Friday, September 07, 2012

MAY WE LEARN FROM NON-LEARNERS

Benjamin Barber, an eminent sociologist, once said, "I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures....I divide them into the learners and nonlearners."

What on earth, Carol Dweck asks in her book Mindset, would make someone a nonlearner?  Everyone is born with an intensive drive to learn.  Infants stretch their skills daily.  Not just their ordinary skills, but the most difficult tasks of a lifetime, like learning to walk and talk.  They never decide it's too hard or not worth the effort.  Babies don't worry about making mistakes or humiliating themselves.  They walk, they fall, they get up.  They just barge forward.

What could put an end to exuberant learning?  The fixed mindset.  As soon as children become able to evaluate themselves, some of them become afraid of challenges.  They become afraid of not being smart.  I have studied thousands of people from preschoolers on, and it's breathtaking how many reject opportunity to learn. 

We in the church are faced with extreme and sober challenges in this arena of learning.  Mindsets become locked; not because of truth but because of fear of it.  I find the church in many pockets---both educated and un---smug and rigid in the name of well-versed when in reality such a behavior is more likely due to few-versed.

As the social culture swings from harsh and exacting discipline to handing out trophies of some size to every participant so no one would feel rejected, learning has slipped.  The reason?  Learning includes and requires correction.  Society has moved from possible over-correction in the 40s/50s/60 to under-correction in these modern times. 

Non-learners are afraid.  I am a professional fraidy cat.  I know all too well where to dart, where to hide, where to avoid.  I have had to learn to fail and get back up.  This is hard stuff to do when a mind is programmed for assumed and repeated failure.  Surprisingly, our failures offer some of our most valuable training.

Personally, I have to guard against non-learning for I am 65 years old.  Learning doesn't mean accepting every idea; but it may well include weighing foreign ones to see if there is yet another facet of truth I might need to weigh....or re-weigh.

For those groomed as me, I encourage you to reject fear and barge into opportunity.  Don't be stupid in your move.  Be a learner.  After all, isn't that what disciples are to do?

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