Barriers To Learning

Absence of Mass and Significance

The first barrier to learning is Absence of Mass and Significance or simply Absence of Mass.

Mass is the physical things and objects. Significance is the objects and things we have attention or importance in our minds. Such as our thoughts, the plot of the book we are reading, the plans we are making in our minds, theories, anything we have going on in mind that we have not put into writing yet.

When we get bored, squashed, exasperated, headache, dizzy these are the reactions to the Absence Of Mass.

It means we have come across something we cannot figure out how it is physically; it's weight, dimensions, size, shape, location, how it feels like, etc.

What we should do is get to the physical object of study. If we can not, in the case of studying the Bible where we have no actual physical perception of the ancient time, location, etc, we can still do something to remedy the situation.

Bear in mind the Bible is an ancient book. Often times we will get this Absence of Mass for many reasons. This reasons are due to the differences of our world we come to know and the ancient world we are studying.

These reasons are: considerations, judgments, conclusions and beliefs: of the speaker/writer/scribe; of the environment; time; timeframe; mindset; seasons; locations; subjects; people; culture; and maps. And the relevance of the passage to us in our world we live in.

For example:

If one is studying a user's manual of an object without the object being studied. One at some point in time will manifest any one or all of these reactions. The solution is to have the object of study in hand.

In the same way, when one has the object of study but without the user's manual, one will not know what the object is, what it does and how to operate it; and one could accidentally break it, until one gets a hold of the user's manual.

Modeling. For some things that we cannot get a hold of physically. We can create models using clays, lego, toys, and just about any objects we can use to model physical things we are studying to gain understanding.

I use diverse objects such as stones of different sizes, shapes, color, and texture; some toys left lying around; pens, pencils, crayons, erasers; different keys, paper clips and the like. Just about anything I can find. We can use anything for the purposes of modeling for our understanding.

We can also use drawing the object such as the directions and maps of places we are studying. This in combination with modeling is a very powerful tool. Do not make the mistake of misjudging these tools because they look so very simple. They are very powerful tools. And you can use these tools to even help someone, even kids. And they do wonders every time.

Too Steep A Gradient

When we feel it is too hard, or feel that we are going in circles or are confused this means we have bitten too much than we can chew. Or we force ourselves taking advanced studies skipping the previous steps. Thinking they are not important. Or without our knowledge There may have been some steps, or prerequisites we have missed.

It means we are taking too much and have not mastered any of the last steps or have not covered the pre-requisites yet. So all we need to do is go back from a point of mastery and retrace the steps up, practicing slowly, diligently to mastery and move on to the next level.

One example of this I can think of is using a new gadget (electronic technology tool/s) to do something without learning how to use the gadget first.

Another example: swimming. If one does not yet know how to swim. One is engulf with the fear of drowning and hence cannot jump into the pool to swim. One must put on life vest first while training and practicing until one learns.

Yet another example is using the Bible reader tools. There are many different tools, and you will soon find a few of them you will like to use by virtue of how they are presented or marketed. And so you will install one, or two of them on your computer.

If one is not yet familiar with interacting with applications basically, the use of the Bible reader would be a big challenge, because even its own help system will not make sense.

This means one has missed a step or series of steps.

Fortunately, this barrier is very easy to handle when one has recognize it. Sometimes, this barrier although it looks so simple, it can be very hard to recognize.

Once recognized though, One must go back to a certain point of mastery and practice the next series of exercises slowly from that level up diligently until mastery. When done, one will become brighter and feel brighter and a ton better.

Misunderstood Word

This last one is notorious and must be mastered and handled right away. This is the culprit to many who are dropping any subjects or books. Withdrawing from the study or from reading the books one has started.

It is called the Misunderstood Word.

When one feels blank, groggy, falling asleep, yawning, evading, or withdrawing, one has passed a misunderstood word.

For example leaving the book down and sleeping on it; or withdrawing. This means one has passed a misunderstood word.

When we see somebody yawning, groggy or sleeping with a book or dropping out of a subject or book this means s/he had passed a misunderstood word.

A misunderstood word is a word that was not understood.

When we passed a misunderstood word, the part immediately after that word becomes blank. And the next pages become blank. This is why we can finish a whole sentence, paragraph, several pages, chapter/s, a whole book and not understanding anything at all.

When you spot yourself in a sentence you are on the way to mastery of the subject much quicker. When you spot a word immediately and clears it right away, even better.

When we begin to realize these reactions upon ourselves, it means we must stop and find the misunderstood word at that instant. We have to go back a few paragraphs, sometimes several pages specially if we have not done this before, until we find the word. Or risk abandoning the study or the book one is reading for days, weeks, months and years without finishing it.

With studying the Bible, doctrines, theories, philosophies and the like, the adversary is very cunning, by using words such as "hermeneutics", "exegesis", and more. This is to throw one off the path to knowledge.

And rightly so, most people would fall on this trap and drop the study. This is one of the reasons why I am sharing this tool -- "Learning How To Learn" as an ordinary person would do.

In this regard, studying the Bible is most challenging, because one is not only dealing with the Bible in the local language, or the English language but there are times also that we have to deal with the Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew languages to come into full understanding of a word or phrase.

But hopefully, we don't have to get to that level. There are already many worthy studies done for us. All we have to do is apply the learning rules here.

And the mastery or even knowing this tool -- "Learning How To Learn" -- makes "Studying the Bible" fun.

The next step is *Word Clearing* to clear the misunderstood word.

For this we need a very good dictionary. Your local language dictionary. A good English Dictionary I like is Oxford English Dictionary. But nowadays I used Google and whatever online dictionaries--usually Merriam-Websters come up.

Fortunately we have Google. We can google the word in question. Open up Google Search, and in the search box type "define [the word]".

But Google is only useful for quick lookups. We need to fully clear the word for all its meanings. Otherwise, one could get trap in circles with this one.

But when one becomes a master at spotting oneself falling into these barriers one can then apply any of these rules right away to get back on track.

With studying the Bible, we need very good dictionaries also: Local Language Dictionary, English Dictionary, a good Bible Dictionary and Concordance for this very purpose.

The most authoritative Bible dictionary and concordance use today are the Strong's and Vine's for both Hebrew and Greek. With e-Sword, you can download a King James Version Bible with Strong's and its free.

We also need Bible maps in different periods to Handle the *Absence of Mass*. And also small objects for modeling to handle *Absence of Mass*.

There are a few steps one must take to clear a word. When a word is cleared one will become brighter and will feel a lot better. Please continue to ~ *How To Clear A Word*.

YHWH Bless You!!!