Beliefs about Teaching and Learning: 7 Barriers to Professional Growth and Development

Think about the time when you were in the 6th or 7th grade. Perhaps you remember a student in your class who always aced all subjects. (Or was it you?) No matter who the teacher was. No matter what the subject matter was. No matter where, when or how the subjects were taught. While the rest of us struggled, got by or tried to catch up, she effortlessly excelled at every subject and also found the time to play sports, lead the debate team and gossip about celebrities. The whole package, as they call it.

What made her such an exceptional student? Some of her success could obviously be attributed to her natural gifts and talents. You may also agree, however, that she possessed some attitudinal qualities - whether they were natural or nurtured - that contributed to her success.

In my work as a trainer to the corporate world, I have noticed some parallels between a great school student and a great adult learner. They share some qualities that make them great students. While we don't control our natural gifts and talents, the good news is that these qualities can be nurtured, acquired and developed by most of us.

However, there are many wrong beliefs about learning, held by both teachers and students, that make it difficult for the students to develop these qualities. These beliefs need to be addressed and corrected before an adult professional can be effective at learning. Specifically, there are 7 such mistaken beliefs that stand in the way of a student's ability to be an exceptional learner.

You may have heard the saying: "You can't teach anything to the person who knows everything."

It helps to have a level of cognitive sharpness in learning, especially when the material to be learned demands cognitive engagement. However, being "smart" for most adults often means one or more of the following things:

• Having a large repository of knowledge or memorized facts.
• Having well-formed opinions and arguments for the subject matter.
• Having a convincing argument for or against everything.

All of the above views of smartness inhibit learning, not support it. If it helps, it only helps to the extent that when a student becomes emotionally engaged with the material, it helps her become a better learner.

A gap must be found in the student's mind where it's accepted by the student that she does not know enough about the subject-matter. The wider and deeper the gap, the more effective the learning experience for both the student and the teacher.

Adult learning often takes its inspiration from the world of sports. We are often taught that we have to push our brain to learn something new, like lifting an extra pound of weight in the gym or biking an extra mile. There is certainly some place for such strategies when we develop our brains. But such strategies are not helpful in mastering a subject.

Learning is very natural to us humans, even when we are not a child any more. It's in our basic nature to grow throughout our lives. Have you seen a flower strive to blossom? Have you ever seen a tree working really hard to grow?  A relaxed mind is more conducive to learning than a stressed mind. Learning requires that we let go of trying hard, not work harder.

True learning takes us to the point where realize how little we know. It's impossible to know everything with our cognitive faculties as intellect has its limits. When we come to this understanding, we give up wanting to know everything and wisdom dawns. When we accept the limits of our cognitive abilities, we begin to access other faculties for learning, such as intuition, that were always accessible to us but were being ignored.