When learning is not learning

Centuries ago our brightest minds hotly debated the nature of the human soul. Descartes employed his considerable philosophical prowess to argue for the existence of God.

We are fools if we imagine ourselves to be smarter than these people - it is just that at some point many of us stopped believing in these things, and the conversation moved on. People began to see the world differently.

I am finding it harder and harder to take part in conversations about ‘learning’; I have stopped believing that they have anything to do with learning. I believe that they are actually discussions about ‘education’. Educational discussions, like conversations about the soul, involve a set of beliefs that I no longer subscribe to.

And so - on a very practical level - I am struggling to participate in such conversations since, increasingly, the jist of my contribution is ‘you think you are talking about learning, but you are not’ which, even with my limited social skills, I can sense is unhelpful - rather like joining a philosophical debate on the nature of the human soul with “there is no soul”.

So this isn’t a whinge, I hope: for me it has become a very practical exploration of how beliefs change, and how something becomes something new.

It’s hard to let go. Many of the people I have interacted with over the years, people I count as friends, may never be able to let go of the ‘learning’ conversation - they are so deeply attached to it. And it is tough for me to let go of the hope of bringing them along, as I am attached to them and care what they think.