The world of knowledge is a vast and all encompassing place. Anyone who embraces a career in a learning environment understands all too well that this can be an amazing and nourishing place or an obstacle course full of mine fields. For some of us, learning is a joy and is embraced with enthusiasm, seeking out knowledge at every turn and reveling in each new piece of information. Others face the education process with trepidation and frustration. These are often the students who find learning overwhelming and exhausting. How can we, as educators and parents, ensure them a more positive journey? It is all about the path each of us takes through that garden of knowledge.

Learning facts, information, procedures, formulas and technical skill is an important basis for life skills and career choices, but there is so much more! Confidence in one's own ability to achieve success, being able to problem solve and believing you can find your way through a jungle of confusion, are the skills that make learning an adventure and fuel the imagination and desire to continue the education process. Students who have difficulty with the learning process typically develop coping skills to help them alleviate feelings of inadequacy. Often times those same skills only serve to further complicate and exacerbate the very problems they are hoping to eliminate. Children who have trouble understanding or answering questions will simply fill in blanks as quickly as possible without regard to content in an attempt to remove the source of frustration from their desks. Though this achieves the desired, immediate effect, later on it will produce feelings of failure. Breaking down these self-defeating coping mechanisms and replacing them with processes that allow the children to learn to "help themselves" instills pride and a tremendous sense of satisfaction and confidence they never knew existed. Provide students with concrete steps to allow them to seek answers for questions. Teach them the right questions to ask themselves when puzzled and encourage them to seek out resources to become self-sufficient. Engage them in discussion and solicit their opinions. Make them responsible for contributing to the learning process. Above all show them that the only "bad" question is one not asked and pursued.

Truth be told, the path we learn to take through that garden of knowledge is so much more important than any single piece of fruit we may pluck from its many trees. Placing a student's feet on the path of discovery and self motivation is the most important thing we can impart. The learning suddenly becomes a positive and nourishing experience that is infectious and needs to be shared and passed on.

Learn more about this author, Lucy Bianchi.
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