How Learning Works

Look for a minute at how learning works.
I pass through a door, indeed sometimes I must beat on it
or even knock it down, but I pass through it.
Then, just inside the door a gale force wind stands me up straight
and a hook goes round my neck and the next thing you know
I am back out the door with a whoosh and a wisk.
The door slams shut and I am once again figuring how to get in.
What is transpiring here?
First of all, learning represents the combination of opportunity and effort.
I arrived at its doorstep, but it was my effort that brought me that far.
I took that class against my own misgivings.
I bought the book and waded 300 pages into the deep end.
I left the TV on learning channel, remarkably fighting the urge
to flip around for a good thirty minutes.
But then, just when I think I have something figured out,
I am inside the door of new knowledge,
I lose the subtle understanding, but maybe importantly
I love my old way of living more than I ever knew
and I am back out on the other side of learning's door.
Unfortunately, (or fortunately) once I get inside the door,
the host(ess) will not allow me to stay
unless I watch a ten minute film, answer a few questions,
read a two page document and sign my name at the bottom.
That is to say, I must live with the new idea in all its implications.
The film shows me the many sides of the notion,
if I watch it with great concentration.
Then the inquiry session that follows gives me a chance
to get a little feedback to make sure I understood the movie.
Next I read the contract document,
which states the rules by which I must abide
if I am to truly lay claim to the learning.
With my signature, the door closes and I am on the inside
now looking for new learning.
I have been permanently changed.
I am to some extent, lost to my old self and my old view of the world.

Learning may contain an element of sadness.
The endearing accent or the flat way I said, "No, I have not ate yet",
are now behind me. It's on to the world of improved grammar and its sisters:
improved thought, better communication, and ultimately
more direct interaction with my world.
Gone are those days of ignorance and perhaps,
and this is truly unfortunate, the egolessness
that goes with not knowing and not caring.

The next door might take me into the area where I figure out something else,
like, that those people who have not passed through the doors I have
are not inferior, they just have passed through other doors.
In fact, the door of understanding that reminds us to be open to others
and to remove barriers that might keep us from truly connecting,
is one of the most important ones to walk through.

So learning has a part that consists of showing us the error of our ways
as well as a component that can be called, commitment to the new way.
If I eat foods which I learn are not good for my body,
but I continue to consume those foods, I have not learned.
I have been exposed to knowledge,
but the wisdom available to me from that knowledge
has not been claimed by me,
because learning is new understanding AND new behavior.

Perhaps this was Thomas Wolf's referent in "You can never go home again".
After you have learned many things,
in the "far off land of new knowledge",
it is impossible to truly go home again,
because the new way of viewing the world
makes you respond to the former environment in an entirely new fashion.
Now, instead of banging your dirty plate against the underside of the table
and hoping the dog runs in
and eats the food off the dining room floor
before your mother sees what happened…
you slide your chair back, pick up your plate
and maybe even your sister’s,
and you march them over to the dishwasher
and you insert them like a good young person.
The folks look at one another, and tell you to stop in your tracks,
spread your legs, lean up against the wall,
and they begin to frisk you
looking for their lost child.