Learning to Understand
Just learning something doesn’t mean someone understands it, read and learn how to really understand what you take in.
Some years ago I had the strange feeling that I could look round a class of students and see a large question mark over the heads of those who could not understand what I was saying. It becomes easy with experience to recognize the signs: some have the relaxed, almost smooth, facial expression of having ‘got if but others have a contorted expression of doubt and uncertainty when they have failed to grasp some vital point. When learners have not understood the first explanation, repetition is the last thing they need. It is like shouting at a German speaker when he or she fails to understand English; only a totally different type of explanation will bring insight to those who failed on the first attempt.
When I find that a student has failed to understand I revert to a topic that he or she knows and cares about; using the topic as my starting point, I can launch into a second explanation. The technique is borrowed from Edward de Bono’s ideas on lateral thinking which I first read about in his book The Mechanism of Mind (1969). The idea of lateral thinking is to encourage the thinker to take sideways, intuitive steps and break away from traditional logical lines of thought. Edward de Bono says that it helps the learner approach a problem from a new angle. When I try to give a second explanation from the learner’s own interest I also use the well-tried principle of teaching from the ‘known to the unknown’.
Teachers and trainers must never forget how difficult a problem seems before it is understood and how easy it seems once we do understand it. We all tend to have a reluctance to admit that we found anything difficult to learn! Some of the best teachers are those who had to struggle to learn because they know the methods they used to overcome their difficulties. I get impatient sometimes when my own students do not scamper after my train of thought as quickly and as easily as I imagine I learnt the topic.
Learning by understanding is a very individual process; some grasp explanations quickly, they ‘think on their feet’; others need time and peace to think without distractions before they can accept something new. Like many people I often read something at night and wake up next morning full of bright ideas as if my brain were a personal computer which had been working away overnight.
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