Though my students' parents are often heavily invested in their child's education, many are not close enough to the technical aspects of learning to really understand how and why it happens.

Learning happens when our brain forms new neural connections (I casually call this "laying down myelin") during or after experiencing an event and processing its related information. This new knowledge is connected to a vast array of all the other knowledge and experiences and information we have ever seen, heard, touched, felt, lived. These connections form patterns and comfort zones in our minds.

Patterns and pathways that are used frequently have a superhighway of speedy, efficient, deeply connected and tough myelin. Connections that are rarely used may often resemble more of a dusty country road; except of course, those that were made across a highly significant event such as trauma or a poignant, once-in-a-lifetime memory. These may also get the superhighway, even when we didn't put too much time on them, or wanted to keep them (in the case of trauma).

It's important to pause and realize, learning happens in all directions.

When we receive supportive feedback after a performance, we are learning.

When we read something new for the first time, and it's written in a beautiful way, we are learning.

When we are shamed for falling outside a set of expectations, we are learning.

When we wait for the bus, underdressed in a surprise gust of cold weather, we are learning.

When we observe the emotions of a person we are trying out a joke on for the first time, we are learning.

When we taste a beloved aunt's perfect Caesar salad dressing, we are learning.

When we persist with the simple materials of a button battery, copper tape, and an LED until it lights up and stays on, we are learning.

It's not intuitive for people who do not live and breathe inside of a school building to backwards-recall how it is to learn something. Questions like "but when will they learn...?" will often rise to the top. But I suggest to pause and reply with the following: "what are you really good at, and how did you learn to be that skilled?"

This should prompt something like a web - it was the mentor, the internship, the particular science lab, the hike I took, the positive feedback, the reflective comments, the thumbs up from peer colleagues, and yes it was the basic skills all the way back to simple math or typing in 4th grade or giving a short speech at the front of a concert in high school. All those many, many events tied together to bring forward the skills of "what I am the best at" today.

I am curious, if we had these reflective conversations with our families, what light might be shed on the process of learning that is otherwise lost of the "what" of learning? How do we design a powerful learning experience that capitalizes on effective, experience-based models of learning by doing, instead of focusing on pure content?