Learning to learn: Not easy, but not incredibly difficult

Higher education, or HE, is something that very much lives up to its name, but not as most think as a simple progression of learning, ‘big brother’ style. The dynamic of learning undergoes significant change, and it’s not always clear that either parents, or students, genuinely understand the difference.

So, in a primary, or basic education environment, much of the learning is, for the want of a better description, “spoon-fed.” Progress is gradual, yet seen as a big picture over these formative years, quite dramatic, as pupils go from play-times and play-learning to forming task completions, and making simple extensions. For a wickedly simple example, they learn that 2×2+4, 2×3=6, and 2×4=8, possibly on the basis of repetition and memory, later making extensions of the same process, like 2×10=20, 2×11=22, and so on. They learn simple logic and concepts.

From age 10 to their teens, maybe as far as 16, the pupil learners undergo significant physical, emotional, and social development, but most critically their understanding of wider obligations, and their place within a wider, not quite global circle. It is not only personal and social development, but an acknowledgement of grander schemes, a greater understanding of faith, and the beginnings of responsibility.

The transition from secondary school ages, to higher, college or university education, is fraught with many elements of uncertainty, as the learners undergo physical change too, with voices changing, and gawky awkwardness being replaced by athleticism, elegance and grace, yet few realize the intense academic changes soon to be almost forced upon the unsuspecting young adults.

Few parents, and even fewer schools, appropriately prepare the youth for their higher education (HE). Yet, it is a wonderful opportunity for secondary teachers to implement the study responsibilities of HE in a way that they too learn greater flexibility in learning delivery, but it’s the students of today, who face hitting a brick wall!

Unless they have embraced collective learning, learned to ask every question they have ever had, and unless they embrace the concept of embracing their own decisions and justifying them, university life is a woeful experience. Not understanding questions, statements, quotes, philosophies, or obligations, and most being far from home, must be akin to a castaway experience.

However, there is a way around it, that active, which should mean all, parents can utilize. Every second weekend, give your teen something to research, and present to you on Sunday or Monday evening, either at, or immediately after the evening meal. Not their thoughts, but what three or four prominent national and global identities say or think on a specific topic, along with a summary, and their own take on the topic.

It will teach them to look for other people, prominent in their field, and to gain an understanding of how the world sees things. It will make them conscious of deadlines, and their need to understand concepts in order to form their own opinions. It will give them an opportunity, and the experience of explaining their own, and other perspectives. Most of all, it will show them that you understand their rocky road, you care about their future, and you care enough to listen.

Albert Einstein said “The beauty of a liberal education is not learning facts, but training the mind,” while as parents we must emphasize that the only time success comes before work is in the dictionary!