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What Can’t You Teach? 37
The bottom line here is one of initial belief systems and
fundamental personality characteristics, coupled with the notion of
truly held goals. You cannot teach someone something that:
e does not help them achieve some goal they actually hold
e is not in line with their fundamental personality
characteristics
e goes against their subconscious beliefs
You can try, but you won’t succeed.
So the question of what you can’t teach, which is very important
when we think about teaching and learning, comes down to a ques-
tion of whom the child has become because of what she learned prior
to the age of 7, and what she was anyway when she exited the womb.
Those two things are powerful enough even if you don’t add in trying
to teach something that in no way relates to any goal the child has.
This is even more true for adults, of course. We can try to teach
adults things that are at odds with who they are as people, but good
luck with that.
Traits may come with the child, or they may have been learned
by the child prior to the age of 7, but it really makes no difference
when we are discussing teaching. Personality cannot be changed.
Core beliefs are very hard to change. Interests are hard to change,
although new ones can be found. Clinical psychologists try to make
small changes in these aspects of people but they have a very difficult
time doing it.
But my point here is to address an issue in education and training
that is not well understood. Simply stated it is this: Jt is not possible to
teach or train students to do things that are not in line with who they are as
people. This matters because much of what we try to teach in school
and train for in companies is an attempt to alter behavior.
I have been building what have come to be called e-learning sys-
tems for about 25 years. Over the years, I have realized that there is
nothing new under the sun in the subject matter that e-learning sys-
tems are asked to address. One of my least favorite subjects, one that
comes up frequently, is integrity and compliance. I have been asked
to work on this subject quite often. Usually what is being asked is im-
possible. Most e-learning companies simply do what they are asked to
do by the client without pointing out—if they even know—that what
they are being asked to teach can’t be taught. Companies that need
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