There can’t be a school or any learning taking place, if people are not teachable. Learning how to learn or becoming teachable, is not easy for contemporary people. It takes practice and its an acquired ability. Once this skill has been learned it remains with a person for life and becomes an extraordinarily valuable tool for living.

Traditional education has not placed emphasis upon this issue until it becomes a highly visible scholastic problem. However, in studies of a sensitive nature it becomes necessary that this question be thoroughly examined and kept in view throughout the entire learning process. This constant awareness is crucial because again and again the comfort seeking aspects of the mind will endeavor to maintain the status quo and impede the intake of any knowledge that offers to disturb or oppose the prevailing body of attitudes.

Matters of philosophy, ethics, essential values and issues of interpretative domain can be easily denied, disputed or debated by any competent communicator. Its obvious to an educated person that if issue is to be sought, then issue will of course be found. Naturally there must exist a contradictory statement and in many quarters searching for the exception and presenting the contradiction is considered an acceptable display of intelligence. In many classrooms this exercise is defined as participation and in other settings it passes by the name of having your own opinions and exercising the privilege of discussion. There certainly is a place for this and it does seem a national pastime.

Yet a learning situation is not a debate. Learning takes place by allowing information to enter without opposing it. The acquisition of the primary language is an excellent example of this.

Its easy to observe the opposition of closed minds: The phrase “Yes, but” is heard from them again and again. The word “but” means “on the contrary” by Webster’s definition, and its an explicit expression of denial or agreement.

Another obstacle to the free exchange of information is literalness or magnification of the insignificant. So there are many ways in which a person communicates the idea that they know better. These people have not yet learned how to learn; communication with them resembles a contest and they are at present unteachable.

Teachable people seek to find that part of what has been communicated to them that they can agree with, or in some manner identify with, and then they seek to expand and amplify the communication along those lines. They find common ground and then build upon it. If there is no immediate and apparent common ground it may be necessary to wait for a few sentences for the next mutually agreeable point to come up.

The fact that one does not agree with what the speaker is saying does not mean that one must state that sentiment. An intelligent speaker does not expect or demand that the listener be in accord with what is being said; the speaker is merely making a statement. If the listener is not in agreement and has not been asked for an opinion then there’s no point in making an issue out of it unless that listener wishes to open a debate or an argument.

Learning is not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing. Not learning or wishing to resist learning is where the matter of agreement and disagreement takes prime importance.

The question arises as to what learning actually is. Is it seeking experience that’s in concord with our present knowledge or is it an open willingness to investigate that which is not already part of our attitudinal structure?

Assuredly there will be both conscious and unconscious opposition to learning and the question has to be examined repeatedly. Suggestion is therefore made to depart or at least temporarily suspend attitudes and habits that serve to safeguard the supremacy of present outlooks and to investigate with an open mind that which is unfamiliar, that which creates opposition and that which may at first be considered uncomfortable.

Those who seek to learn are advised the following:

1. Seek to find in what is being said something that is reminiscent of a similar situation in your life. If not an actual occurrence then a similar feeling or impression. Looking for the similarity is in itself a learning technique.
2. In your statements amplify those points which are common ground and stick to those. Do not go into how you oppose and how you are different. This approach blocks the communication flow. Learning is searching for as many common points as you can find. In the same way that many people stretch an issue to come up with a difference, learn to stretch an issue in order to find the similarities.
3. Accept that not knowing is a sign of wisdom. Because something has happened to you does not mean that you understand much about it. Yet you can be sure of the events that took place.
4. Accept that tomorrow your mindset will be different than it is today.
5. Bear in mind that you won’t always be of the same opinion as you are now and that what is being talked about won’t happen to you. It merely hasn’t happened yet; no one can guarantee that it never will.
6. Seek to communicate with the innermost mind of those around you. Learning to do this is essential.
7. Allow yourself to learn from the experience of another.
8. Do all you can to remain teachable and seek help if you find yourself becoming less open and more resistant to new or unfamiliar ideas that produce discomfort.

© 1982, Gilbert John Barretto