Four Stages of Learning: Wait, What? (2)

Over the many years of teaching, we have noticed four stages of learning that students go through when faced with new information. These stages are based solely on our observation and time spent in yoga rooms around the world. They are also based on how we have personally reacted when faced with a new approach. 

In this blog series, we will outline what we have noticed both in our students and in our own experience learning new, and sometimes challenging, information. Here is the second blog in this series. ​

The second stage of learning is what we call, "Wait, what?!"  Now it's sinking in that what we heard does not match what we have learned previously. Something that is being taught is contradicting something that is already in our minds. 

​This stage is when we start to break things down and piece them back together. How does what we heard conflict with what we think we know? Where are the roadblocks to understanding? Do I really understand what I am hearing? 

​This stage is when we start to say (or at least think) things like, "But I've always understood it as...." or "I've always been taught that...." or "What I've heard is that...". 

​This is an important stage of learning because it is when we really try to assimilate something new. This is the first actual stage of integrating new information. Stage one was simply the enthusiastic agreement stage. Now, in stage two, we really have to think.

While this is where the true learning begins, it does not mean that this stage is easy. It is not easy to be faced with new information, nor is it easy to comb through our knowledge and find the flaws in our understanding. While that is exactly what learning entails, we can find ourselves resisting this process because it can be uncomfortable. What happens next?

Next up is Stage Three: Bargaining.