To learn means coming to know something new at the end of, or subsequent to, a (learning) process. Because students do not yet know at the beginning of the process what they will know subsequent to the process, they cannot actively orient towards the object of learning. In this article, I propose a phenomenological perspective that theorizes learning in terms of the unseen (future knowledge) that arises as something unforeseen. The perspective is developed with materials from an algebra lesson for fourth-grade students. I conclude that this approach requires addressing the pathic and affective dimensions in and of learning.