Learning new skills in life is fantastic. It can be a little demoralising when you’re in a learning environment and then you see how quickly and easily children can do it. Every teacher knows that their brains are like little sponges and they are just soaking information up.
I was having a chat with a relative the other day who said maybe the reason why children learn so much more quickly than adults is because adults already have their brains so filled up with different crap that we’ve picked up throughout the years it’s as if the brain is full up, whereas children are still experiencing the world in many new ways. I don’t know if that’s true or not and I think a lot of it comes down to beliefs. If you believe you can learn, you’re likely to up your chances of doing it.
You can improve your ability to learn when you are in a relaxed state. I am sure you agree that if you want to learn something new and you are stressed out about doing it and you are a bit anxious about the fact that you don’t yet know it, that it makes it more difficult for that learning to occur, because your body is too tense. And in addition, when your body is in a tense state, your vision closes down somewhat.
When you are in a stressed state your vision becomes foveal which means it is almost like a tunnel vision. It is quite limited and it’s very focused. That focused attention is very useful when you are doing things like threading a needle where you only want to see only that which is before you but if you want to be in a state where you are absorbing information from all around you, then you are better off being in a state called a peripheral vision and this is where your vision extends right out, round to the sides and your mind and your vision is basically open.
If you’ve ever been in the scenario where you are trying to rush to find somewhere – Perhaps you are driving in your car and you are running late and all you have is some directions written down beside you but because you are so stressed and thinking about the fact that you are late, you will miss the written direction that told you to turn right at the garage on the corner.
Learning happens easily when we are in an almost trance state. I don’t mean a deep relaxing trance, but relaxed enough to be able to listen and concentrate with ease about you. Even teachers will remember times when you were a child at school and if something was particularly engaging and interesting to you, then it was almost being like you were listening to a story as the information was given to you. I know that there’s a particular poem that to this day I can still remember because at the time when I was reading the book it was a topic that really interested me. Of course, this ties in with NLP.
NLP training can be useful for giving our mind suggestions about the ease with which we can absorb information that we can quickly access that information later on. And that we can learn with ease and we can quickly create inspired ideas.
People Building in an NLP and personal development training company for teachers and professionals working in education.
For more information about our courses designed to reduce stress in teachers and avoid ‘teacher burn-out’, contact us on 0345 3192 666
By Gemma Bailey
www.peoplebuilding.co.uk
