Why is it difficult to learn and teach?

The main idea is that the teacher transmits linguistically meaningful informational messages that penetrate the student's information processing system, where they are deciphered for meaning, linked to previous knowledge, and processed according to certain thinking rules, eventually being stored as knowledge in long-term memory and retrieved when needed, such as during an exam. Here, learning is viewed as the instruction, processing, and storage of provided knowledge, and the goal is merely to optimize the mechanisms involved in this process.

In contrast, I want to propose two statements that may sound unexpected but are well-founded in neuroscience and cognitive sciences:

(1) Knowledge cannot be transmitted; it must be constructed in the brain of each student.

(2) Mastery of knowledge depends on conditions and is governed by factors that occur unconsciously and are therefore difficult to influence.

Constructing Meaning

In everyday life, we have the sense that participants in communication exchange linguistic meanings. We would not perceive a simple sequential accumulation of meaningless sounds and signs as communication and knowledge exchange. However, in reality, what the speaker expresses or the writer writes that reaches the listener's ear or the reader's eye are physical phenomena (sound waves, distributions of dark contours on a light background) that have no inherent meaning by themselves.

A foreign national produces sounds, and I have no idea what they mean, whether they are words at all, or emotional or musical-rhythmic expressions. In ancient archaeological excavations, we find signs and often do not know for a long time whether they are random products, ornaments, or written symbols. A person who cannot read is unlikely to distinguish letters from dirt left by flies.

The explanation for this is obvious: for physical phenomena to be recognized as meaningful signs, the recipient's brain must have the appropriate preconceptions. And for specific meanings of symbols to be understood, there must be meaningful contexts that give the signs their meaning. Thus, meanings cannot be transmitted from teacher to student but must be constructed by the student's brain. It is important to remember that most meaning constructions in our brains are highly automated and completely unconscious, and even if they are perceived consciously, they are usually not under our willful control.

When a speaker utters words, he generates sound waves that penetrate the auditory apparatus and then - transformed into nerve impulses - into the listener's brain. There they are instantly subjected to complex analysis of frequencies, amplitudes, and temporal relationships of vibrations, and then they are identified as human speech sounds. They are immediately directed to language centers, namely Wernicke's and Broca's areas. Here phonemes and groups of phonemes, primary word meanings, syntax and grammar-dependent meanings (left hemisphere), as well as speech melody and affective-emotional components of speech (right hemisphere) are sequentially analyzed.

Each event identified as a word, phrase, or sentence is unconsciously compared with the contents of linguistic memory and activates or creates the meanings that make the most sense. The broader context of meaning and action is usually taken into account. In cases where the meaning and action context are unambiguous, this meaning construction can happen instantly. For example, a boss with a red face stands in front of an employee and shouts, "Get out!" Here, the employee's brain does not need much effort to understand what the speaker means. However, during long scientific presentations, colleagues often have questions like, "What does he mean? What is he trying to achieve? What is the problem?" because the listener lacks the necessary prior experience and meaning context that existed in the colleague's brain when formulating his sentences.

If certain prior experience and meaning context are absent in the listener's or reader's brain, then meaning construction does not occur, or at least not the intended meaning. Only if the speaker and listener, teacher and student, coincidentally or through practice have the same prior experience and meaning context in their brains, approximately the same meanings arise. Since these meaning constructions usually happen completely unconsciously and we do not perceive them, it seems to us that consciously perceived linguistic meanings come directly from the speaker.

Limbic System

Unconscious processes of meaning or knowledge construction depend on many factors, most of which are mediated by a system that has long been absent in cognitive psychology, namely the limbic system. This system transmits affects, feelings, and motivation and is the true controller of learning success.

The limbic system consists of various structures in the brain, including the hippocampus, amygdala, and hypothalamus. It is closely linked to emotional and motivational processes and plays a key role in processing and storing information, especially emotionally charged content. Activation of the limbic system can influence the learning process through emotions and motivation, enhancing or hindering learning success.

Affects, feelings, and motivation act as filters and can influence perception, processing, and storage of information. Positive emotions and high motivation can increase readiness and ability to learn, while negative emotions or lack of motivation can complicate the learning process. Thus, the limbic system plays an important role in regulating emotional states and motivation, which significantly impact learning success.

It is worth noting that unconscious processes of meaning or knowledge construction are closely linked to the limbic system. Emotions and the motivational component transmitted by this system help provide meaning to information and store it in memory. Therefore, the limbic system is crucial for understanding learning and memory processes.

This system evaluates everything that happens to us and through us in terms of whether it was good/useful/pleasant and needs repeating or bad/unprofitable/painful and needs avoiding. It stores these assessments of experience in emotional memory, which primarily operates unconsciously. In every situation, the limbic system checks if this situation is already known or similar to a previous one and what experiences we have with it. The details of events do not literally come from the limbic system but are added through declarative memory via the hippocampus.

The limbic system answers key questions regarding learning success, asking in every situation: "What indicates that listening, learning, practicing, etc., is actually worthwhile?" This mainly occurs based on past, primarily unconscious experiences. If the system arrives at a positive conclusion, then through neuromodulatory systems in the cerebral cortex, existing knowledge networks are restructured to create new knowledge.

Factors Playing an Important Role in Learning and Teaching

Learning and teaching are determined by a wide range of very different factors. These include primarily:

- Motivation and reliability of the teacher

- Individual cognitive and emotional prerequisites for students' learning

- General motivation and readiness of students to learn

- Specific motivation of students for a particular subject, prior knowledge, and current emotional state

- Specific context of learning and teaching

Detailed explanations of each factor:

Teacher's Motivation and Reliability

A teacher who is interested in the subject he teaches is more likely to spark interest in his students. A teacher who is reliable and consistent in his expectations is also more likely to make students feel they can rely on him.

Emotional psychologists and neurobiologists have found that at the beginning of each meeting and conversation, the reliability of the partner is evaluated within about one second completely unconsciously through the analysis of facial expressions (especially the position of the eyes and mouth), voice tone, and posture.

Similarly, in learning. Students quickly and at least initially subconsciously determine whether the teacher is motivated, knowledgeable about his subject, and identifies with what he is saying. The teacher is usually completely unaware of the signals he is sending and cannot control them intentionally or only after long training. If a tired and disheartened teacher who has been teaching for many years, teaches knowledge he himself does not know or is no longer relevant, it is a direct invitation for students not to listen.

Therefore, it is important that teachers are motivated and interested in what they teach. When teachers are interested, their body language, voice tone, and facial expressions are transmitted to students, making learning more engaging and productive.

Individual Cognitive and Emotional Prerequisites for Students' Learning

Learning is an active process of constructing meaning, and this process occurs differently in different brains. Everyone knows there are significant differences in memory. One person can memorize 200 phone numbers and other number combinations but may not remember names well or often gets lost, meaning they have poor spatial memory. In others, it is the opposite. These differences are largely innate and can only be partially improved and usually through so-called mnemonic techniques.

This means a good teacher should actually know the learning style and memory of each student well to optimally adapt his activities to it – an almost insolvable task in school reality. Many students' difficulties arise because a certain type of knowledge transmission usually dominates in school, namely the linguistic learning method, which is not suitable for all students.

Besides these genetically determined and therefore minimally changeable factors, there are influences on learning success determined prenatally or in early childhood. This primarily concerns the brain system that regulates general activity and attention and is characterized by neuromodulators and a range of neuropeptides. This system determines the general ability to perceive things and events in the environment and underlies the general ability and readiness to learn.

General Motivation and Readiness of Students to Learn

In the brain, there is a system that checks whether the expected behavior promises a reward (or helps avoid displeasure) before any situation where a person has to do something. In our case, this means that the learning situation should be attractive to the student in some way. General readiness to learn is controlled by attention and the release of specific substances that facilitate learning, such as norepinephrine and acetylcholine. A student's brain quickly develops reward expectations. This means that the child should experience learning as something good and beneficial as early as possible from their parents and the broader environment. This then translates into a general increase in readiness to learn and motivation. If learning and school are perceived as something difficult and burdensome, do not be surprised that children lack the motivation to learn.

Even mild, stimulating stress usually promotes learning. In this case, the brain releases the neuromodulator norepinephrine, which makes the brain generally receptive to learning. Therefore, in the eyes of behavioral physiologists and psychologists, learning is harmful if it is too relaxed and "cozy" and happens without any effort at the lowest level.

Learning should be perceived as a positive effort. Conversely, strong stress associated with fear of failure and a sense of threat from the teacher leads to significant inhibition of learning success. The brain also detects through a special monitoring system when a reward (e.g., in the form of praise) is deserved or undeserved and instantly adjusts to this. There should be clear rules for evaluating learning success that the student can understand.

Overall, it can be said that learning happens best when it is perceived as positive and rewarding. The brain is designed to learn new things and is stimulated by rewards and incentives. However, stress should not be too high as this can inhibit learning success. Therefore, students should have a learning environment that is both challenging and supportive.

Specific Motivation of Students for a Particular Subject, Prior Knowledge, and Current Emotional State

The strength of the emotional state a student feels, such as interest, excitement, and enthusiasm, positively correlates with memory. We all know that what interests us can be learned very quickly, while what does not captivate us is difficult to learn.

The memory of knowledge has many modules or "compartments" that, although they can work independently in principle, are interconnected. Different aspects of a particular learning material (people, events, objects, places, names, colors, emotional state, news, etc.) are stored in different compartments, but these different aspects remain connected to each other and form a sphere of meanings. Accordingly, the more memorable compartments, the better the content is remembered since recalling one aspect facilitates recalling other aspects and ultimately the entire content of knowledge. The more content of a particular category already exists, the better the connection. Therefore, it makes sense at the first stage to present things visually and everyday so that children can imagine something. This is not only fun but also enhances the connection of new materials to the existing ones.

Specific Context of Learning and Teaching

The success of learning depends not only on the degree of prior knowledge, attention, and interest but also on the context in which the learning takes place. Modern memory research shows that along with each content learned, it is also important who conveys this content and when and where the learning takes place. Accordingly, the learning context (person, time, place) can facilitate or hinder the retrieval of knowledge content. It is important for teachers to create a positive and supportive learning context for all their students. This will help ensure the learning success of all students.

These factors have a lasting impact on learning success. Although they are known to every good teacher, this knowledge has not yet been incorporated into well-grounded concepts of learning and teaching.