Knowing what you don't know

If you have ever spent much time with any of my courses or classes, you have heard me talk about a concept I call the 4 stages of learning. This is not original to me of course, but here are the 4 stages in order from worst to best.

1) Unconscious incompetence –  You don’t know what you don’t know.
2) Conscious incompetence – You know what you don’t know.
3) Conscious competence – You know, but using your knowledge requires a lot of concentration.
4) Unconscious competence – You know so well that you can use your knowledge instinctively.

Of course, it is easy to understand how this applies to music. If you are going to be a great musician, you have to be at stage 4. In other words, you have to use your knowledge as instinctively as riding a bike or driving a car. It is absolutely possible to get there and it is my goal to help get you there.

Most people that come to me are at stage 2. They recognize that there are concepts that they need to learn. I can work with those people all day–they have hope. I can help people at stage 3 too, mostly by giving them the exercises and drills they need to get music from the head to their hands.

I am not just on the outside and observing this of course. This applies to me too. In some areas, I am at stage 4. In other areas, I feel like I am at stage 2 and 3 and I am seeking out stage 4 people myself. I am both a teacher and a student. 

The only stage I don’t deal with is stage 1. I never hear from musicians at stage 1. Never. Those musicians don’t participate in the educational process at all. They don’t have to–they already know everything. I say that tongue-in-cheek because of course, they really don’t know too much of anything. Musicians in stage 1 are blissfully ignorant. Yes, ignorance really is bliss…

I am through talking about music. I just wanted to use music as an example of how the concept of the 4 stages works. Here is the big point I want to make: we all have to be careful to avoid the stage 1 trap in any area of our life.

Here are some signs that you are living in stage 1:

1) You never change your mind.

If you are still breathing, you hold wrong positions. The process of maturity should include weaning those errors from your life and that requires changing your mind. Ask yourself when you changed your mind recently on something even somewhat significant.

I am not saying you should be wishy-washy. I am not saying you should change your mind on a fundamental of your faith. But you should be regularly changing your mind on things more significant than your favorite restaurant.

2) Everything is simple to you.

Recently, I was sitting in a group discussing a question when a young woman spoke up and said something like this: “I realize this may sound simple and I know that I tend to think in either black and white but…..” She then proceeded to give an over-simplistic and problematic opinion.

She can be forgiven for that because she is young and has not experienced life. But I shake my head at the people I see on Facebook who are older and should know better but still have not figured out that the sticky problems of life are not simple. The political views drive me the craziest. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are political experts with all the answers simply because they read papers and watch cable news.

3) You are always dogmatic.

Stage 1 people are dogmatic because they don’t know what they don’t know. People beyond stage 1 are less dogmatic because they understand more. Show me a person that knows all the answers and I will show you a person who does not even know the questions.

There is a place for cautious dogmatism. That is after you are at stage 4 and know what you are talking about. But even then, you will rarely see a stage 4 person who is as dogmatic as a stage 1 person.

4) You are always on the fringe.

You could argue that Jesus taught extremism. I know that. But in general, the extremism that I see is extremism based on ignorance. There is a reason why the balanced people in the room usually sound the most intelligent. Careful reasoning on complex issues usually leads one away from extremism.

I know there are exceptions to that. But if you are always the one with the extreme views even among people that are generally like you, it should be a warning flag. Extremists are usually not smarter than everyone else. They are just locked in stage 1.

People gravitate to stage 1. They always have and always will. Unfortunately for us today, Facebook just makes that ignorance a bit more public. But we all have to be vigilant or we will live there too.

There is no shame in being in stage 2 or stage 3. There is nothing wrong with admitting that we don’t know everything.

Because regardless of where we are in life, that is the truth…