Igniting your Natural Genius - Section 1: Instinctive Learning
by Prasad Kaipa and Steve Johnson
Section 1 | Section 2 | Section 3 | Section 4 | Section 5 | Section 6
This chapter forms the first section of a manuscript (work in progress) titled
Igniting Your Natural Genius. This manuscript elaborates the
learning framework developed the Mithya Institute.
You can see the model or read about it by selecting
Bicycle Built for Two or
Learning Coaching and Inspiration.
Table of Contents
Section One: BEFORE THE 'SCRIPT' BEGINS:
INSTINCTIVE LEARNING
Before we look at the stages of learning, we
should explore the raw material that we were born with. We need to know what
we are made of before we can attempt to change it. The world of the child
can shed a strong light on the way our minds work, and we need to try to
understand the capabilities of the developing brain in order to make sense
of it later.
Society's logical assumption would be that the child, and particularly the
infant, is a helpless creature at the mercy of the experienced. Research
indicates that it is the infant that has the highest ability to learn, the
clearest instinct to absorb, and the largest built-in capacity to embrace
information and entire disciplines of a complexity and at a pace that would
leave most adults gasping. As a result, it is the child that teaches the
adult about learning. The adult, presuming to have a far superior mind,
graciously offers to teach the child about the world -- only to discover
with a shock that the child, with its intuitive abilities and awesome learning
speed, is teaching the teacher at least as much....
We Understand Learning Before We Even Begin
to Learn
When Vidya, Prasad's daughter, was ten months old, she began to stand up
and attempt to walk. She could hardly walk two steps before she fell, but
falling never seemed to discourage her. One day in June she attempted to
stand and walk over 60 times. By the end of July, she was running all over
the house and comfortably climbing up and down the stairs. That means that
Vidya probably attempted to walk 1000 times before she mastered the process.
The thought of failure never seemed to enter her head. What began as curiosity
quickly became compulsion to learn, with no fear stage in between.
We adults normally give up trying new things after the first or second attempt,
and it is a rare individual who continues again and again after repeated
failure. Yet we are all aware of those rare people who practice something
over and over again, in such diverse fields as sports, music, literature
or business; and they sometimes achieve greatness. In their case they simply
adopted the drive of the child they once were and avoided the trap of fearing
failure.
Failure is therefore clearly linked with learning; the more we fear failure,
the less we learn. It is not the failed attempts themselves that prevent
us from continuing to try, but our interpretation of the situation. In other
words, whether we expect to fail or whether we expect to succeed, those
expectations will be self fulfilling; either way, we say to ourselves: `There,
I told you so.'
We have hardly begun this book and already we see that learning is not much
like the common perception of it. The techniques we use to increase learning
are perhaps not as important as our attitudes and beliefs towards it.
--William Blake
Learning Happens The Most When We Try
to Learn The Least
Generations of school children, bored by class and scolded for daydreaming
out of the window, have been told to concentrate more. Yet it is clear that
attempting to concentrate on something that is uninteresting is an exercise
in futility; we go through the motions, we stare at the page, we re-read
the paragraph, but we continue to think about something else altogether.
We can become better at fooling people that we are working hard, but our
glazed eyes usually betray us long before our failed examinations do so.
When we truly learn how to do something, we cease to have to work so hard
on it at all. There is no chore involved, and it seem to take only a fraction
of the time. In fact, when we are excited about a subject we only need to
glance at a page for its meaning to leap to our eyes and affect us deeply.
It seems as though our body is doing it all by itself.
Of course, this is not the case; it is that our brain has become so enthusiastic,
so practiced at the action, and so comfortable with the new environment it
has created, that it can dedicate a part of itself to take care of details
automatically, whenever needed. In computer terms, it has `hard wired' a
special program or sequence just for that purpose. This leaves us free again
to do other tasks.
This can apply to anything, for example learning a musical instrument or
riding a bicycle. In either case, once a certain moment is reached, we feel
an `aha' taking place; we feel a breakthrough has happened. For the first
time, the violinist feels as if the fingers are moving faster than the mind.
Once that point is reached, not only do we need never learn that sequence
again, we would actually find it hard to unlearn it. It takes hundreds of
hours to learn how to walk, and perhaps dozens of hours how to ride a bicycle
or drive a car. But once learned, they are imprinted forever.
This explains why it is so hard for many people to unlearn a habit, for example
learning to drive on the other side of the road when visiting another country;
in this case, the conscious mind's attempts to conform are in conflict with
strong, hard-wired messages from the unconscious. After some struggle, we
adapt to driving on the `wrong' side of the road, often only to revert to
the old program in a moment of tiredness or stress. It is very hard to forget
that which has become automatic; an adult does not forget how to ride a bicycle
even if no practice or even thought has been given to the subject since early
childhood.
This does serve to give us a clue about the implications involved. What else
might we have take for granted; what else has become so automatic that we
assume it is the only way of doing things? The challenge we might face in
rethinking something long adopted as automatic can indeed be formidable,
but it could be an invaluable mental exercise to try. Because our established
ways of thinking have long since become standard, we have to work hard even
to become aware of them, let alone reverse them. Once attempted, the mere
recognition that there is more than one way to do something we previously
took for granted can be enlightening, even transformational.
Habits are powerful tools, but we surely should not be ruled by them. Even
some of our most trivial actions are governed by them. For example, if someone
is asked to fold their arms over their chest, they invariable adopt the same
method every time, for example right over left. The other way feels wrong
and uncomfortable, even unthinkable.
Our very perceptions are also governed by habit. In an early study, a volunteer
was given a pair of special glasses to wear during all waking hours. The
glasses reversed Up and Down, so that everything seemed to be upside down.
Naturally this was highly disorienting at first, but gradually the volunteer
started to make progress. Eventually, he could function quite normally. Then,
when the glasses were removed, he was disoriented again; he thought that
everything looked upside down again.
In another experiment, researchers showed a movie on a big screen to an audience
of people who had never seen a movie before. Whenever an actor moved off-screen,
the audience stood up and moved to the next room, expecting to see the actor
there.
Both the above examples are interesting and perhaps amusing, but they raise
a disturbing thought: how would we know if our own perceptions were based
on an element of illusion? The very structure of our eyes helps us to form
an impression of reality. No two people have an identical perception of the
same shade of, say, green, and some people cannot differentiate it at all
from, say, a particular shade of blue.The structure of a bat's sensory organs
cause it to see reality in a different way altogether. Is there a `true'
reality after all? Who are we to assume that we are always right? Yet how
many of us question anything about our accepted ways of seeing the world.
Given this enormous reliance on our cherished thought patterns and habits,
imagine therefore how unthinkable it might be to change one's attitudes and
beliefs on such issues as politics, parents, religion or nationhood. Or,
for that matter, one's career.
Our environment naturally influences us, and some of what we experience interests
us. This is what we find the easiest to learn. In turn, we put back into
the environment more of our specialized subject, thus perpetuating the cycle
for ourselves. But we need to ask ourselves: Exactly how arbitrary was the
original environmental impact in the first place? Who would we be today if
we had not had that experience?
In an age where job retraining has such fundamental implications in national
economic as well as in individual levels, there is simply no point in attempting
a major effort to retrain anyone unless the idea is embraced by the trainee,
the subject as agreeable and seen as worthwhile, and the expectations of
success are high. How else could we expect someone to throw away the
self-perceptions and habits that have taken half a lifetime to perfect? We
fear that after such a dearth of retraining commitments at corporate and
government levels for so long, a rush of desperately-needed and well-intentioned
training projects could fail because of a lack of awareness that their success
is dependent on factors other than subject matter and delivery methods.
-- Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, 1750-52
We Begin By Seeing With Our Body, Not With Our
Eyes
When we are infants, we have no access to thinking other than in terms of
what has happened to our body so far. Our mobility is limited and our perceptive
senses are not fully developed. We primarily operate out of kinesthetic and
tactile modes to relate to the world. When something touches us, we know
something has happened even if we don't know exactly what.
Very early in the life of the embryo, the first system that develops is our
system of touch. In fact, all of our special senses, sight and sound, taste
and smell, are basically elaborations of this system of touch. Embryologists
talk about this system of touch as the mother of the senses. With touch and
the body as such a basic part of our experience, the body is a reservoir
for emotional issues, a reservoir for a lot of meaning in our lives, and
often we don't pay attention to the body in the ways that we can and should.
We know for example physiologically that the importance of touch right after
birth is that it kicks off some neurological systems that need to be kicked
off, it kicks off digestive systems... and also touch is a way by which you
start to relate to emotions and feeling, and you start to develop your own
psychological identity, because once we're born physically we still have
one more birth to go through, and that's the birth of who we are psychologically.
And that birthing process that happens between the time we're born physically
and maybe two or three years is a process in which the body and touch is
very important. We learn about ourselves by how we feel about others, and
how we feel about others, using the double meaning of that word `feel', not
only comes from our sense of emotional contact but literally how we're held.
The therefore know that the learning process begins very early on, long before
we see with our eyes. We know if it becomes too hot or too cold, when we
are uncomfortably wet, and when something presses onto our skin. We also
know that some sensations are pleasant. We know what we like and what we
do not like, and we take very little time in deciding between them.
Later, when our eyesight develops, we perhaps literally develop our way of
seeing through what we have earlier experienced through touch. To the brain,
we do not literally see or touch the world at all; the brain merely receives
information which it constantly attempts to interpret in terms of patterns.
Music is simply another set of patterns, enjoyed by another specialization
in the brain.
If through touch we have learned that the world is inhospitable, threatening
or dangerous, we will quickly adapt to seeing that way too, to enhance our
own preservation chances. Alternatively, if we have learned through our skin
that the world is interesting, and that new things are safe and fun, we will
form our concept of vision around a model that encourages observation and
experimentation. Memory will be enhanced because we simply do not want to
forget anything. We urge ourselves on to new learning simply because we expect
to enjoy it.
As our other senses develop, they begin to overtake the sense of touch in
importance. For some adults, sight is the only reality they seriously consider,
and touch is given no thought.
This might cause a disconnect with our earlier sense of reality. Perhaps
a primary reason for the therapeutic effects of meditation and physical intimacy
is a recognition of the powerful depths that touch reaches into our
consciousness, in which case there is something to be said for reestablishing
the connection with our bodies if we need to remind ourselves that the world
is safe and worth learning about.
Perception is everything, or, as the phrase goes, Perception Is Reality.
According to Piaget, people and objects that are out of sight or touch simply
cease to exist for a young child. If a toy which is given full attention
is hidden for a moment, the child assumes it has suddenly dematerialized
forever. Even if the toy magically reappears moments later and the routine
is repeated, the child again thinks it disappears every time. This explains
the extreme, but temporary, emotions displayed in such games. Later, when
it begins to dawn on the child that perhaps the toy just might reappear again,
a major learning breakthrough has occurred; a reality exists beyond what
can be directly experienced.
This is indeed a profound moment of growth. Not every adult, it must be said,
develops full confidence in the continuity of this external reality. Perhaps
jealousy and possessiveness in adults are, in part, characteristics of those
who continue to question whether people and objects really do fully exist
outside of the viewer's world. Consequently these people probably wonder
whether they really will see those temporarily hidden people and objects
again.
-- Emerson Journals, 1839
Adults can spend a lifetime failing at what infants
do with ease every day
There is no separation of 'world' and 'I' for the infant. The world is merely
an extension of itself. When a tiny child cries, it does not care whether
the mother is in a good mood or not, or whether she is awake or getting enough
sleep. When the baby is hungry, that is all that matters.
There is no past and no future, just the present moment. Adults understand
cause and effect; the cause creates the effect, which in turn influences
the next cause.
With infants, there is no cause and effect. There are no memories to cloud
the judgments of the present time, and no decisions to carry forward.
It has been said that this stage of development is often frightening for
a child. However, it is very possible that when it feels full and warm, the
infant at this age is in complete peace with the universe, precisely because
there is no division between self and environment. Everything is one.
This is analogous with the state of mind that the mystics and religious leaders
urge adults to strive towards. A true sense of oneness is said to be so rare
as to be experienced in moments of profound insight and vision, where a moment
in this state of pure bliss can transform a person for life. Many never
experience anything like it, or even believe in its existence. Yet as infants
it was once a normal state. Perhaps that is why some do seek this experience
as adults; they sense that they have been there before -- that is, before
we complicated ourselves to the point of forgetting it all.
An infant is not being selfish when it focuses entirely on itself. It merely
has not yet experienced any alternative. When the child gradually realizes
that the world is not at its command, this is a major shift in perception
and is not always welcome. Children that are uncomfortable with the change
resent the loss of power, and tend to do so because they fear what might
happen next. Perhaps fear of isolation is the biggest fear of all. As a result,
the normal process of recognizing that other people have feelings and rights
is rapidly distorted and complicated. Whatever mental model the child then
develops will be a mechanism to protect itself from greater hurt. Each model
will have an impact on the child's learning potential, because the mechanism
tends to fall into one of several predictable categories, each self-limiting,
for example:
.... and so on. In this way, that great advance of human development, the
gift of recognizing the consciousness of others and allowing each their own
individuality, becomes a negative force if in the process of coping we lose
some of our own identity. Once the model changes, the child will automatically
seek future learning opportunities only that support their new model, no
matter how limiting and convoluted it is.
-- Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, 1899
We become different people throughout
our lives. The person each of us is today is but today's model.
At different times of our lives we focus on different aspects of who we are.
For example, although we are still the same person we were at ten years old,
we have forgotten what it was like to focus in that way. Effectively, we
have become someone different, but we find it unsettling to think this way.
We outgrow our mental models, but only through choice. For example, we can
look forward to exploring new alternatives, or we can decide to make our
existing model more rigid and better protected from change. Either way, our
future models are not inevitable, but instead reflect the clarity of our
vision and beliefs today.
Children growing up in families where accomplishments in sports and physical
fitness are valued will tend to become naturally interested in the body and
athletics. In homes where quantities of books are in evidence, the child
will naturally accept books as normal objects to have around. However, the
child will not necessarily actually read them unless a parent or another
role model is frequently seen reading. When that happens, the child will
unthinkingly pick up books and usually develop reading skills almost
effortlessly. So, it is not what is in the environment but how people willingly
interact with it that influences the developing mind.
We also need to remember that the exact opposite can happen. If the parent
pressures the child to read, or even purchases the child an entire library,
it could lead to a lifelong resistance to reading. It is how it is communicated
and demonstrated that counts. Children are highly intuitive towards integrity,
honesty, love and authenticity, which gives adults a clear challenge to
communicate in these ways if a positive impact is desired.
Children with clear expectations and values have less anxiety and more freedom:
Prasad's friend Debu Ghosh, who worked with thousands of children and adults
once said: "Children always know what the rules are --- they think that adults
are the confused creatures."
-- Aldous Huxley in Music at Night, 1931
It takes change to allow us to recognize continuity
No matter how fast change seems to be, it is experienced in small increments,
step by step.
How we think is not fixed for life. We modify our very style of thinking
as we grow. We add and adapt beliefs and values, knowledge and understanding
over time. It is a natural process.
Even our entire body is changing all the time. No cell remains the same after
seven years, not even those of our brains or bones. Our bodies and our thoughts
are constantly being altered, new replacing old. It is medically proven that
many childhood allergies disappear with time as those cells die and do not
pass on the allergies to the next generation of cells. When we retain a thought
pattern, what we are really doing is constantly replacing brain cells in
a near-replication of the old pattern.
How do we reconcile the fact that we change all the time, and as children
constantly seek new things to discover, yet as adults we can be highly resistant
to change? The answer lies in the scale of the change. Learning something
new which does not undermine other thoughts is fun, but having to rewrite
fundamental concepts is clearly most unsettling. If it is perceived that
the change challenges entire belief systems, there can be strong resentment
indeed and a refusal to even entertain such a notion.
Yet, as adults, we often see others timidly resist even trivial change. Such
change would only be resisted if the person perceived any change to be dangerous.
Imagine life as a boat. A person living on a fragile, overladen boat faces
disaster with any slight gust of wind. Anyone seen rocking the boat jeopardizes
its future. Also, if the sea itself is thought of as stormy or rocky to begin
with, life seems even more precarious. In these circumstances, any change
at all would seem overwhelming.
Alternatively, if the perception of the boat is one of a solid, reliable,
ocean liner with a dependable crew, the owner can happily relax and play
on the deck, suggest a new course, and invite friends and strangers on board.
In other words, we will never be comfortable with change until we develop
a secure mental model in which to dwell.
-- William Wordsworth, Ode to Duty, 1805
By Copying Others, We Become Ourselves
Imitation seems to be a fundamental instinct from our very first actions.
Infants quickly copy whatever they can, and in this way they learn how things
work.
Children watch what their parents do very carefully. In playing `house',
they play out their mother and father, and much of their unconscious body
of learning consists of this imitation, duplicating how they see the models
work that are around them. This is the unconscious way that knowledge is
transferred from generation to generation.
It is likely that the rapid learning of language and walking are driven not
so much by the wish to communicate or move about as the desire to do what
others are doing. Even without parental encouragement, the child feels an
urge to copy. Only when walking skills are mastered will the child tend to
walk about just for the pleasure of it.
This need to copy others is a powerful tool to accelerate learning. As infants,
we absorb a model of the world that seems to work. Why reinvent the wheel?
Why indeed? There is probably no better way to learn a complex skill like
language than to find it interesting enough to listen in order to imitate.
But if we are to avoid being a clone, we need to prod ourselves from time
to time in later life. We need to ask:
'Do I think this way merely because I accepted it as truth from someone else
long ago, long before I developed the knowledge I have today?'
Unless we question this, we run the risk of living a life without really
knowing who we are and what we are capable of.
Perhaps as adults we are a little embarrassed that children continue to
shamelessly plagiarize others so much. We like to think of ourselves as
individuals, certainly not clones of our parents, or servants to conformity.
Adults often realize with a flash of insight and some discomfort that they
act and sound like their parents, something that they thought they fought
hard to avoid.
Prasad's son, Pravin, who is five years old at the time of this writing,
took longer to learn certain basic lessons and was generally less active
compared to his little sister, who is one year old. The main difference seems
to be that she has the benefit of a peer to imitate.
Every day she loves to do what her big brother does. For example, it does
not matter that she does not have any teeth; she still insists on attempting
to brush them. She is imitating her brother much more than either of them
imitated their parents.
Children are particularly comfortable imitating their peers, perhaps because
there are fewer expectations from peers than parents. Peers can experiment
together in a non-threatening way. Also, because adults are so capable at
so many things, they are not credible if they tell a child that something
is easy to do. But if a peer makes something look easy, it will encourage
the child to think that any child can do it. They therefore constantly stretch
and challenge each other, practicing complex learning experiences in game
play.
Children do not copy everything and everybody randomly. They copy people
they understand, like and respect more than anyone else. Imitation is the
sincerest flattery. They make a big show of avoiding copying people they
dislike. This polarity of like and dislike is a strong motivator, because
of the urgent need to conform and to make as coherent and consistent a sense
of the world as possible. The actions of people they know are more likely
to make sense than those of strangers.
Children are easily upset if something goes counter to expectations. Their
world foundations are readily challenged. This proves that they attempt to
build a model of the world very early on indeed. Bit by bit, decision by
decision, entire belief and value systems are constructed as the child checks
and explores its boundaries and creates its own character. Once it is satisfied
that it has a model that is largely workable, it forgets the tortuous path
it took, and assumes that it always thought this way. It would undermine
its sense of being if it consciously realized that it was such a product
of the influences, planned or random, of others. Either way, the personality
becomes largely set at a very early age.
This strong drive to create an individuality becomes even more necessary
if the child perceives the environment to be threatening or negative in some
other way. It becomes desperately important to build a solid foundation for
yourself if you are surrounded by chaotic and unpredictable dangers, parental
mood swings, and other hazards.
There is even evidence that humans are not the only creatures who cling to
a mental model and can be upset when new concepts do not conform. For example,
it is believed from observation that dolphins and other creatures have learning
tantrums when frustrated with difficult learning.
Children often work hard to make small differentiations visible in order
to feel unique, and sometimes these grow into major hobby, lifestyle, career
and personality traits.
Children often compete furiously among themselves, almost as if to prove
who they are, and they enjoy the game as long as the competition conforms
to the world view that they have so recently formed. They will not compete
on issues that threaten their highly precious sense of reality.
On a larger scale, this system of developing a world model is also much the
way communities and even entire cultures develop. Once developed, these appear
eternal and rather sacred to those who own them. Every culture believes itself
to be at the heart of the universe; every city has a `You are here' map,
with the arrow pointing to the middle of the map.
The U.S. Government believes that they are the undisputed leader of the world.
Similarly, India believes that they are far advanced over the West in spiritual
matters, France perhaps believes it is one of the most civilized countries,
and so on. All cultures believe that they are right, and expect everybody
else to recognize this sooner or later. Even countries that were torn apart
by war and displaced into separate geographies remember their original culture
and fight to protect it many decades later.
This tells us much about individual identity, because it is not a nation
which fights for its culture but its people. Once we establish an identity
for ourselves and where we belong we are likely to carry that with us most
or all of our lives, no matter how much we later learn or travel. Many Americans
have a passionate view of their heritage even if they have no contact with
the country of their ancestors. Immigrants often have a fantasy about retiring
to their homeland even after 50 or more years abroad. Human history is littered
with the dead from wars over boundary disputes, and these wars persist today.
We clearly have a basic need to belong, and such thoughts run so deep that
we can allow them to define who we are. When considering learning, we should
be aware of this factor because anything which has such a profound effect
on our instinctive thinking will blur the distinction between the moments
we are being objective and the times we are not.
-- Joseph Roux. 1886
Love is worth a hundred books
It is easy to use the word `love' in a vague and sentimental way. Everybody
knows that we should love one another, and that parents should love their
children. All You Need Is Love. We could easily smother this page with cliche,
saccharine, and pink rabbits. But let's not. Instead, we could study research
that deals with infant learning, and look at objective evidence on the subject.
The Pediatrics Journal, in the May 1986 issue, reported a study in which
infants born several weeks before full term pregnancy were given 15 minutes
of special attention, each day. Someone reached in to stroke them and gently
wriggle their arms and legs; this was repeated three times a day. The results
were striking. Although fed on demand with the same formula, the stroked
infants gained 47% more weight each day than the control group who were denied
this caring touch. They were more alert and acted like normal babies sooner
than the others and even went home a week earlier.
Several other studies also show that a parent's interaction with a child
has a lasting effect on the kind of person that child grows up to be. Studies
reported by Kevin Rathunde of the University of Chicago show that teenagers
who had good relationships with their parents were significantly happier,
satisfied, and stronger in their life situations compared to their peers
who did not have such a relationship. Similarly, optimal balance between
love and discipline is found to be the best child-rearing method in other
studies.
Imagine a scientific experiment, for example the study of the growth of a
plant. If, by observation you notice that the gradual removal of sunlight
systematically reduces its growth, you are bound to conclude a relationship
between growth and light. If the sunlight is returned, and growth speeds
up again, we learn even more of the relationship. We might conclude that
good light is the normal environment for plants, and that anything less is
an inhibitor, because plants developed that way through countless generations
of adaptation and evolution. A plant will not necessarily die in lower light,
but it will be stunted.
Infants are designed, it seems, to be wiggled and stroked, talked to and
comforted. Teenagers, as parents will discover, are not quite as amenable
to parental wiggling, but do respond well to healthy relationships at home.
In these cases, learning takes place at a fast pace. As a shorthand for terms
like stroking and communicating and nurturing, we can use the word loving.
Whatever the term, its restriction leads to stuntedness of the individual,
and its return becomes a learning accelerator again.
Children in circumstances lacking love and care are consequently somewhat
inhibited about learning. The normal pattern of imitation, exploration and
play is disrupted. This can be summarized as a fear of something; of
embarrassment, of retribution, of hurt, or merely the fear of anyone not
understanding or accepting. Fear is the ultimate learning inhibitor.
Without positive feedback, it might not occur to children that it is helpful
to experiment and learn, in which case the best we can hope is for the child
to become a passive watcher rather than an active contributor. At worst,
resentment and frustration will be exhibited or bottled up for later.
It is well known that a person's mental and emotional states have a powerful
effect on their health. There is an abundance of documentation linking negative
thoughts and emotions to hormonal secretions that increase the aging process,
add stress to the immune system and ultimately manifest in disease. Personalities
with tendencies towards anger for example have a tenfold chance of dying
from cardiac arrest. The University of London School of Medicine recently
released the results of a 30 year study which showed that negative reactions
to stress are more destructive to health than is cigarette smoking.
The Institute of HeartMath has shown that a person's mental and emotional
attitudes and states can be measured electrically and that they directly
affect the cardiac electricities. The normally scattered and incoherent frequency
spectrum of the ECG dramatically changes to an extremely ordered and coherent
frequency spectrum when a person who is skilled in mental and emotional self
management focuses on feelings of love, care or appreciation.
It is possible that the electricity generated by the heart may reach the
DNA much like a radio wave is sent to a receiver. It is probable that this
communication programs the cells. Distortion in this communication link would
explain a lot of things since the DNA determines the formation of genes which
control enzymes which control all cellular functions.
We should not be surprised that love is a common denominator. Babies, kittens
and puppies evoke universal reactions of warmth from adults and children.
It seems that certain features in all these creatures are hard-wired into
our brains; we respond to their vulnerability and need for compassion with
unquestioning support and nurturing, and we cannot fail to smile as we do
so. The cartoon world takes full advantage of this collective unconsciousness
in us all, and we respond instinctively to those wide eyes and cuddly features.
This seems to be a two-way bargain. The joyful healing effects of having
babies visit a recuperation ward or home for the elderly are well documented.
In their moment of greatest vulnerability, children exude some of the greatest
power a human has to offer; that of extending the quantity and quality of
life for others.
-- Goethe 1825
The Brain With The Most Remaining Energy is The
One That Has Already Used Up The Most
If you were buying a car in order to cover the maximum distance, you would
surely be wise to buy one that had covered the least distance to begin with.
Machines have a limited lifespan, and other things being equal the remaining
lifespan is in direct proportion to how little it has been used so far.
By contrast, the more stimulation the brain receives, the more it develops,
seemingly with no upper limit. We cannot deplete the brain. It is not an
ordinary container, like a filing cabinet or a hole in the ground, that can
be filled or emptied. Also, in the normal physical model of the world, we
can plainly see that things generally slow down, burn out, develop more errors,
require more maintenance, or flatten out by erosion. But the human potential
for taking in more information actually increases with more use, thus defying
logic. How can this be?
Unlike the filing cabinet, the brain is a self-patterning system. As soon
as it comes across new information, it seeks ways in which it has come across
such data before. It looks for similarities, parallels and metaphors. How
active it seeks these is rather dependent on the skills and learning habits
of the learner, but even the most unpracticed and slovenly thinker subconsciously
has access to a vast and complex system of patterns, with immediate and elegant
handling of the incoming information stream.
The more patterns that have been, the easier it is to match yet more information.
Moreover, the more diverse the types of patterns stored, and the greater
the familiarity and frequency of access to them, the greater the learning
potential. That is why adding a new pattern type is so critical to future
learning; by doing so, we add not merely yet another fact, but a whole new
way of seeing things. Future data could be transformed by such pattern. In
this way, creating a new pattern is an investment in the future, even though
at the time it cannot be predicted that the pattern will be ever used again.
Because of this, it is clear that we are more willing to seek out and invest
in more patterns when we are upbeat, confident and positive about the future,
hence the importance of attempting to create just such an environment for
infants, children and ourselves.
A study took place about infants in several orphanages in Iran during the
1950's. In orphanages where infants spent virtually their entire first year
of life lying in their cribs, most could not sit at 21 months and 85% of
them could not walk at 3 years of age. Normally reared babies can sit unaided
by 9 months of age and walk before their second birthday.
When children are picked up, cuddled, and played with, they receive not only
emotional and social stimulation but also stimulation of nerves and muscles.
They learn to adjust their bodies to various ways of being held. Their sense
organs and brains process the great variety of information they receive from
looking at things from different perspectives and from feeling different
skin pressures and muscle tensions. This kind of normal experience stimulates
the development of the brain. It is not easy to differentiate between learning
acceleration due to stimulation and that due to love, because the love increases
the need to stimulate.
-- Aristotle. 4th century BC.
We can learn more than we understand, and
understand more than we know
We can learn facts. We can recite data. We have fun playing games of trivia.
Knowledge, however, is connected to deeper and more permanent type of learning.
When we refer to learning, we usually relate only to our conscious mind.
Our consciousness is the familiar part of our thinking that we use all day
long, and because of this it is easy to assume it is our only information
storage device.
However, our subconscious mind learns much more than our consciousness, and
it does so seemingly effortlessly. We cannot access it directly, and if we
did it would surprise us with its very different form of logic altogether.
There is much we do not understand about it, by definition, but it seems
that it tirelessly recognizes and records, 24 hours a day, everything we
see, say and do. This seems a very challenging job to say the least. For
it to function without complaint, night and day without break, for our entire
lives is an awesome prospect.
But it seems frustrating that we cannot consciously communicate with it.
Surely if we could we would never forget anything, never fail an examination,
and always have boundless wisdom at our disposal?
But to do so would perhaps jeopardize its very integrity, because for the
subconscious to even begin to function in such an all encompassing way it
must function very differently from our consciousness. Its profound elegance
of thought could only come about through development of a deeper language
than the one we use in our daily routines. For example, its lightening-fast
ability to recognize the potential for metaphor in a totally new stream of
information, by comparing it with a single experience of perhaps thirty years
previous, probably means that it may actually think in metaphor and profound
patterning in the first place. This is then interpreted by the conscious
mind and translated into our language as needed.
Such concepts as the English Language, arithmetic, philosophy and logic may
be mere intellectual devices created by the conscious mind to improve functioning
and to better feed new pattern sources down into the ever hungry unconsciousness,
where deeper and more potent thoughts can simmer and evolve in order to send
waves, trends and hints upwards again. Mostly we probably fail to recognize
the patient nudges we constantly receive, because they are necessarily in
subtle code. We need to listen hard to the quiet inner voice in order to
hear anything. But in moments of insight, or solitude, stress, hypnosis,
transition, growth, or in the nightly adventures of our dreams, we can receive
the benefits of the inner wisdom as clues we can attempt to make use of in
our daily physical lives.
Troubles arise when the connection is more tenuous than it should be; if
the consciousness refuses to listen to its wise elder it will create
incompatibilities, with resultant learning inefficiencies together with stresses
and perhaps even illnesses in time.
But what should we do about it? It is possible that mere awareness of the
duality of the brain might help forge stronger links. Regular moments of
contemplation and an acceptance of the awe of what can result from tapping
into the vast reservoir of the unconscious might help produce the sense of
wholeness that is necessary for deep accelerated learning to occur. An awareness
of these inner resources is needed to produce genuine breakthroughs of learning
beyond mere conscious recall of facts, because when breakthroughs do occur
they always affect more than one level of thinking. By definition, it is
the multi-level nature of transformation that qualifies it as a breakthrough
in the first place.
-- Vauvenargues, Reflections and Maxims, 1746
The Most Powerful Learning Can Be The Easiest
to Do
We learn mostly instinctively, and, when we are truly open, intuitively.
Let us clarify those two definitions. `Instinct' is something which all animals
have. It is an almost unvarying response to external situations, useful for
preservation of the creature or its species. `Intuition' is something which
happens just as spontaneously, and also without the need for reason, but
it is more like a sudden recognition of the truth in its totality.
We learn by instinct at first. It is natural and helpful to learn, and we
are programmed to do so. If we do not put mental barriers in our own way
we then exhibit intuition, equally effortlessly. Intuition is the most powerful
way of knowing. Each time intuiting arises, we are unaware of its source,
we cannot recreate the path it took, and we might have difficulty proving
its validity. However, we sense in a profound way that we are right.
Intuition comes from outside of the individual's conscious system. It taps
into the unconscious body of knowledge that we all have available to us.
Because children are not limited by conditional responses, instinct effortlessly
merges with intuition.
Some of the great scientific breakthroughs in history have been due to intuition,
and the scientist sometimes spends the following decades trying to prove
the new theory in mathematical terms in order for the scientific community
to accept it. Through intuition we see the wholes which play out in the bigger
picture, not restricted to local boundaries or narrow time spans.
That this happens at all seems to be miraculous, but for it to have happened
without even trying is even more so. Computer engineers and programmers currently
attempting to manufacture systems to mimic even a small fraction of this
capability have a huge task. We should be in awe of the power we have.
Awe of the same magnitude is likely when we consider the enormity of the
challenge of learning a language as a toddler.
It seems inconceivable that young children, with as yet no formal education,
can deal with three languages without blinking an eye. This is no isolated
genius factor at work. Yet we know of many couples who stopped using a second
language in front of the children `so the kids won't be confused'. We all
have vast potential for learning, but perhaps we lose the ability when we
are told that things are difficult to do.
-- Panchatantra, 5th Century AD.
You Might Travel The World Seeking The Best Teacher,
Only To Discover That it is You
There are no real limits to learning. If we do experience limits, it is because
we have placed barriers in the way. Only we can remove them. In this way,
we have direct control over our learning capabilities; no external teacher
can accelerate us as much as we can.
Without barriers, learning is easy and deep. There are no filters, no hidden
agendas, no complications or ego in the way. There is not even any fear of
forgetting, because deep learning is always with us. There is always something
to be learned from even the most humble of situations.
A man is given a spelling book intended for small children, and he is told
that he can learn from it. He glances at it, sees that it informs the reader
how to spell `cat', and throws it down with disdain. What an insult to his
intelligence!
So, by creating barriers we entrap ourselves. We think we are at our boundaries,
but we are far short. But if learning is so pleasurable, why do we find it
so difficult for ourselves? Why don't we take Da Vinci's advice and learn
for the fun of it?
In the next stage of learning, we will explore how these barriers are erected
in the first place, so that we can learn how to dismantle them and relive
the pleasures of unlimited growth once again.
-- Leonardo Da Vinci Notebooks, c.1500
Section Summary
In this section, we have been looking at patterns of how infants and young
children learn and what their natural limitations could be. Unless they are
affected by major neurological disorders, it appears that children are eager,
curious and motivated to explore the world and learn constantly. Some of
the most complicated tasks we ever learn, like walking and talking, are mastered
with no special teaching or guidance.
By no means are children experts, but they are expert learners. They have
an inquisitive and attentive nature and if properly nurtured, children could
continue to learn everything at this accelerated pace. Such learning is not
all cognitive and has a large bio-sensory component to it. An infant's ability
to sit, stand, walk and run have nothing to do with what we call `thinking
skills.'
We also saw how emotional nourishment and nurturing could impact the physical
growth of children. We identified the ways in which we learn when we are
not anxious about performing. We learn unconsciously, kinesthetically and
instinctively as long as it is fun and challenging.
We will explore further the impact of such unconscious learning modes on
decision making in the later sections. Several studies indicate that human
beings repeatedly access their instinctive learning styles both when challenged
or cornered. When cornered, however, our learning is not open to correction
and we are under emotional stress. Such experiences generally are difficult
to recall.
Instinctive modes of learning lead to natural but naive understanding of
the world as developed over time. While this knowledge is often sufficient
to grasp what is going on around us, it is still received wisdom. There is
a big gap between what a child comes into this world with and what it learns
by conscientiously and diligently applying itself to go beyond the received
wisdom.
Summarizing, we learn differently at different stages of our life. These
stages are not necessarily chronological and we resist all movement from
one stage to another. If we are nurtured in an empowering, loving way, the
chances are that we use intuition much more than instinct. Otherwise, we
resort to instinct much more than cognitive modes as we become boxed in and
cannot see outside of that box.
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Innocence dwells with Wisdom, but never with Ignorance
As any action or posture, long continued, will distort and disfigure the
limbs, so the mind likewise is crippled and contracted by perpetual application
to the same set of ideas.
If man did not from time to time...close his eyes, he would finally be unable
to see anything worth looking at.
Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive
ruthlessly to satisfy them.
Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity,
their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.
My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is
the same.
Imitation is a necessity of nature; when young, we imitate others; when old,
ourselves.
Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love.
To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common
to all men.
The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught.
Prasad's friend, Jean Luc, is a Frenchman with a Cambodian wife, Ling. They
live in America and have two children, aged 3 and 4. When they have a visit
from their French grandparents, who cannot speak English or Chinese, it is
the children who freely translate English and Chinese into French for them.
Knowledge is the true organ of sight, not the eyes.
The book is then given to a wiser man. Instead of allowing his ego to intervene,
he decides to read the book from the point of view of the child. It not only
sheds light on the thinking process of the young mind, but it also is an
experience of what it is like to be learning something important for the
first time. He contemplates how challenging a book of strange symbols must
look, particularly if the child has no clear understanding that books contain
knowledge and that symbols on the page represent words being spoken. Yet
the scale of empowerment for the child when the breakthrough occurs can hardly
be overstated. Perhaps, the man decides, there are equally challenging but
empowering symbols all around us, which he himself has overlooked. What is
the equivalent to `cat' at the next level for each of us? Only we know where
our own boundaries lie, therefore only we can be our ideal teacher.
Just as eating against one's will is injurious to health, so study without
a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.
Other Chapters of 'Igniting Your
Natural Genius'
Copyright 1998, 1999, The Mithya Institute for Learning. All rights reserved.