When involved in some serious learning, you can end up in an area where your language falls short in describing what is happening. Your new experiences are not connected with known words, yet. As soon as the first surge of enthousiasm is gone, the very source of that enthousiasm seems to have been washed away, simply because of a lack of connection with your existing world of reference.

To facilitate retention of the new, I sometimes invite participants to express themselves about the new experiences in ways that they are not very familiar with. It helps to form connections between their old knowledge and what is newly learned. One way to do this, is by making a colourful painting, while keeping a certain theme in mind. The small pieces of art that are the result of this, often carry a lot of meaning for their maker. Once I ran into a former participant two years after a programme, and she opened the conversation showing her painted object: “Look, I always have this with me in my car. It helps.”

Further reading: a short and powerful recount of this type of experience by a participant, from the PhD study of Roger Greenaway.

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