[Neurons] 2015 "Neurons" Meta Reflections #25

Sun Jun 7 23:18:20 EDT 2015

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections #25

June 8, 2015

Learning #1

THE NEURO-SEMANTICS OF LEARNING

What Have You Learned Today?

"There are no un-interesting things; there are only un-interested people."  

Lord Chesterton

I was sitting at Starbucks a few days ago as I do every morning when I'm
home and reading through a book when someone started up a conversation.  He
asked what I was reading.  When I told him, he seemed surprised, even
shocked. He asked me, "Why?"  I said "To learn."  He again asked me why.  I
said because there are a thousand things to learn and I'm committed to
learning several new things every day.  He paused.  So I asked him a
question, "What have you learned today?"

Now if he was shocked earlier by my answer, he was even more shocked by my
question.  "Learned? ... [pause] ... learned?  Well, I don't know."  "Well,
what have you learned in the last week?"   What I discovered in that brief
conversation is a way to induce a profound state of stunned silence(!).
That was not my intention, but that was the effect.

What I learned from Maslow's work on Self-Actualization Psychology, and what
I wrote in the book by that title, is that the human unique human instinct
is our instinct to learn.  We are made to learn and, in fact, to be
live-long learners.  Without instincts in the way which animals have
instincts, we have to keep learning.  And we do, whether it is formal
learning or not.  This is our inescapable meaning-making power which as a
human being you cannot turn off even if you wanted to.  So learn we do.
Make-meaning we do.  The question is not whether you will or will not, the
real question is about what you learn, the quality of your learning, its
usefulness, effectiveness, etc.

Many years ago (1970), Alvin Toffler published his best selling book, Future
Shock, and in it wrote this about the critical importance of learning in the
future-"the future" which now in 2015 has arrived:

"Tomorrow's schools must therefore teach not merely data, but ways to
manipulate it.  Students must learn how to discard old ideas, how and when
to replace them.  They must, in short, learn how to learn."   "To enhance
human adaptability: by instructing students how to learn, unlearn, and
relearn, a powerful new dimension can be added to education."  (p. 414)

The art of learning, and the meta-art of learning-how-to-learn
(meta-learning), as well as the skills of un-learning and re-learning are
today essential skills for anyone who wants to be on the cutting edge of
business or one's own industry.  These are skills required for just staying
current so that you do not fall behind.  How are your meta-learning skills?

Today many of the key thinkers in the field of education can testify to the
importance of something else which Alvin Tofler wrote 45 years ago:
"Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the
man who has not learned how to learn."  Precisely because things are
changing so quickly, if you do not know how to unlearn and relearn (the
meta-learning skills), you could very well be functionally illiterate in
your area of focus or expertise.

Now within this area of meta-learning are the critical thinking skills which
are inherent in the NLP Meta-Model of Language and in the area that enables
us to recognize cognitive distortions and cognitive biases so that we can
not fall victim to them.  The problem with such cognitive distortions and
biases is that they prevent effective learning.  They distort how we input
information, listen to conversations and speak as we work with conceptions
and premises in our understandings.  Without recognizing such, we can
develop significant learning disabilities and never understand why we are
not getting something.

When it comes to learning, your personal neuro-semantics either makes
learning a joy and delight or a drudgery that you avoid until you just have
to learn something.  This goes to how you have meta-stated the primary state
of learning.  Have you meta-stated learning with joy, delight, and fun?  Or
have you associated learning with boredom and/or work.  Have you concluded
that it is hard and useless?  Have you decided that it's for nerds?
Whatever meta-level frames you have brought to learning will govern your
strategies for learning, comprehending, remembering, and integrating.

We can think about learning using many different distinctions.  There is the
distinction between capitalization and compensation learning.  Compensation
learning is the learning that a person does to overcome a weakness,
insecurity, or a humiliation.  The person learns to compensate  for
something so that the weakness does not undermine his effectiveness.
Capitalization learning is completely different.  In this kind of learning,
you are building on your strengths.

Howard Gardner, who was the cognitive psychologists who invented the
Multiple-Intelligence Model, has identified eight different kinds of
intelligences.  He has also created an inventory for a person to figure out
one's strongest form or forms of intelligences so that a person can
compensate where one is weakest by strengthening one's best dispositions.
The NLP model does this to a lesser degree as it highlights the different
sensory systems that we have and can use for learning.

What did you learn today?  How committed are you to your learning?  How are
you recording your learnings?  How well do you do in integrating your
learnings into your mind-body system so they make you more effective?  What
are you planning to learn this year?  What are the benchmarks that you are
using to measure the quality of your learnings?

Ah, yes, learning.  Learning, un-learning, and re-learning- these are the
meta-learning skills which lie at the very heart of human excellence.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

               Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

               Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

                    Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net

What is Neuro-Semantic NLP?

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Self-Actualization: Neuro-Semantics launched the New Human Potential
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