Learning Questions

As a technical instructor, I made myself familiar with the questions we all ask as learners. During the learning process, we all ask certain questions and usually in a specific order whether we realize it or not. It goes something like this:

1. Why? – If we don’t know why we are learning something, then odds are we won’t learn it. At the very least, we won’t want to learn it. Why is it relevant? Why should I invest my time?
2. What? – Once we get past why, we want to know what it is we need to know or do so we can act upon it.
3. How? – After we get what we need to know or do, we want to know how we are going to apply it and how to do it.
4. What if? – If we have maintained interest in the subject long enough to learn how to do it and want to learn more, then we move on to this question, which is ongoing and takes us to ever greater heights in our learning. What if I do it this way? What if I do it in this instance?

It is that first question that is on my mind today. While it is an important one, it is also a dangerous one; particularly if we are asking it of the persons we are learning from. It is one thing to ask why we are learning a subject. It is quite another thing to ask the person you are learning from questions like “why are you doing this?” “why did you do it that way?” or “why is this important to you?” These questions are more about the person than the subject. The reason I say it is dangerous is because it can elicit a host of reactions or responses and must be treated with care and clarity. For example, if we ask “Why are you doing that?” in a rhetorical or sarcastic way, we have just launched an attack on that person and his or her purpose and should probably expect some kind of backlash or shutdown. That same question, however, asked in a such a way that it is a clear attempt to better understand his or her purpose, it will either be met with profound insight from that person or will trigger a greater level of introspect resulting in mutual improvement in person and process.

All of this to say that we all benefit greatly from questions and it is worth investigating how we can make better use of them for everyone’s benefit.

~ John

Learning as a Way of Life

In spending ten years of my career as a technical trainer, I developed a passion for learning and helping others learn. I feel strongly that we all learn things everyday (i.e., we change our behavior based on what happens to us or within us) and that the vast majority of the things we learn are typically not reflected upon in such a way that we can use them to improve our lives. For example, I may learn that I can get a desired response from someone through a specific action I take. This learning will likely cause me to repeat this action in the future. However, it would be in my best interest to analyze whether I can improve the execution of this behavior before doing it again or decide whether or not I should do it at all. It is precisely this kind of reflection I hope to engage in this coming year in a project I call Learning 365 in which I will reflect on what I have learned every day, share it with you, and see how we can use it to improve the way we do things.

Before we get going on this project, it would be a good idea to be on the same page regarding what learning is. Learning is often thought of  in terms of formalized methods such as school, courses, or study; but I when I speak of learning, I am referring to its most basic sense. On my about page, you will see my definition of learning, which goes like this:

learning: response to stimuli resulting in behavioral change

Let’s take a look at this definition’s components.

• Response. First, I view learning as a response. This excludes reactions, instinct, memorization and the like. Rather, learning is intentional action.
• To Stimuli. This can come in many forms. Lecture, experience, reading, emotion, thoughts, etc. An intentional response to these things can help us formulate new and better behaviors.
• Resulting. Learning produces results…period.
• In Behavioral Change. If our behavior does not change as a result of what we learned, we have learned nothing. Now, the behavior change may not manifest right away (when we learn CPR, for example) and it may not be permanent, but it should change nonetheless. It is also important to distinguish learning from memorization. If you apply what you memorize, you may have indeed learned something, but I feel it is important to differentiate the two.

With this view of learning in mind, this blog is dedicated to taking notice of when it happens and how to learn even more to enhance all aspects of life. I feel very strongly that enhancing learning in one of life’s areas will impact all other areas as well, so posts will be written with this understanding and with the intention of improving my own behaviors as well as those of my readers. Enjoy and thank you for reading.

~ John