So it's not really anything special in a magical sense. It's a simple input/output equation – you get out what you put in. So it is really interesting that we tend to react with a kind of shock or reverence when someone is really good at something, but really if you are practicing something to the point of perfection, then achieving such a result is not a surprise, it is the natural outflow of self-disciplined practicing and application over time. I mean, if you put all the ingredients together for a cake and put it in a pan and put it in the oven for the appropriate temperature and time, you are reasonably going to expect the result of all this to be – a cake.

But I didn't get that and so whenever I was doing some singing or sat down to do some art maybe drawing or painting, I would constantly be like observing and judging 'how it is going' and according to how I perceive it is going as either positive or negative, or successful or unsuccessful - questioning whether I 'am an artist or not'. So for example, if as I'm going along and the drawing or painting isn't turning out how I'd imagined or wanted it to, or if I don't like the picture that is developing, then I would start thinking 'maybe I can't do this' / 'I'm just not an artist' because apparently if I 'was an artist' it would just be working and everything I do would turn out wonderfully and perfectly without even really having to try apparently.

So when it was pointed out to me and explained how learning is actually a process, and I looked back through my life and saw, that the things that I did do well in life, I had actually spent a lot of time and effort into learning and practicing it. For example with knitting, it was something I was really determined to learn and so I just kept at it, and eventually I got to an expert level in knitting and teaching others to knit and going on to more and more complex knitting challenges and such. And then, what was interesting, is others who saw my skill with knitting would say 'oh you're so talented' / 'you've really got a knack for that' / 'you're such an artist' – yet I knew the grueling hard work that I went through to get to that point, I mean there were times in the beginning as I was teaching myself how to knit, that I would get so lost and frustrated in it (mostly because I had no one to teach me and was learning from very non-descriptive books at a time where you couldn't yet just 'google' anything on the internet, nowadays there are numerous sources from which you can much more easily learn to knit with very detailed video tutorials) that I would just say 'to hell with this' and I would just stop knitting for a couple months, but then I would eventually pick it up again and keep going. So, I saw the only difference between me and those who didn't have this skill with knitting, was that I simply put in the time and effort and kept going, and didn't give in to thoughts and ideas and beliefs that I apparently 'couldn't do it', or it's 'not me', 'I'm not a knitter', 'it's not for me', and I just kept going. And so I made sure to always explain this point – where I could have just said 'yeah it's just what I do' or 'I just have a knack for it' but I did not want to perpetuate a false idea, which would then hinder others as well from applying themselves to learn skills for themselves.

I also saw that another dimension to this point, of believing that you've either 'got it' or you don't – is actually used as an excuse to not apply oneself, like if one has a resistance to being disciplined and putting in time and effort, then it is convenient to say 'I just can't do it'. Then you don't even have to try, because you think you'd rather not put in the effort, but not realizing that within this, you actually limit yourself because you don't get anything for nothing, despite what our economy would have you believe where stores can give away things 'for free' apparently, yet nothing is free as it all took labor to produce it, and so if you're getting it for free, then you know someone isn't getting paid for their labor!

So fascinatingly, you can see how we haven't recognized the labor it takes to develop a skill, nor the labor it takes to produce things in this reality – so this misunderstanding takes place on various levels of life in various dimensions. The key point that missed here, is that this is how the physical reality functions. It takes effort to live and exist here. It takes effort to expand ourselves into more than what we already are. And as we more and more think we want to avoid effort, the more and more we diminish ourselves, which actually makes life harder, and makes the effort that is necessary to be done to support ourselves seem even harder.

Yet, what have we seen with those who have become an expert in one skill or another – that once you have effectively become it, it is then a 'natural' ability, where it is practically effortless, because you integrated it to the point where it is like breathing, and have a look – breathing is not hard is it? You even do it in your sleep. So this is another Important point about the learning ability that wasn't understood either – that the effort you put in is to your benefit and that that effort and consistent self disciplined application is what would actually lead to things being easier.

In the next post - we'll take a look at how my life has changed since I've put these realizations into application, and now can do things that I never thought I could, gaining skills where I once thought it was impossible and it just keeps going!

Suggested Reading:

Day 375: The Natural Learning Ability of the Human http://creationsjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2013/05/day-375-natural-learning-ability-of.html

Day 294: Natural Learning Ability of the Feral Child

http://creationsjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2013/02/day-294-natural-learning-ability-of.html

Day 297: Natural Learning Ability and Sound Tonality of Words http://creationsjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2013/02/day-297-natural-learning-ability-and.html

Day 295: Natural Learning Ability – Parenting Responsibility

http://creationsjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2013/02/day-295-natural-learning-ability.html

Day 435: Basic Income Guaranteed and Education

http://creationsjourneytolife.blogspot.com/2013/06/day-435-basic-income-guaranteed-and.html

Day 199: Learning is a Process - Did you Know That?

So here I want to share what I've come to realize, which for most of my life I did not realize or understand, and this led to a lot of confusion and consequence, and the fact that most of us humans don't realize this, leads to a vast amount of confusion and consequence on a global scale.

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:

Perfecting the Human Race - Parenting

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.

Day 74: The “I Don’t Know What/How to Write” Character

Featured Art by Matti Freeman

Something will come up that I’d like to write about, and then a thought comes up as a picture of me not knowing how to write about the point effectively, as not having an effective enough vocabulary, where I’ve tried to write about it but not been able to write about the point in specificity and clarity and it has ‘gone all wrong’ and become a ‘muddled mess’ of words and meanings, and then based on this picture, I immediately ‘Give Up’ on writing about the point, within the belief that I’m not able to, because I’ve believed the picture in my mind and taken it for granted, and then want to avoid the negative experience that I saw within the picture. 

And then there is the positive picture that comes up as me either not writing about the point and doing something else that I am already skilled at as I’ve defined that as positive in polarity to how I experience doing something I am not yet skilled in. So then I also want to chase this positive picture, within accepting and believing that what the picture has shown me is what I actually want to do, not realizing that I am being totally manipulated by positive and negative feelings that I have attached to certain scenarios/events/experiences.

However, what’s not considered within this, is that vocabulary is learned. Just as the example of the recent news story that reported that a young girl was found to be living with cows and she was only able to communicate by mooing. When I look back at what it took for me to be able to speak and write, I see that there was years of training that went into learning how to speak and write, in school and at home with my parents, of daily practice and drilling, until the process/skill of writing becomes actually integrated into your physical so that you can do it ‘naturally’ as you have trained your body to do the physical motions involved in writing. And obviously if I did not get this training, as the many cases of ‘feral’ children shows, I wouldn’t be able to speak or write at all.

Thus, what’s really going on when I participate in this character of ‘not knowing how to write’, in accepting the thought my mind has presented to me as me not being able to write, is to ensure that I never will be able to write about what I am facing at the moment that I’d like to write about, as I’ll never walk the practical necessary steps to develop the ability to write about a certain topic. As, one does not innately have the ability to write/communicate about something through/within writing, and thus one must learn and expand oneself by going beyond what one has done before which means going into ‘uncharted territories’, so to speak.

Thus the solution is not to avoid writing that which I believe I can’t write about, but the solution is to write about it, from my current understanding and vocabulary so that I can see where my understanding is at, and where it is I require to improve my understanding, and within this learning from the examples of others, as that is literally how we learn - someone else taught us.

When this character activates, I experience the emotions/feelings of frustration and anxiety toward the negative picture and then the feelings of relief and relaxation when I consider choosing to not write about the point. Within this, I am being completely directed by these emotion/feeling experiences, which when I follow them will lead me to accept my limitation. The backchat that comes up is ‘I’m just not ready to write about this’ or ‘it’s going to be too difficult’ or ‘I’ll probably be better able to do this later’, all of which is me attempting to convince myself through internal conversation to follow the thoughts as the pictures that my mind presented to me. And the physical feelings I experience is tiredness and tension in the shoulders, like I am putting pressure on myself within the resistance I create and allow within myself toward the picture of ‘not writing something effectively’, which then feels relieved once I think about choosing to not write, as now the ‘pressure is off’, but I have created these feelings in the first place within my relationship toward writing.

I can actually use these pictures that come up to assist me to see where I have attached feeling/emotion experiences to certain events/situations/scenarios so that I can detach them and no longer ‘be at their whim’. And to see what the specific backchat/internal conversation I participate in so that I can see the game I am playing with myself, and stop manipulating myself as a voice in my head. And to become aware of the consequences I place on my physical human body as the pressures I exert on it through participation in these thoughts/feelings/emotions. Thus I become the solution to what I as creator have created, so that I can deconstruct the patterns I exist as in which I accept and support myself to be/remain limited, to reconstruct myself into a being that is constantly and consistently expanding myself within my ability.