Slow Learners Get Left To Die

Back in elementary school, sometimes class lessons would slow to a complete halt.

It was always for the same reason: one or more students had raised his/her hand and announced that he didn’t understand what the teacher was teaching.

Which part do you not understand?

“None of it.”

At this point, the teacher would go over the material again, and again, if need be, until everyone was caught up and understanding what was going on.

The way that I understand the system now, teachers and schools were judged by how well their students performed on standardized tests. So there was only so much slowing-down of the lessons a teacher could afford to any one student. The student who appeared to need more than an occasional minute or two of slowing-down every now and then was labeled “special needs” and either put in different classes, left behind to repeat a grade, or tabbed with some other social stigma that probably affected that child’s psyche long after elementary school had ended.

If the student still didn’t catch on after all of that, the social promotion program moved students along to the next grade anyway, regardless of his/her demonstrated unpreparedness for learning a new level of material.

Whether we like(d) that system or not, what we can agree on is this: there was some semblance of a process (effective or not) for helping slow learners: we realized that they existed, and tried to make it easier for them to keep up.

Here’s news, though, for those who’ve finished their formal schooling but still don’t quite “get it” when presented with new information: there are no more special needs classes. In “real life,” things simply move on without you.

I posted a quote meme on Instagram the other day and someone asked me exactly how they could apply my one-sentence advice to their life. That’s a fair question. I replied that I have a podcast that’s over 1,000 episodes deep, of me delivering just that (and now a membership doing even deeper work).

The commentator replied that he’d looked and “couldn’t find” my podcast.

Really?

Feigned ignorance is not cute. And it doesn’t make people rush to your aid. We don’t have time to wait.

Life doesn’t pause for the slow learner, those who don’t understand any of the new material, or the person who looked, but “can’t find” what’s right in front of them.

We just leave you there in your helplessness, forever not getting it.

#WorkOnYourGame

PS- When you’re ready for a teacher who’s only agenda is helping you create actual, tangible results, join me in the Game Group.