What is Competence?

 

BE COMPETENT 

(Excerpt from point 17-2 of the 'Way to Happiness' by L. Ron Hubbard; a book that is both taught and applied at Greenfields) 

 

"The main process of learning consists of inspecting the available data, selecting the true from the false, the important from the unimportant and arriving thereby at conclusions one makes and can apply. If one does this, one is well on the way to being competent.

The test of any “truth” is whether it is true for you. If, when one has gotten the body of data, cleared up any misunderstood words in it and looked over the scene, it still doesn't seem true, then it isn't true so far as you are concerned. Reject it. And, if you like, carry it further and conclude what the truth is for you. After all, you are the one who is going to have to use it or not use it, think with it or not think with it. If one blindly accepts “facts” or “truths” just because he is told he must, “facts” and “truths” which do not seem true to one, or even false, the end result can be an unhappy one. That is the alley to the trash bin of incompetence.

Another part of learning entails simply committing things to memory—like the spelling of words, mathematical tables and formulas, the sequence of which buttons to push. But even in simple memorizing one has to know what the material is for and how and when to use it.

The process of learning is not just piling data on top of more data. It is one of obtaining new understandings and better ways to do things.

Those who get along in life never really stop studying and learning. The competent engineer keeps up with new ways; the good athlete continually reviews the progress of his sport; any professional keeps a stack of his texts to hand and consults them.

The new model eggbeater or washing machine, the latest year’s car, all demand some study and learning before they can be competently operated. When people omit it, there are accidents in the kitchen and piles of bleeding wreckage on the highways.

 It is a very arrogant fellow who thinks he has nothing further to learn in life. It is a dangerously blind one who cannot shed his prejudices and false data and supplant them with facts and truths that can more fittingly assist his own life and everyone else’s.

There are ways to study so that one really learns and can use what one learns. In brief, it consists of having a teacher and/or texts that know what they are talking about; of clearing up every word one does not fully understand; of consulting other references and/or the scene of the subject; sorting out the false data one might already have: sifting the false from the true on the basis of what is now true for you. The end result will be certainty and potential competence. It can be, actually, a bright and rewarding experience. Not unlike climbing a treacherous mountain through brambles but coming out on top with a new view of the whole wide world.

A civilization, to survive, must nurture the habits and abilities to study in its schools. A school is not a place where one puts children to get them out from underfoot during the day. That would be far too expensive for just that. It is not a place where one manufactures parrots. School is where one should learn to study and where children can be prepared to come to grips with reality, learn to handle it with competence and be readied to take over tomorrow’s world, the world where current adults will be in their later middle or old age...

If one cannot get those around him to study and learn, one’s own work can become much harder and even overloaded and one’s own survival potential can be greatly reduced.

One can help others study and learn if only by putting in their reach the data they should have. One can help simply by acknowledging what they have learned. One can assist if only by appreciating any demonstrated increase in competence. If one likes, one can do more than that: another can be assisted by helping them—without disputes—sort out false data, by helping them find and clear up words they have not understood, by helping them find and handle the reasons they do not study and learn.

As life is largely trial and error, instead of coming down on somebody who makes a mistake, find out how come a mistake was made and see if the other can’t learn something from it.

Now and then you may surprise yourself by untangling a person’s life just by having gotten the person to study and learn. I am sure you can think of many ways. And I think you will find the gentler ones work best. The world is brutal enough already to people who can’t learn."

Success in Teaching using The Barriers to Study

Teachers who use the Study Technology of L. Ron Hubbard have found its effectiveness both revolutionary and simple.

In its barest terms, there are three main barriers to study:

Firstly, study without any actual mass. By mass is meant the actual physical object or objects of study.

Obviously, one would not try to teach someone to drive merely by getting them to read a textbook about driving. One would have the learner driver actually drive a car, handle an actual car. This is applicable to all subjects.

Studying in the absence of mass can produce all kinds of physical symptoms: dizziness, sickness, headaches, to name but a few, and the remedy is to introduce more mass into the subject. In a subject like English Literature, this is just as vital. Going to see plays, dramatising parts of a novel in front of a class, pictures, sketches, diagrams, maps, clay models all supply mass.

The next barrier to study is too steep a gradient. If a student gets confused, it is likely that one is teaching too fast. For example, an able student doing well in a subject becomes very confused and says the subject is too complex. By going back to just before they became confused, they can be helped to understand what they did not grasp.

Using a lesser gradient helps students to regain interest and enthusiasm in the subject.

The third and most important barrier to study is the misunderstood or undefined word or definition. In teaching, if one sees a student going blank on what is being read, or reacting aggressively towards the subject, or wanting to give it up because they don’t like it or misbehaving, then an undefined or misdefined word has been passed. The answer is to find this word, handle the definitions thoroughly so that the word can be owned, check the derivation and idiomatic use and then continue.

An Advanced Level student overcame their severe spelling difficulties simply by looking up the definitions and derivations of words they did not understand. They went on to learn Business Studies at university.

When pupils look up the words using a good dictionary and pay particular attention to the derivations, spelling improves.

The importance of Study Technology cannot be stressed too strongly. It gives children and young people the chance to really learn and apply what they have learnt.

Based on the experiences of educator and teacher,
Lady Joan Hort

This article can also be found in the Results Newsletter (issue III)

Take the Free Study Skills Test...

...and find out exactly what barriers
your child may be encountering

Ever WONDER how much your child is really
learning at school?

In education today, children face well known obstacles:

• Getting ‘labelled’ (‘special needs’,‘ADD’ etc.).
• Feeling sad, angry or disinterested.
• Difficulty remembering items studied.
• Not having a purpose for learning or knowing how to revive interest in learning once it has gone.

Less well known is that underlying them there are only three barriers that keep children from reaching their full learning potential and cause actual emotional or physical phenomena when encountered.

Students fail to learn because no one has ever taught them how to learn – how to identify the barriers to learning and how to overcome them.

Study Skills Test
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who may need help in their studies, as well as those who are doing well but would like to do even better.

Recommendations may be given but there is no obligation whatsoever for you to act on them. At
the very least this test will show you more about your child’s strengths/weaknesses as a student and how you, as a parent, can help them.

You can complete this test online at: www.greenfieldsschool.com/study-skills-test.htm or contact us and we can arrange getting a test to you.