Learning develops in pair – Clarity with confusion, creation with destruction ending with beginning, Because learning is never complete. It just opens new avenues to explore. In a way Learning is Unlearning.
One of the biggest misconceptions modern education has taught us about learning is that it is immediate, specific and clear. Which is why modern education demands that the results of the learning can be tested, analyzed and judged almost instantaneously.
Let’s say when a teacher teaches, Archimedes principle, it is expected that the learner would immediately know what is the principle, would be able to understand it separately and uniquely from whatever else the child knows (specific) and that the principle is amply clear in the child’s mind. In this way learning is considered to be binary – you don’t know, I teach and snap! now you know
In our experience as learner and as an observer we realized few important aspect of real learning
Learning is slow – It is build over time, it is messy and mixed up with all what we already know. It is also very confusing. Even for Archimedes it would have taken some amount of time and formulate the Archimedes principle. His thought would have been constantly changing and the understanding would have been developing better with each change. Eureka moment would have not come instantaneously but after sorting the thoughts via multiple complex and confusing iterations.
Learning is Organic – In our minds it is built bit by bit, over time, not like a clear laying of bricks over each other, rather constant moving back and forth through a multitude of thoughts and trial and errors and with no one certain outcome but a bag of jumbled hypotheses.
Learning is never Complete – In some way we never learn. We just keep adding another into the mix, another data, dimension perspective etc. infusing the current mix with more dough, many a time destroying current structure or modifying it – the whole process so amorphous, so vague that to output this learning in a test seems to me to be cruel to the learning itself and yes barbarous to the learner.
Which is why when it comes to learning (and to living) – we could consider slowness, confusion and vagueness as virtues, as essential ingredients of growing.