When someone tells me that they struggle to learn and that they’re unsure if they can learn what I’m trying to teach them, I often think back to my own struggles and try to put myself in their place through my own experiences.
What does it feel like to struggle with learning?
I’ve struggled to learn my whole life which is likely why I fell in love with learning and get such as visceral joy when I see others make the positive connections it takes to learn something new.
It’s fleeting.
It’s the knowledge that a concept that others around me grasp so readily is just outside my reach. Like a rock so delicately balanced on a pile of stone that the slightest change in its surroundings will cause it all to crash down.
I use the word knowledge intentionally despite it being only a feeling (and a lie at that) because, in the moment of that struggle, there is no ambiguity about it. In that instance, I am the only person in the room that is failing to grasp something.
That feeling of dread, that if I stop focussing on learning for fear of losing my limited understanding of it is overwhelming at the moment but upon reflection a substantial reason for the struggle in the first place.
It’s a mess.
It’s the knowledge that when I look away for just a moment, the learning disappears or at the least disconnects from me for a time.
When I was a child I remember a teacher, it was likely around grade six, telling me that my desk wasn’t well organized and a messy desk was why I couldn’t find what I was looking for.
At such a young age, I knew she was talking about more than my desk and developed a coping mechanism of associating new concepts with mental triggers such as imagining them as a TV show, designed to help me find what I was looking for by remembering the trigger.
It’s fake.
It’s the knowledge, as an adult, that I’m an imposter and that I have to work harder than everyone else to learn.
That feeling is especially present when studying something new in an academic setting, I once heard that if you wanted to learn to skate you shouldn’t ask Wayne Gretzky to teach you.
Being surrounded by and learning from, people who are so much better at every aspect of a subject simply amplifies the feeling.
It’s being lost.
It’s the knowledge of being lost when even the map is in the wrong language.
Struggling to grasp a new concept at times feels like being lost, knowing that there’s definitely a way out but not knowing where to start, let along how to get out of the confusion.
It’s a lie.
It’s the knowledge that none of this is true and that the feeling of struggling to learn is overwhelming and undermining.
It’s the knowledge that my struggle to learn is what has made learning, and my love of learning stronger.
And finally, it’s the knowledge that every time I’m in front of a group of learners talking about something complex, there is a moment when they know they are no longer lost, alone, or struggling to make that connection.
For me, these days my struggles to learn are about me overcoming the feelings I now know we all face, and hoping that people around me can do the same.
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