Learning

In opposition and accordance with the last post - knowing how to learn is just as important as being a good teacher. This is about my learning journey and why it's not an inherent skill (to most)

Firstly, last post was skipped because it was my wife’s birthday, we celebrated by spending some quiet time in Dripping Springs and bringing our dog Suki along for the ride where we let her be wild and free in open fields.

What is Learning?

In my experience learning something, regardless of it’s complexity is a multi step process that ends in being able to teach that concept back to others. It starts with some form of absorption, a bit of rumination and practice, and lastly what is learned is remembered. The majority of our life we are spent absorbing the world around us so we are constantly learning and practicing what we’ve learned. Sometimes we decide to ruminate and practice what we’ve learned - whether it’s for school, fun, or necessity. Less often though we actually ruminate and practice what we’ve learned for enough time and well enough so that we can remember, and further, teach others what we’ve learned.

Learning is a process that does not end, after you remember (step 3) what you’ve learned you can continue the cycle and absorb more and continue to learn about a certain topic.

Is it easy to learn?

Growing up, I used to think I was good at learning, I picked up things quickly and did not need to study much. I felt that I had some unique ability to learn better than those around me, the classic getting labeled as “gifted” syndrome. As I got through middle school and into high school, classes got significantly harder and all of my peers who traditionally took longer to learn were suddenly doing better than me and those of us who were “naturally” smart could no longer rely on teachers labeling us as gifted.

High school is when I learned how to learn - but more importantly realized that I never learned how to learn correctly in the first place. I didn’t have anyone to teach my how to learn as my parents weren’t college educated so I was kind of winging it for a couple of years until I began to find a rhythm. Some of my high school teachers showed me techniques that worked in - some of these I adopted and others didn’t work great for me. This is around the time I learned of the concept of spaced repetition and not relying on administered tests to test myself.

All of this to say that in my experience learning well is not inherent - I think everyone has an inherent ability to learn - our parents taught us how to eat certain things, and how to behave in public. We have to learn more intently though when using chop sticks for the first time, or etiquette at a golf course. Learning is easy but learning well can be hard.

“I’m a lifelong learner!”

Everyone is a life long learner - you must learn to adapt to your new environment as you age so this phrase is either obvious or not getting to the right point. The ultimate goal shouldn’t just be to learn everyday but to learn deeply as often as you can.

There is only so much time we have in the day, in the week, in our lives - that if we don’t dive deep into certain topics that really make us happy then we are just living very surface level lives. We all have topics that interested us for no good reason - as in no obvious logical reason - why do some of us love the guitar while others don’t? Find those topics that brought you a special sense of joy and interest and take the deepest dive into that topic as you can. Strive not to be a surface level lifelong learner but someone who is an expert in certain topics.

Now that you’ve decided what topics to dive deep in it’s important to ask yourself why - why should I learn about guitar theory, or olympic climbing routes? To me the best answer to this question is: because it makes me happy. In a professional setting we often have to learn something because it’ll make us a better employee or businessperson, etc, but we must never lose the opportunity to learn something for the sake of learning it.

Also learn those things that no one else knows about and don’t tell anyone! Enjoy that niche fact for yourself!

Learning begets learning

The more you learn and practice learning the more you enjoy it and find it fun, so keep on finding those topics to learn about and see to what worlds it takes you.