I talk about a ‘Smooth Learning Journey’ when I work with students. When you learn new information… you hear it, you understand it, you do it, you get it right, you move on.
You’re putting in effort, but the path is smooth. Every hour you put in, you see results from. There’s a directly proportional connection between effort and result.
This is very different from students who may hear, but not understand. They need to hear again, or ask for help to understand, hear it differently, take more time to think about it and only then try to do it. They may get it wrong and need to go back to clear up their understanding before they try again. Thus, they’re putting in effort, but they’re not getting directly proportional results. They’re struggling through the learning journey.
I definitely had a smooth learning journey. Through school, college and some of university, this was how learning worked for me. I put in effort, and saw direct results from the effort. I heard, understood, did, got right, moved on.
The Unarticulated Equation?
I use this phrase to describe things that cause mental ‘equations’ for us. When we continually experience similar things, we develop mental beliefs about ‘how the world works’. These beliefs are never articulated, they’re just an inbuilt understanding that this is how the world works. “If I do xxx, then yyy will happen”. Should these equations stop working, should the world no longer respond as expected, this causes deep frustration and anxiety. Not because you didn’t get what you want, but because your understanding and beliefs of how the world works is shattered.
Consider:
An unarticulated equation is that when you go to school, or to work, or you’re in the safety of your car, or your house, then you feel and believe that you should be safe. If that safety is threatened, if something violent happens, it’s not just the trauma of the event that causes anxiety, it’s also the shattering of that belief of “When I’m at home, I’m safe”. Think of our reactions to school, workplace or home invasions, as opposed to places where there is continual conflict. There’s an additional sense of horror, because our belief is that this should be safe.
I was the perfect student. Based on my smooth learning journey, my teachers expected me to do well, believed I had great potential and would definitely have bet on my later success. This is perfectly natural. The assessment criteria for success was “If you do well at school, you’ll do well later on”. As society changes, this is starting to shift, but not enough.
The problem was that I believed that this was how true learning worked. This smooth journey created a few unarticulated equations for me:
“If I’m smart, I can learn things fast and always get it right.”
“If I’m getting it right, that means I’m smart. If I’m getting it wrong, I’m not smart.”
“If I was good / talented at this, it would come right immediately. If I don’t get it right immediately, I’m clearly not talented in this area, and so there’s no point in pursuing this” (Think of playing sports, working on art forms, and how this belief would impact someone’s decisions to try and quit the sport immediately.)
I developed the belief that I could learn everything fast. I was learning, I was fast, I was competent. This is fine when you’re dealing with straight-forward material.
The Smooth Learning Journey becomes bumpy
Later in my professional qualification studies, this all came apart, and I had no idea why. It took years for me to understand the link between my smooth learning journey and the struggles in my later studies. I had to change the equation.
At higher levels of studies, learning moves from memory, from straight-forward material, to application, integration, and problem-solving. You move from needing information, which you CAN learn in 5 minutes, to needing SKILLS, which cannot be learnt in 5 minutes.
Consider:
Learning to drive a car. I can learn the steps of how to drive in a few hours, but it doesn’t mean I can drive a car. The skill of driving a car will only start developing when I sit behind the wheel of the car, and no matter how well I know those steps in my head, they will never smoothly translate into a perfect drive on the first, or even second or third attempt.
When my exams started requiring skills more than knowledge, I hit problems. I wasn’t used to a world where I couldn’t move from one phase in the learning journey to the next, quickly and smoothly. Something had gone wrong! Was I no longer smart? Had I reached my maximum potential? I had no clue about the difference between knowledge and skills, the conceptual difference between learning information and developing skills. So all I knew was that I used to be able to do things fast, and now I could barely do them at all. It was gut wrenching.
A student who didn’t have a smooth learning journey at school is used to the fact that learning is not instant. They understand and appreciate that acquiring new information will require some struggle. They developed resilience early on, because they had to! They were praised for their dedication and continued effort and persistence, so they found value in the time spent. They were praised for their ‘grit’, their ability to keep going when it was hard. Their unarticulated equation looks totally different to mine:
“Learning takes time, and doesn’t come right instantly”
“When things go wrong, we can fix it, work on it and it will come right”
“If I stick with it, continue to learn and grow and improve, it will mean that I am smart”
I was only praised for great results. No one will praise you for ‘perseverance’ if you’re getting distinctions! So, my understanding was that there is value in RESULTS. Not the process. (This is a common situation / experience that creates a Fixed Mindset in the students I work with).
In later years, the student who’s always struggled, continues to put effort into the process. There’s value in the process, the skill development. For me, I was so focussed on the RESULT, that I couldn’t see straight. If I couldn’t get the answer right immediately, I was terrified at what that meant. This was NOT how it was supposed to work! What had gone wrong?! Had I become stupid? Was I not smart enough for this?
My fundamental understanding of what learning WAS, was incorrect. I believed that learning was acquiring and remembering information, and this type of learning CAN be instant. You can hear something, memorise it and recall it instantly.
When the assessments shifted from knowledge-focussed, to skills-focussed, my world shattered, and I had no idea what was going on, how to fix it, or how to address it. I didn’t even REALISE that the assessments had shifted. My expectation was just that at higher levels, the information would be more difficult. Not DIFFERENT. I had no idea what the difference was, how it impacted my studying, and what to do about it. All I was left with was a clear, terrifying message booming in my head:
“You used to be able to get stuff right, and now you can’t. There’s something wrong with you, and now you won’t be able to pass this”
Take-aways?
I share this with students and other lecturers and teachers I work with because I want people to be more aware of the inner narratives, expectations and beliefs that students are dealing with. Their interpretation of the speed of their learning, the ease of their learning, changes, unfamiliarity, none of this is simple or straightforward.
For someone who spent a lot of their earlier years having a smooth learning journey, the bumps in the road, when they do pop up, can be incredibly stressful and anxiety-inducing. This can impact confidence, self-esteem, perseverance and possibly even be a reason they may quit.
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