2 Looking at learning

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Learning is paradoxical in nature. It can sometimes appear to be a very simple thing. All of us are learning all the time, after all, from the myriad experiences we encounter in our daily lives. I go to a new restaurant and I learn that even smoked salmon can be spoilt if you serve it with too much dill sauce; I read the newspaper and learn a little more about how Bayern Munich are threatening to replace Barcelona as the best football team in the world; I play on my son’s Xbox and finally learn how to outwit that alien that’s been shooting me in every one of my previous tries. Learning is so simple that we do not question its presence in how we go about our daily activities, for it is as natural to our existence as eating and drinking. Yet, when we encounter difficulties in learning something, we no longer take the learning process for granted. It is only then that our awareness of how we learn is heightened. Learning can suddenly seem very difficult indeed. I remember trying numerous ways of learning Latin declensions at school, until it suddenly struck me I could make a nursery rhyme of them: lupus, lupe, lupum, lupi, lupi, lupo. This revelation worked so well, I still have this (useless) knowledge down pat, even now.