The Biggest Obstacle to Learning
What have you always struggled to learn?
Whether you’re a poor writer or can’t handle numbers, you’re no different to everyone else.
We’ve all experienced frustrations with learning.
If only more people knew that the first and most important step to solving these problems is surprisingly simple.
When we struggle to learn, we often put it down to a lack of innate ability.
At some point, we’ve all used explanations like the one I told myself at school when wrestling with a hard math problem – “I’m just not good with numbers.”
This perspective frames our capacity to learn as something outside of our control, when in reality it’s influenced heavily by our own beliefs.
If learning is a journey from a place of knowing less to one of knowing more, then trying to learn something when we don’t believe we can do it is like trying to drive with the handbrake on.
Unsurprisingly, the idea that we need believe we’re capable to succeed isn’t new and often appears in children’s stories and motivational quotes.
Consider Henry Ford’s old adage “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right” or one of Muhammad Ali’s most cited quotes,“If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it.”
But there’s more to these statements than great word-smithery.
In fact, the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck suggests that there is scientific substance to the idea that mindset matters – our belief systems directly affect our behaviour, which in turn affects our success in learning.
The Fixed and Growth Mindset
In 20 years of research with children and adults, Dweck placed learners into two categories:
Those with a fixed mindset, who believe their abilities are set in stone.
Those with a growth mindset, who believe their abilities can be developed.
Having a growth mindset doesn’t mean we have to believe that anyone can become the next Einstein, Mozart or Da Vinci.
We only have to acknowledge that our potential to learn is unbounded and that the power to increase our own abilities is within our control.
Approaching things from this perspective creates a real passion for learning, and makes us more likely to apply the grit we need to succeed.
We become less discouraged by failure and more attentive when we’re struggling.
We start to see difficulty as an opportunity to stretch ourselves rather than trying to avoid it.
All these characteristics not only make us more likely to learn new things but they raise our chances of reaching our goals in our careers and personal lives.
The Research on Mindset
Dweck and her colleagues have consistently produced results that prove the positive impact of a growth mindset on learning performance.
In one of her early experiments, outlined in her book, she ran a workshop for a 7th grade class at a New York City junior high school.
Half the students were given a presentation on memory and effective studying, while the other half were introduced to Dweck’s ideas and were told their intelligence largely depended on their own effort.
After the workshop both groups went back to their classrooms, with their teachers unaware of the difference between what they had been taught.
Remarkably, as the school year unfolded, the students from the second group developed a growth mindset and became higher achievers than the students from the first group, who retained a conventional fixed mindset.
Dweck’s team has replicated these results across different locations, age groups and subjects with notable degrees of success.
The Takeaway
Our mindset is fundamental. It’s more important than inherent ability in learning performance and has a huge impact on the other areas of our life such as our career and relationships.
All learning strategies, tools and techniques are almost useless if we don’t combine them with a strong, growth based learning mindset – the simple belief that the power to improve our learning abilities lies in our own hands.
1) Explore and Identify Your Limiting Beliefs
What are your most limiting views about your learning abilities? Write them down in detail and give examples from the past which justify these beliefs.
Be honest with yourself and try to think of all the times in the past when your own beliefs were the major barrier to your learning.
2) Cross Examine Yourself
Now cross-examine these limiting beliefs through the lens of a growth mindset, just as a prosecution lawyer would analyse a defence testimony.
Think of examples in the past where your effort led to progress and ask if those limiting beliefs stand up to the test now.
I’ll be surprised if any do, because the growth mindset encourages you to take responsibility for the results you get, rather than blaming external factors.
3) Practice the Growth Mindset
A growth mindset is something you need to practice consistently over time, like anything else.
If your limiting beliefs pop up again in your mind, remind yourself that your ability is under your control.
When you wake up in the morning, ask yourself these three questions:
What are the opportunities for learning and growth today?
When, where and how will I embark on my plan?
When, where and how will I act on my plan?
This exercise is recommended by Dweck herself and reviewing these ideas has been hugely useful in my own learning projects.
The truth is that you’ve already done some of the work by reading this post.
Apparently, the simple act of reading about the research can have a significant and measurable impact on your attitude and learning performance.
So if you’ve reached this far, you can thank me in the comments!
For Israel, these treaties did pacify the threat to its existence, yet arrogant as it is, Israel, has never been able to return the respect, especially in Jordan’s case. In retrospect, it seems that King Hussein, who had been sold the idea of a “final reconciliation of all the descendants of the children of Abraham”, was from the very onset, regretting his peace treaty, because the Israelis never for a day ceased to make life difficult for the Palestinians and the neighbourhood.
In 1997, in the aftermath of rioting over a tourist tunnel opened by Israel in Jerusalem and construction of settlements in East Jerusalem, the king had written an angry letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, elected prime minister since 1996, saying, “My distress is genuine and deep over the accumulating tragic actions which you have initiated… making peace — the worthiest objective of my life — appear more and more like a distant elusive mirage… ”
The king’s distress was called for, as he was the bearer of the Hashemite custodianship of the Al Quds, a sacred prerogative that legitimised the Hashemite rulership over Jordan, and an honour that brought them prestige and pride and which committed the king to the protection of all Palestinians. For this reason, Jordan has always hosted a large number of Palestinian refugees, who make about half of Jordan’s population today. And for the same reasons, Jordan had allowed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to function from its soil until 1971, and the Hamas leadership was stationed there till 1999.
The current spat between the two states, however, started with Trump’s Deal of the Century. The deal proposed annexing another 30% of the West Bank including the whole border with Jordan and also hinted a further plan of annexing the Jordan Valley. The plan also indicated that Jerusalem will be recognised as the “undivided capital” of Israel. Within hours of Trump’s release of the plan in January 2020, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi reiterated Jordan’s support for the two-state solution and the Arab Peace Initiative as the only path to a just and lasting settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Jordan understands the plan to be based on Israeli far-right vision that denies Palestinians an independent state in the West Bank and looks at Jordan as an alternative homeland for the Palestinians. With such a plan, not only would the Hashemites be done away with their custodianship, they would also be forced to absorb the whole Palestinian population in their country and would fall next in line for Israeli occupation who are already eyeing the Jordan Valley. So, King Abdullah warned Netanyahu in June that annexation would lead to a massive conflict and threatened cancellation of the 1994 Wadi Araba peace treaty with Israel.
Now, with Israel’s further diplomatic accomplishments of having the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco sign normalisation treaties with it under the Abraham Accords, Jordan has been left more apprehensive. Jordan was alarmed upon the possibility that Trump and Netanyahu would want to shift the custodianship on to someone more accommodative, even when it is improbable for any other Arab state to make such an awkward exchange.
Even before the normalisation was signed, in August 2020, when the US, UAE, and Israel released a joint statement saying “all Muslims who come in peace may visit and pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque, and Jerusalem’s other holy sites should remain open for peaceful worshippers of all faiths,” Jordan again took it as a call for a change in status quo. And in November 2020, the same fears were raised when Netanyahu tried to make new diplomatic efforts in the Arab world, when Jordan’s foreign ministry labeled the meet-up as an “attempt to alter the historical and legal status quo” and that the “Kingdom will continue its efforts to protect and care for the mosque.”
It is dismal to note how time has changed from the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the late king Faisal tearfully attested that “if all Arabs agreed to accept the existence of Israel and divide Palestine, we will never join them”. And now after decades of connivance, Israel is daring to change the status quo in the same Arab neighbourhood.
Last month, Israel disallowed the Jordanian Crown Prince’s planned visit to Al Aqsa. The next day, Jordan denied Netanyahu’s helicopter access to Jordanian airspace for his UAE visit. By the end of March, Netanyahu refused to approve the assigned supply of water to Jordan and come April, Jordan alleged Mossad to be behind the coup plot involving ex-crown prince Hamzah bin Hussein.
The question is: can Israel afford a psychosis with Jordan when the latter has been playing a placatory role within the Arabs? Jordan also serves as a buffer zone with Iraq and Iran, the two states that have had open enmity with Israel – specially now, when Iran, Iraq and Syria practically share a security alliance that has managed to oust US intervention, with the help of Turkey and Russia. If Jordan decides to join this other camp right now, it might embolden this new alliance to act aggressively against Israel.
Israel, with its tiny land, of about 400km long and 100km wide, and with a 15km width at its narrowest point, cannot afford to be oblivious to it vulnerability in the midst of an envious Arab neighbourhood. The only chance it had was to win the hearts of the Arabs with complacency and with accommodating the Palestinians to the fullest. But unfortunate as it is for Israel, it has always gone the opposite trajectory!
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