How do we learn?
I asked myself this question today: if I want to improve how people can learn, first, I should try and understand how we actually learn. Here’s the list I came up with, in a few minutes, so forgive me for that or add something that I forgot.
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Practicing: The act or repeating something until you get good at it. Or ‘til you get bored.
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Discussions: Talking to other people. Other people are not always correct, but that helps us with another important skill: the ability to argue for an idea.
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Thinking: Reflecting on things that you have done or could do, or how you could improve also is a form of learning.
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Own experiences: What you have done before in your life, that required you to learn something or has taught you something.
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Mistakes: This one is, well, hard to acknowledge that you learned from it. But still, at least learned something.
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Creating: The process of inventing, and the unexpected problems that you may encounter along the way, trigger learning.
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Being taught: In school, university at home. Wether is academic content or not, you might always be taught something. This refers to sit down and actually learn something with someone “having” to tell you how it is.
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Researching: In my opinion, this is one of the coolest methods of learning, alongside creating, because no-one forces you to do it. It is something that you have triggered yourself for the simple fact that you want to do so, it interests you.
Where am I going with all this?
Well, if you gave some attention to the list above, you might have learned something. But here’s something you might not have noticed: the only “forced” method of learning was school (or in some cases practice).
In most countries, by law, kids must go to school until a certain age. I’m not saying we should abolish this law, what I am saying is: why should school, a place for learning, only teach something that is limited, to fulfil a syllabus and sit an exam? Educational institutions should teach and give the opportunity for people to learn what they want. You learn more by practice than theory, or at least a good balance of both.
I hope to build a tool that will enable students to have a place where their minds can fill to full capacity, like a gas expanding to fill its container. Tom is cooperating with me on this project; we’re really excited about it, so get behind us if you can!