That one teacher that shakes the very foundation on which you have built all your life’s knowledge. That one teacher that whips your consciousness into submission like it’s a runaway slave. That one teacher that gently awakens something within you so deep you don’t even know when she’s doing it
I have that one
Learning is such a complex process that some lessons come only in hindsight, but when I met my one it was instant. Way back when -- in a Girls’ Catholic school I did something that had never been done before, I dropped Biblical Studies as my matric subject. The nuns did not allow me a free period (as the norm for one that’s dropped a subject), but thought it best to have me attend classes with our Guidance teacher instead. She was a kind of contemporary Gypsy (whose name I don’t recall and in many ways don’t want to).
The first and last thing she taught me was unlearn; and it was profound from the moment she said it. I spent the remainder of that year unlearning all that I had come to know as true; and forming new truths.
What we claim to know is a really set of unshakable principles that we use to discover the world. We use acquired knowledge to help us sift through new knowledge taking and integrating what suits us and discarding what we cannot believe like a sort of educational Pick ‘n Pay. We are constantly moulding and reshaping ourselves based on our convictions. In examining how we learn we can take from John White’s (professor of the philosophy of education) notion that, “Beliefs are continuants, not occurrences”*. We can use this in asserting that teachers seek to impart knowledge in order that learners may utilise it in their future discipline.
This notion goes beyond learners reciting or remembering the newly acquired knowledge merely for examination purposes.
Beliefs are subjective ideas about what is true and untrue about the world and in it. The word, “belief” is derived from Old English meaning, “that which is beloved”. Beliefs are closely related to an individual’s values and form guides as to how that individual interprets reality. They are linked to knowledge in that beliefs are a set of formative concepts about what is true and not true in the world. Each individual needs belief in order to function in the world. Acquiring knowledge requires more than the thought that an idea or concept is true, but also the evidence to support this assertion. We collect evidence from investigation. We have to deconstruct all what we claim to know about something in order to form a new understanding; or learning something new. This is why learning is so painful; it requires you to shed your outmoded beliefs to make way for new knowledge.
If you find yourself at a crossroad know that you’re in a good place; you at the place where learning begins.
unlearn
* White, J. Beliefs: Maps by which we steer.
Writer / Tebogo Serobatse Photographer / Yizzi25
