XplanaZine

While I’ve spent the majority of my life as a teacher but I’ve been learning the whole time I’ve been alive. From the first utterances of infancy to the character training I received at Sunday School, from the university to the tough lessons of business, I’ve been blessed with a seemingly endless supply of new things to learn. And with each new snippet grasped I become a better version of who I want to be and a more valuable member in all my communities. In short, is the basic measure of wisdom, success, and happiness.As a lifelong learner, I’ve made a habit of collecting tips of the trade or useful principles that have served me well along my journey. I’ve examined my successes and failures as well the open and closed passageways of my personal learning path. I’ve reflected carefully on what has worked and what hasn’t. The results of that reflection is a series of principles and parables that I will be sharing through XplanaZine this year.

I will be relating the basic Principles of Learning through parables and personal examples. I will also use these principles and stories to discuss what works and what doesn’t in our current education systems.

In this first article, I simply want to outline the basic Principles of Learning and illustrate how they can be applied to education. In subsequent articles, I will elaborate on individual principles and illustrate them with parables.

The Basic Principles

There are ten basic Principles of Learning that, when practiced, help us grow in understanding and make us successful in whatever we attempt to do. These ten basic Principles of Learning are really a series of actions that successful people people can take in their daily lives. In fact, since learning is such an integral part of living, these rules might more appropriately be called the basic principles of a good life.

Rules to Learn/Live By:

1. Ask questions
2. Collect wisdom (Esteem the learn-ed)
3. Don’t compartmentalize
4. Be free
5. Promote good character
6. Be open and clear
7. Have fun
8. See abundance
9. Embrace community
10. Be spiritual

The Principles of Learning and the Problems with Education

This series will be divided into ten sections, one for each of the ten Principles of Learning. Each section focuses on a specific principle and illustrates the entirety of the principle with a simple parable. Later, the principle is further illustrated through positive examples of learning and contrasts are drawn related to current practices in our education systems. These contrasts are referred to as “problems” with education as we have currently defined it.

Principle 1: Learning is about the process of inquiry.

Problem 1: Education is about answers and outcomes and learning is about asking questions.

The key to success in life and business is asking persistent and honest questions. Successful and happy people enhance their awareness of their surroundings by reflecting on their environment, their motives, and their identity. They have a genuine sense of wanting to understand and a realization that the path to understanding begins with the realization of what they do not know. This is contrasted with an education system that teaches knowledge and makes children feel ashamed of ignorance. It is a system that says “if you have to ask questions you must not have been listening, or you must not be smart enough to understand.”

Principle 2: Learning is about the accrual of wisdom.

Problem 2: Education is about information processing and learning is about wisdom.

Successful learners all share a common trait – they have the ability to grow and evolve. They understand that all information is an opportunity to collect the experience of others and to benefit from it. These are far more interested in what they can do with information and how it can make them better than with simply having information or “knowing” things. Unfortunately, our education system focuses on quantitative knowledge as opposed to qualitative understanding. It is a system that values knowers instead of learners and leads to young and old people alike who do not know how to improve themselves or their situation in life. In this way, education is like a harmful narcotic that masks its constituents’ inability to evolve. And the only way to grow in our society is to keep returning to the education system for help.

Principle 3: Learning esteems learn-ed people.

Problem 3: Education values teachers and educated people while learning esteems mentors and learn-ed people.

Learn-ed people are wise and understand that not all information is created equal. They have a true sense of discretion and understand the difference between what is really important and what is not. They develop a strong sets of vertical priorities, are astute decision makers and manage their lives in an efficient manner. Education, on the other hand, places a premium value on knowers instead of learners. As a system, it stresses the uniform importance of all information and produces children and adults who cannot make good decisions, who have no idea how to create or manage priorities, and who do not know how to improve themselves.

Principle 4: Learning is free.

Problem 4: Education requires extensive funding with limited results while learning is free and guarantees personal and intellectual growth.

The ability to learn well is built into every human being. It is free for the taking to anyone who is open to self-discovery and growth. The only “stimulus” or tending required for learning is a spark of realization and a community of inquiry. This requires no external funding and very little in the way of learning materials. Education, however, requires extensive funding because it focuses on external by-products that fall outside the natural ability of all students. It puts a priority on administration, information processing and, in particular, on problems. Education gives rise to disabilities and other labels of inequality so that a level opportunity field can be maintained for all students. Learning, in contrast, already accepts all students as equal and blessed with the same inherent ability to grow and achieve.

Principle 5: Learning promotes good character.

Problem 5: Education is indifferent to character while learning necessarily develops quality character.

Learning is about awareness of self and others. It is about personal and communal inquiry. It is about collecting wisdom and wanting to see things clearly. These activities or traits necessarily lead to the development and evolution of strong, moral character. Education, by contrast is concerned with short-term achievement measured as outcomes (on tests, compositions, performances, and athletic events). This focus on short-term outcomes as opposed to a universal and lifelong process prevents education from dealing with character in any substantive fashion.

Principle 6: Learning is open and clear.

Problem 6: Education is closed and secret while learning is open and universally understandable by everyone.

Learning – both the ability to learn and the process by which it is achieved – is a universal and transparent process. It is open to every person and there are no secrets or special steps available only to guild members or the initiated. Education is the exact opposite. It is full of layered and bureaucratic symbolism and is hermetically sealed to all but the initiated. Ironically, even those few who manage to break the education code and enter its hallowed confines discover that its promise is vacuous. Learners value observation and are willing to interact with anyone as an equal as long as they are willing to share in the learning process.

Principle 7: Learning is fun.

Problem 7: Education is boring and learning is fun.

Learning is an adventure that is driven by exploration and discovery and it always ends in positive personal growth. Translated – learning is fun. The process itself is necessarily fulfilling and the results, while often surprising, lead to a constant contact with new knowledge and fresh options for the future. Meanwhile, the very idea of “educational gaming” (or fun) is a contradiction in terms. That’s because education, by definition, is boring. It focuses on quantities of stale information as product. It is about pre-ordained paths that eliminate any real adventure or discovery.

Principle 8: Learning is about abundance.

Problem 8: Education is about scarcity but learning is about abundance.

Learning is based on the ever-evolving process of growth and this personal growth always leads to the experience of “having more.” Learners understand that the only limitations they face are those caused by an unwillingness to practice inquiry and collect wisdom. They perceive a universe in which there are always new discoveries to feed them and new regions for exploration. Education, on the other hand, feeds students an abundance of information but does not provide any of the important learning nutrients required for a healthy life. This focus on information product (as opposed to experiential process) also creates an illusion of limitation or scarcity. In the end, our education system may have made progress in providing a healthy diet for students’ physical bodies, but their minds have become atrophied and emaciated.

Principle 9: Learning is about genuine community.

Problem 9: Education is about socialization while learning is about community.

The process of learning is dependent on genuine community. Meaningful and honest interaction with other learners is a key component of the inquiry process on which learning is based. This means that learning is not a competitive endeavor but rather a cooperative one and one in which individuals not only benefit from personal inquiry but also from the evolution of the community as a whole. Our education system, by contrast encourages competition and isolation. Students are rewarded by outperforming others, a practice that creates disincentives for cooperation. Moreover, this product-based approach to acquiring knowledge is antithetical to accruing wisdom, a practice that is dependent on community.

Principle 10: Learning is a spiritual practice.

Problem 10: Education is a secular activity and learning is a spiritual practice.

Learning emphasizes awareness and leads to an understanding that transcends mere information and physical reality. The learning process requires that our inquiry be extended to both the physical and the metaphysical, to the things we can see and the things we cannot see. Because it is a process based on a lack of limitations, learning necessarily leads its practitioners to honest spiritual questions. Education is incapable of embracing spirituality because its components – outcomes, information processing, socialization, competition, and emphasis on external products – all serve as obstacles to the process of inquiry that leads to spirituality.