Learning Barriers
Overfilled class-sizes, economic disadvantages and "learning disorders" are common. Yet underlying all of this, there are three primary barriers that keep one from successfully studying a subject. Despite all that has been written on the subject of study, these three barriers were never isolated as having such importance in effective education.
This is not attention deficit disorder, emotional problems or stupidity at work. This is the emotional or physical reactions a student of any age will experience when encountering one of these barriers to learning.
Students fail to learn because no one has ever taught them how to learn — how to identify the barriers to learning and how to overcome them.
What are the three primary barriers to learning? The answer is found in Study Technology, central to which is the delineation of these barriers to study. Never before recognised, these yet constitute the primary reasons for educational failures.
FIRST BARRIER TO LEARNING:
"LACK OF MASS (PHYSICAL OBJECT) OF WHICH IS BEING STUDIED"
If one is attempting to understand the function and operation of a car or a computer or a solar system, the printed page and spoken word are no substitute for the object itself.
It would be difficult to understand how to use a computer for the first time if you did not have the computer there in front of you.
In fact, lacking the object associated with a word can inhibit all understanding.
Have you seen your children or students look like this when they study?
Perhaps you have experienced this yourself when you've tried to learn something.
A person studying a subject without the objects related to that subject will experience these and several other specific reactions.
Knowing how to identify and handle these reactions is vital to a student's ability to grasp and use a subject — and more than vital to a teacher's ability to get a student to learn the subject.
SECOND BARRIER TO LEARNING:
"TOO STEEP A STUDY GRADIENT"
A gradient is a way of learning or doing something step by step. A gradient can be easy where each step can be done easily, or it can be hard where each step is difficult to do.
Too steep a gradient consists of not having mastered prior skills before going onto more complicated or detailed steps.
A student who has skipped a gradient may feel a sort of confusion or a feeling of reeling (i.e. moving or swaying like you might fall).
These are two reactions a person will have when they have missed a step or hit too steep a gradient in the subject they're studying.
This is often referred to as "missed basic skills" or "insufficient basic skills."
THIRD BARRIER TO LEARNING:
"A WORD THAT IS NOT UNDERSTOOD OR WRONGLY UNDERSTOOD"
The third and most important barrier is the misunderstood word.
Have you ever been reading a book or a report, gotten to the end of the page and couldn't remember what you read?
Therein lies the phenomena of the misunderstood word — all becomes distinctly blank beyond a word not understood or wrongly understood.
The matter is far more critical than one might surmise, and of the three barriers it is the misunderstood word that bears most upon human relations, the mind and understanding.
It is the misunderstood word that establishes aptitude — or lack of it.
It produces a vast panorama of reactions and is the prime factor involved with stupidity. It also determines whether or not one can actually perform a learned skill and to what degree of proficiency.
Have you ever observed someone looking tired while studying, as if they were about to fall asleep? Daydreaming? Looking blank?
All of the above are the result of one or more words or symbols not understood or wrongly understood.
The misunderstood word can stop a student in his tracks completely.
Knowing how to determine when there is a misunderstood word or symbol, how to find it and how to handle it are critical to the success of any student.