A Thought: Learning is Everything, in Time. Not Teaching, Not Training!

"We'll train you to..., we'll teach you how to..."  These are common phrases that I hear bandied about by trainers in the industrial world where I interact.

I also hear from some teams; "we want training on....", or "we need a course about...".

You can probably sense the problem with those phrases. In all of them, the emphasis is on the teacher, not the learner. 

Learning only happens in the mind of the learner. Seems obvious enough. You can have a great teacher. That's the only kind that you should seek out. Ultimately the learner must be ready and prepared to learn. 

A training event can take place at one point in time, and often the true and best learning from that event takes place at another time, when the individual is truly ready.  It certainly has worked that way with some books I have read. I receive a lesson while reading, but only truly learn from it at some other time, after some experience has set the learning need within me. 

To be clear, I am not thinking of low level learning such as factual recall or some very simple procedure. I am speaking of the kind of learning that truly changes us or improves us in some way, that forces us to apply learning or synthesize new knowledge.

It may not seem very efficient to have a time gap between the training event and the learning, but I believe it is common in the human experience. We often learn only when we truly desire to, or when we finally need to. 

The best match for formal training events  is an educator who says "I'll help you with your desire to learn......" and a learner who says "I've begun to learn about....". In this case, the learning will likely happen in real time.

When and how do you learn?

Carl Dyke resides in Central Alberta, Canada and collaborates daily with the team of very passionate individuals who create & deliver the products and services of CD Industrial Group Inc. 

Carl grew up looking after the machinery and equipment used in timber and lumber processing. After some early career years spent in public education, a unique enterprise was born. Carl and team spend their days demystifying complex machinery, creating interactive art and software that aids learning, and conducting instructor-led, hands-on maintenance training and hydraulic system consulting, globally, for a wide range of heavy industries.

For the most complete, animated and highly interactive hydraulics e-Learning, see our LunchBoxSessions site.