5 Stages of the Learning Process and Their Resistance Archetypes

As a teacher, trainer, or coach, it’s crucial to understand where your students or clients are in their learning journey, so that you can plan what you’re going to teach and how you’re going to teach it.

Identifying where your students are also helps you plan for how they might show up, the types of questions they might raise, and the resistance that they will bring to the process.

And as a student, it’s helpful to have awareness of where you are and how you’re showing up.

The Learning Journey Archetypes

The process of the learning journey is one of the lessons offered by the archetypes of the Four Sons/Children in the Passover Haggadah: The Wise, Wicked, Simple, and the One Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask. According to many commentators, there is also a fifth child: the Absent One, who doesn’t bother to show up at all.

The Four Sons are conceptual archetypes. Each of us has all of them within us.

Among the many things these archetypes represent is how we show up in the different stages of the learning process.

There are five major stages of the learning process. Here’s a breakdown of each stage and some considerations for navigating the journey as both a student and a teacher — because we are all both, all the time.

5 Stages of the Learning Process

Stage 1: Not Showing Up to Learn

In the first stage of the process, the student doesn’t even show up to learn. You are like the “Missing” fifth child, who is absent from the Seder.

Perhaps you have no awareness of the topic or realize there’s an opportunity to learn more.

Resistance at Stage 1: Judgement and Self-Criticism

At this stage, the resistance that shows up is keeping you from being open to learning.

That resistance often arises in the form of judgments about yourself or the topic. It may manifest as thoughts or beliefs such as:

• This topic is pointless; it has no practical relevance to my life.
• I don’t need to learn about this.
• I’m not capable of doing this skill, so it’s a waste of time to learn it.
• I won’t be good at it, so why even bother.

To get to Stage 2, something must happen that shifts your perception of yourself, the topic, or both.

Stage 2: Desire to Learn

In the second stage of learning, you have a desire to learn. You are generally aware of the topic and realize ways it might be relevant. You’d like to explore more but you don’t even know where to start.

This is the Child who Does Not Know How to Ask.

You may have some passing familiarity with the topic, or have heard of it, but you don’t really know anything about it.

At this stage you are in the mode of “unconscious incompetence.” You don’t know what to ask.

Resistance at Stage 2: Fear of Asking Questions

The resistance at this stage generally relates to initiating questions. Common beliefs and fears that show up at this stage include:

• I’ll seem ignorant if I ask this question.
• I must be the only one who hears these terms and doesn’t know what they mean.
• I’ll look foolish if I ask this question after the teacher just reviewed all that material.
• I’m probably the only one who doesn’t get it, and I don’t want to take up everyone’s time by asking.

When you find yourself at this stage of the process, it can help to remember that questions are a vital part of the learning process. In a class setting, it’s rare that only one person has a question.

Someone needs to be brave and ask for all the people who are hesitant to speak up. Why not let that person be you?

Stage 3: Getting a Handle on the Concepts

In Stage 3, we are taking in information and trying to get a handle on the big concepts.

At this stage of the process, we are like the Simple child, asking the most basic questions.

This is where things can start to fall off track. Any topic has so many layers and much nuance; it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. Once we start down the path of learning in earnest, we can become deluged by information.

Resistance at Stage 3: Overwhelm and Confusion

At this stage, resistance often shows up in the form of overwhelm and confusion. Sometimes even the smartest of students will find themselves confused and overloaded with information.

This resistance might include thoughts or beliefs such as:

• There’s too much here; I’ll never keep this all straight.
• How will I remember all of this?
• I don’t even understand what the teacher is saying.
• I’m not able to follow the teacher or keep up.

Teachers should make sure to focus on the big picture and eliminate excess content to help students focus on what’s most relevant.

Slow steps, and building a little each day, can keep you moving forward without becoming derailed by overwhelm.

Stage 4: Integrating New Knowledge

Stage four is where we start to integrate new knowledge. This is the challenge phase of the learning process, because it is where we confront how the new information we are learning conflicts with what we already know or believe.

Stage four is the equivalent of the phase of adolescence in the development of a child, the domain of the “Wicked” or rebellious child.

Resistance at Stage 4: Rebellion and Conflict

At this part of the process it’s normal to rebel against authority and established norms, to push back against your teacher, and to feel conflict with what you’re learning.

This is where the big resistance arises.

You might have thoughts such as:

• How can this be?
• What’s the practical use of this?
• What’s the point of this?

You push back. You fight with what you’re learning.

For teachers, coaches, and trainers, this part is often uncomfortable. You might feel like you are being attacked.

For students, it can feel uncomfortable. You might feel shame and guilt for being argumentative, questioning the process, or pushing back against your teacher.

Remember: Rebellion is a Sign of Learning

Whether you’re the teacher/coach or the student/client, it’s important to remember this:

Push-back is a crucial stage of the learning process.

The push-back means that information is penetrating.

All true learning engenders inner conflict. It’s disruptive to the status quo of what we believe we know.

Learning is uncomfortable because new information disrupts the status-quo of what we already know. Integrating new information and acquiring new skills can be frustrating.

Students don’t fight unless they’re invested. They don’t fight unless they care. They don’t fight unless they are learning.

Resistance at this stage is normal and natural. It’s not a reason to shame ourselves or others. It’s a sign we are on the right track.

Stage 5: Integration and Distinctions

Eventually we reach Stage 5, where we integrate what we are learning. At this point, we begin to see differentiation, which causes us to ask more questions and make distinctions between concepts.

This is the stage of the Wise child, who asks a question that is intricate in its distinction between different types of laws.

Beware, however, that the resistance isn’t over yet.

Resistance at Stage 5: Over-Analysis and Perfection

The Wise child can get caught up in irrelevant details or esoterica theory at the expense of what is practically useful.

At this stage, resistance can look like:

• Over-analysis.
• Over-complicating things.
• Getting too absorbed in the details at the expense of the bigger picture.
• Perfectionism or unrealistic standards or expectations.
• Judgment about other students who aren’t as “far along” as they are.

Remember: Learning Isn’t Linear

Remember: learning isn’t a strictly linear process.

Learning is an ongoing process of evolution and becoming; it’s not a straight line from point A to point B.

Even within a given topic, we might cycle among these stages.

At any moment in time, we have all of these archetypes within us. So do our students.

Noticing which one is showing up can help us better navigate the process with compassion and acceptance, whether we are a student or a teacher.