One morning I received a message from a lovely lady about how something I had written resonated with her. The conversation grew and I got to know that she is a secondary school maths teacher. I made a comment about how it can be quite challenging to teach secondary school maths as each child’s learning style can be quite different and it cannot be one size fits all approach. Additionally, not all children are equally strong in logical thinking. And given all other challenges children face these days, it is not easy to teach challenging subjects like maths. The reply from the teacher was very interesting.
She acknowledged what I said and added that no matter how many different ways she teaches and explains, some children do not get it. But, they get it when least expected. It reinforced what I say to clients and attendees of my class – learning is unconscious.
There is a learning model I would like to mention here. According to that, we start with unconscious incompetence. This is basically when we do not know what we do not know. We may not have thought about public speaking so never bothered to develop competency in that. Then we move to conscious incompetence. This is when we become aware that we are lacking specific skill. Going back to public speaking example, we start becoming aware of our skill gap in delivering a speech. We then move to conscious competence. This is when we are very conscious about each step we must take to accomplish the task. We may be conscious about how we stand to deliver the speech, how we modulate our voice etc. At this point, we would be able to do the task well, but it takes lot of effort and awareness of each step involved. The last stage is the unconscious competence. This to me is the most important as in my view, it is when the new skill becomes a part of us. At this point, we do not have to think much to do it in a certain way.
When we are in conscious competence stage, our senses are oriented to things that will help us learn and with will power and directed attention, we can improve. However, what I call the penny drop happens in the unconscious. When what we learnt becomes part of us, we just do it without much thought. When I was doing maths as a student, if I did not get a concept and merely repeated the steps to solve a problem, I may or may not be able to do it in exam as I relied on my memory and it could fail me. Also, I noticed I was not comfortable with that level of learning. Unless it ‘clicked’ and I knew it, I was not comfortable facing it in exam.
This applies to other concepts one may learn in life. I tell my clients not to intellectually analyse everything we discuss as that will not allow the unconscious learning to happen. Use the senses to acquire knowledge and this will serve as seeds that one sows. As your mind learns you are interested in that thing you are trying to learn, the puzzle piece will fall in place in the unconscious and it will CLICK. The unconscious works in its own timeline and it clicks often when you are not thinking. You may have noticed how when you try hard to solve a problem, you do not get ideas but take a break and walk away from it, bingo!
You may have noticed how there are many things you know intellectually but struggle to practice them in life. Things like acceptance, letting go, forgiving and so on are some examples. It is likely that you are in between unconscious incompetence or conscious competence stages and hence it is not quite part of you yet.
When working with clients on shifts, we work until it gets to the unconscious competence stage, if not, the learning will not be effective when the will is down. We often start with cultivating awareness and it takes conscious effort. As they see the drama unfold, at one point they have insight about how they co-create their reality. This is when our work often concludes. Whether one is trying to learn an academic subject or life lesson, it is important to allow the unconscious learning to happen. When you have insights, it clicks and remember to be grateful for the insights.
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