It totally surprised me when my dad stopped the truck in the middle of the orchard and said, “Slide over.”  He got out and I sat behind the steering wheel a timid teen peeking over the hood.  Since that was the extent of my dad’s initial instruction and it was a manual stick shift, I promptly stalled it.  After several dismal attempts he reached over turned off the engine and turned to face me.  Then he explained how pistons work.  The firing mechanism and the timing.  “Do you understand?”, he asked me.  “Yes.”, I stammered. “Alright, then you should be able to do it now” and he reached over and cranked the engine again.  Now use your vast powers of prognostication and predict the outcome.  Yep.  I stalled it a multitude of times until my silent and frustrated dad told me to slide back over.  That was the end of my first driving lesson.  Although I had verbalized I comprehended his instruction, I really meant “I understand the English words you just strung together and can visualize something”… but understand enough to connect and apply it in a life scenario? Not a chance.  I was frustrated with my fruitless efforts and failures that disappointed my dad.

It was my patient mother who taught me how to feel the clutch and time it with the gas.  When I was competent on level ground, she moved me to the only prodigiously steep hill we could find in Florida that dead-ended in a river.  This provided motivation.  With difficulty and enough teenage angst to make my mother go silent, I worked out how to not stall the car on a hill until it was second nature.  And I still didn’t know what a piston really was or why it was firing on anybody.

When my dad taught me to swim he didn’t explain the concept of buoyancy and thrust.  He made it fun as we splashed and played and I gained confidence, learning about buoyancy and effective strokes close to the shore. Being observed in a safe environment, knowing he would help me if I got into trouble, kept me calm and eager.  If I cupped my hand wrong or kicked above water going nowhere it became obvious to me. I learned by doing and knew I had help if I needed it. Fear never came into this learning experience. I either won or learned, there was no losing.

So much academic learning can be abstract or hands-on like learning to drive a stick-shift and swim.  All the words in the world will never explain these abstract concepts.  It is in the doing, with trial and error in a safe helpful environment that the mental “light bulbs come on”.  It is the safety of making mistakes and learning from them that we discover for ourselves… and own our new skills.  Sometimes we win, sometimes we learn.

Let’s create a safe space for our learners to experiment and win/learn and introduce abstract concepts creatively and patiently with hands on learning.

TAKING IT FURTHER Barking Up the Wrong Tree by Eric Barker explains good games have four common components: Winnable, Novel Challenges, Goals & Feedback. These apply to a wide variety of scenarios from education to sports to combat. A game or skill needs to have a clear end point that we can succeed at. There needs to be incremental novel challenges that keep us interested and eager. Goals we can reach along with feedback about how we are doing all through the game help us monitor our progress/success. Consider Uno, Football, or Warfare. Do you see the common thread? (Apply that to someone who lies or manipulates to get away with things and be curious if that has the same components as a game to them.)

The mission of  More to Grow Cognitive Development Training is to improve learning ability and function through cognitive exercises that meaningfully transfer to all educational and everyday life situations so individuals maximize their potential. 

Darlene Lewis, darlene@moretogrow.com, https://moretogrow.com