The Grand Spectacle of Learning
By Michael Hebron
If learning is defined as: going from not knowing to knowing, then what would be the most efficient
approach to learning and teaching? When recognizing the human brain as the gateway of learning, the
answer to my question is, the best way to go from not knowing to knowing is using information delivery
systems that are compatible with how our brain processes incoming stimuli. When approaches to learning
are not compatible with how the brain processes information they are less efficient than they could be.
Meaningful learning is exciting, entertaining, and romantic, everyone loves to learn. The excitement of
making progress is leveraged by how entertaining it can be, especially if the entertainment is from self-
discovery.
The progress that accompanies long-term learning is grounded in time saving, risk lowering interactions.
When accomplishing long-term learning, those interactions are allowed to be creative. This time saving,
risk reduced, creative process is enhanced with personal input that captures value for future reference.
Meaningful learning is:
Joyful and fulfilling
Personal and satisfying
Adventurous and safe
Interesting and challenging
Autobiographical and stimulating
Unconscious and lasting
Indirect and spontaneous
Child like and purposeful
Open ended and direct
Flexible and portable
Inventive and personal
Internal and democratic
Plain spoken and tinkering
Wordless and seeing
Visionary and felt
During meaningful learning the principals of the nature of learning are being mixed with the substance of
an individual’s environment, as unconscious acts of self-assessment and self-adjustments are connecting
individuals with their environment. This formula of unconscious assessment and unconscious adjustments
is the underbelly of human development and growth.
One example of an unlimited embrace of natural unconscious learning that leads to a journey of opened
ended and un-judged interactions with ones surroundings is: there is no still life within acts of meaningful
learning as messages are sent and received, but without judgments or criticisms.
During meaningful learning, imagination, creativity, curiosity, and self-confidence arrest what is needed.
What is needed is to recognize weakness while retaining powerful personal insights. It’s by catching
oneself moving in the direction of the kind of outside influences that alienate the kind of support for
meaningful learning that’s only available from personal past experiences.
The approach to learning that guided the evolution of the human race long before homo sapiens began to
walk upright is: past experiences fill our brain with valuable information for future references. This valuable
information from past experiences spontaneously opens powerful learning. Its kind of information that’s
filled with insights that are not available beyond the biology of autobiographical inquiries. There is a
natural and continuous unconscious inner monologue that’s at the heart of both survival skills and the
nature of learning that is often over looked by approaches to learning.
When approaches to learning and teaching do not take the unconscious elements of the learning process
into consideration, they are moving against their own best interests with the conflicting agenda of teaching
with the hope students with learn.
Since the 1990s (referred to as the decade of the brain) award winning educators and scientists from
many fields of study have been uncovering valuable insights into efficient and non-efficient acts of learning
and teaching. They have brought forward insights that were not available in the past. The purpose here
is to share some of those insights with the hope of improving acts of learning and teaching in the future.
This of course is not a new idea. Unfortunately, research into the process of leaning has not been
embraced and put to use on any kind of widespread basis. Perhaps these studies are being side stepped
because many of the insights research into learning and teaching has put forward are counterintuitive and
non- traditional.
When it comes to learning and teaching it seems that many long held traditional beliefs are still out
weighing what modern science is suggesting could enhance learning. Many popular presumptions about
learning that are currently in circulation are now seen by many as more damaging than helpful, with some
being found to be false. Today it appears that some popularized approaches to learning and teaching
should be rethought.
The transformations that efficient learning brings out seem to be more the results of a human beings’
unconscious natural ability to learn without trying to learn, than anything else we could credit. The
elements and under currents of natural learning are as old as time. It is as though those elements were
harmoniously singing the song “I Will Survive!” The nature of learning and our survival skills are really one
in the same.
Human beings, when compared to all other living organisms that have lived on earth, came late to the party
of life. But arriving late turned out to be a huge advantage the human race had over all other species that
have inhabited mother earth and are no longer surviving.
It seems that mother earth is more than an appropriate term. Similar to how we all came out of our mother’
s wombs, all the elements that gave the first living organisms their start here on earth came from planet
earth. This process birthed the story and history of evolution, or the self-development of our planet, our
prehistoric ancestors, and the human race. It is a process that is still ongoing today.
copyright, Michael Hebron, Learning Golf, Inc. 2009, all rights reserved
