The assumption that repeated experiences results in learning overlooks the learner who gives up because they tried too many times and learning did not occur. Or the one that becomes satisfied with an outcome far below what they are capable of.
This scenario is too often the norm.
What seems to be missing in this analysis is the critical place of awareness and engagement. That results in the outcomes referred to just now.
If you look at successful learners in the “hard” skills place then it is easily seen that awareness is what needs to happen so the learner notices what they are doing and not doing and what is happening outside of them. Without that no tennis player, cook, language learner will get to any serious level of skill.
As awareness is triggered, the learner can engage and be moved to try something different. Without engagement in this process, learning will grind to a halt.
This is where external pressure of a teacher, of a promotion, etc can help them to refocus. However, the process will repeat unless the learner engages in the learning process itself.
Of course there is a lot more that is needed… but too often not enough weight is given to these elements upon which learning rests.
Thanks for this. I've been reflecting on your comments for a few days. I'll try and be ad brief as I can with what you have me thinking about. .
I was at a conference last week and one of the presenters was a Chinese/American professor. He spoke about personalising education (he didn't actually use the word learning). He said that he grew up in a small Chinese village where the most important thing was to be able to work the water buffalo. It was because he was hopeless at it that he was sent school as the next best option.
I'm telling this brief story because a learner who 'tried to many times and learning did not occur' may be someone who is trying to learn something beyond their capacity. He may simply be the last good in the village at driving the water buffalo. Not everyone keeps getting better at everything. The learner who 'becomes satisfied with an outcome far below what they are capable of' may have made life choices that they would rather focus on something else or may be someone who prefers to be in a comfort zone.
In both cases, though, learning may definitely be happening as a result of their repeated experiences.
The first person may have already learned something about their own limits and, rightly concluded that after much struggling they have reached a point where to stop is a good life choice. They may also be learning that they need to find another teacher; one who can create the learning experiences that do help them struggle well and eventually learn rather than one who provides experiences that aren't effective and soon.
The second may have already learned through repeated experiences of others responses that engaging in a continuous good struggle may not pay off. Becoming 'satisfied' may be a strategy learned through repeated experiences. My Dad, a mathematician, made my learning of math such a stressful experience that I did the minimum necessary to avoid the stress. I learned that if I continued with good struggling to get better, my father made it into bad struggling for me. Paradoxically, he helped me learn not to want to learn any more than was absolutely necessary about the very subject about which he was most passionate.
The conference I was at last week was about happiness and learning. Happiness is a big theme in Vietnam and the conference was exploring what it was, what it means generally, and how it happens. I am still reflecting on that, too, but the view of many of the attendees seemed to be that happiness is one of the things that cannot be learned but it emerges as a consequence of other things. Right now, that makes sense to me, but i acknowledge I might think differently in a few months time.
You raise the question for me of awareness and engagement. Are these like happiness or something different? At this moment, I think both of these are learned and encouraged by the right repeated experiences and diminished by the wrong ones. Partly what coaching is about is enabling people to become more aware of and more engaged in what they are doing. As a result of my life and career, I would happily construct a hypothesis that the majority of aware and engaged adults have, in their backgrounds, parents and others who provided them with repeated experiences(not always positive ones) that enabled them to respond reflectively and engagingly with their lives. On the whole (and there areaways outliers) I don't think 'awareness' is triggered; meaning I don't think that there is neceaarily a natural bank of awareness that it just requires someone to set free.
Finally (for now, because I hope you might reply again) where we are in complete agreement is that 'too often not enough weight is given to these elements upon which learning rests'. I agree with this. Reflexivity and engagement are two of the most important factors that affect learning when we think about the contribution the learner is able to make towards their own learning. And to complete the circle of my reply, it could well be possible that the learner who gave up and the learner who became satisfied with an outcome less than was possible might both have been aware and engaged.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. It triggered lots of thoughts and reflections.
The one I will focus on here…is the subject of awareness.
All beings have awareness. That is which enables us to react to the changes in our environment, both inner and outer.
What distinguishes humans is that we can become aware of our awareness. “Oh, I didn’t like that, what shall I do about it? “
It is what enables us to be the ultimate learning machine, able to take our skills in virtually any field from beginner to master in a matter of weeks, months or years.
Awareness of what is around us or to us can be triggered by the unfamiliar or unexpected or reached by the one remaking open to new possibilities.
If new awareness is not arrived at, we continue to react in habitual ways, Habitual reactions or actions also need awareness but they are of a lower order… a locked form providing us a way of dealing with life, something we came to in prior times. These typically require small amounts of energy to fulfill. This is necessary, leaving our limited energy to be expended on new or demanding endeavours.
If we want to improve we can’t remain reliant on that… though many do and end up accepting those habituated behaviours as acceptable. In brushing teeth, walking, folding clothes.. completely fine. Tho the same can happen in areas where improvements could help us… how we talk to our partners or children, play sports, conduct meetings etc etc.
To keep learning and getting better at what we do requires us not just to repeat what we did before but to become aware that we are doing does not accomplish what we want. Sometimes others can “force” us to become aware of this, other times it is our sensitivity, our desires, our needs that can keep us “on our toes” looking for that little something that can tell us we need to change, embrace or let go of something.
In the area of learning languages, in which I have some expertise as both learner and educator, 2nd language learners many times struggle because they focus on learning rules and memorising (repetition) etc rather than working at making themselves more sensitive to the new demands that foreign languages bring. The more sensitive we become the more we can become aware of … that leading us to the roads we need to take.
Hope this makes some sense! If I give over to my awareness there is a lot more that could be said. 😊 I am sure you found the same.
The assumption that repeated experiences results in learning overlooks the learner who gives up because they tried too many times and learning did not occur. Or the one that becomes satisfied with an outcome far below what they are capable of.
This scenario is too often the norm.
What seems to be missing in this analysis is the critical place of awareness and engagement. That results in the outcomes referred to just now.
If you look at successful learners in the “hard” skills place then it is easily seen that awareness is what needs to happen so the learner notices what they are doing and not doing and what is happening outside of them. Without that no tennis player, cook, language learner will get to any serious level of skill.
As awareness is triggered, the learner can engage and be moved to try something different. Without engagement in this process, learning will grind to a halt.
This is where external pressure of a teacher, of a promotion, etc can help them to refocus. However, the process will repeat unless the learner engages in the learning process itself.
Of course there is a lot more that is needed… but too often not enough weight is given to these elements upon which learning rests.
Hi Andrew.
Thanks for this. I've been reflecting on your comments for a few days. I'll try and be ad brief as I can with what you have me thinking about. .
I was at a conference last week and one of the presenters was a Chinese/American professor. He spoke about personalising education (he didn't actually use the word learning). He said that he grew up in a small Chinese village where the most important thing was to be able to work the water buffalo. It was because he was hopeless at it that he was sent school as the next best option.
I'm telling this brief story because a learner who 'tried to many times and learning did not occur' may be someone who is trying to learn something beyond their capacity. He may simply be the last good in the village at driving the water buffalo. Not everyone keeps getting better at everything. The learner who 'becomes satisfied with an outcome far below what they are capable of' may have made life choices that they would rather focus on something else or may be someone who prefers to be in a comfort zone.
In both cases, though, learning may definitely be happening as a result of their repeated experiences.
The first person may have already learned something about their own limits and, rightly concluded that after much struggling they have reached a point where to stop is a good life choice. They may also be learning that they need to find another teacher; one who can create the learning experiences that do help them struggle well and eventually learn rather than one who provides experiences that aren't effective and soon.
The second may have already learned through repeated experiences of others responses that engaging in a continuous good struggle may not pay off. Becoming 'satisfied' may be a strategy learned through repeated experiences. My Dad, a mathematician, made my learning of math such a stressful experience that I did the minimum necessary to avoid the stress. I learned that if I continued with good struggling to get better, my father made it into bad struggling for me. Paradoxically, he helped me learn not to want to learn any more than was absolutely necessary about the very subject about which he was most passionate.
The conference I was at last week was about happiness and learning. Happiness is a big theme in Vietnam and the conference was exploring what it was, what it means generally, and how it happens. I am still reflecting on that, too, but the view of many of the attendees seemed to be that happiness is one of the things that cannot be learned but it emerges as a consequence of other things. Right now, that makes sense to me, but i acknowledge I might think differently in a few months time.
You raise the question for me of awareness and engagement. Are these like happiness or something different? At this moment, I think both of these are learned and encouraged by the right repeated experiences and diminished by the wrong ones. Partly what coaching is about is enabling people to become more aware of and more engaged in what they are doing. As a result of my life and career, I would happily construct a hypothesis that the majority of aware and engaged adults have, in their backgrounds, parents and others who provided them with repeated experiences(not always positive ones) that enabled them to respond reflectively and engagingly with their lives. On the whole (and there areaways outliers) I don't think 'awareness' is triggered; meaning I don't think that there is neceaarily a natural bank of awareness that it just requires someone to set free.
Finally (for now, because I hope you might reply again) where we are in complete agreement is that 'too often not enough weight is given to these elements upon which learning rests'. I agree with this. Reflexivity and engagement are two of the most important factors that affect learning when we think about the contribution the learner is able to make towards their own learning. And to complete the circle of my reply, it could well be possible that the learner who gave up and the learner who became satisfied with an outcome less than was possible might both have been aware and engaged.
Over to you. Thanks, again. Martin
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. It triggered lots of thoughts and reflections.
The one I will focus on here…is the subject of awareness.
All beings have awareness. That is which enables us to react to the changes in our environment, both inner and outer.
What distinguishes humans is that we can become aware of our awareness. “Oh, I didn’t like that, what shall I do about it? “
It is what enables us to be the ultimate learning machine, able to take our skills in virtually any field from beginner to master in a matter of weeks, months or years.
Awareness of what is around us or to us can be triggered by the unfamiliar or unexpected or reached by the one remaking open to new possibilities.
If new awareness is not arrived at, we continue to react in habitual ways, Habitual reactions or actions also need awareness but they are of a lower order… a locked form providing us a way of dealing with life, something we came to in prior times. These typically require small amounts of energy to fulfill. This is necessary, leaving our limited energy to be expended on new or demanding endeavours.
If we want to improve we can’t remain reliant on that… though many do and end up accepting those habituated behaviours as acceptable. In brushing teeth, walking, folding clothes.. completely fine. Tho the same can happen in areas where improvements could help us… how we talk to our partners or children, play sports, conduct meetings etc etc.
To keep learning and getting better at what we do requires us not just to repeat what we did before but to become aware that we are doing does not accomplish what we want. Sometimes others can “force” us to become aware of this, other times it is our sensitivity, our desires, our needs that can keep us “on our toes” looking for that little something that can tell us we need to change, embrace or let go of something.
In the area of learning languages, in which I have some expertise as both learner and educator, 2nd language learners many times struggle because they focus on learning rules and memorising (repetition) etc rather than working at making themselves more sensitive to the new demands that foreign languages bring. The more sensitive we become the more we can become aware of … that leading us to the roads we need to take.
Hope this makes some sense! If I give over to my awareness there is a lot more that could be said. 😊 I am sure you found the same.