It takes a lot of iterations until we learn to see what it is that we are learning.

Most often it is implicit

In the beginning, learning is about how taking in information, then it becomes about how to do something, then it becomes a learning that helps us solve problems we encounter.

We are used to a specific process of learning, most often one that tells us how to use a method and thus enables us to apply it whenever a problem comes up which can be solved with the given method. From there, some decide to specialize on the given problem, others specialize in applying the method and potentially develop the man-with-the-hammer-syndrome

It can become the glass ceiling of learning.

It may be described as focusing on developing processes as means to solve problems.

But processes are there to create something, to make a change happen, to allow something to emerge. What it is, is built into the process. The person who designs a process from this perspective has an objective he visualized and sees appearing based on the process he is creating. This is easy to see when it comes for example to manufacturing objects.

However, it is hard to see in the learning process. Much of the learning only happens once the learning has been experienced. That is, it has been practiced often enough to have gone beyond applying a method. It becomes intuitive and develops meaning from being applied.

Once it has become intuitive, the information as to what it is for seems to be lost. Finding the words to describe what it is has become complicated. It is like a truth that isn’t questioned anymore, that’s how people like us do things.

Finding the words to describe it thus becomes yet another level of learning. One enabling us to teach others by being able to recreate our own experience in such a way that others can experience it.

Somewhere on this journey self-awareness becomes accessible and distinguishable from the inner critic.