All tagged Learning
One of my (many) shortcomings when it comes to cooking is that I follow recipes to a tee.
Yes, I appreciate that that can be a positive and it is - in the sense that the resulting dish will be exactly to specification. It will taste and (for the most part) look exactly as the recipe author intended.
We tend to think effort and graft are the most critical ingredients to doing our work well. They're not.
The fact is that there's one, far more important and foundational requirement for success, as I discuss in today's episode.
I love actual, physical books. Mostly non-fiction, sometimes fiction as well.
I love not only the content in the books I buy, but I love how it feels in my hand, even how it smells. It’s a rare, almost nonexistent thing now, but I love walking through a bookstore, discovering new and interesting titles across all sorts of genres. That process of discovery is (was) one of the best things ever.
When I was a 14 year old learning to play the guitar, there was no internet. Which meant that, if you wanted to learn a song, there were only a few ways to do it.
You could try and learn it ‘by ear’; you could have a friend show you how (assuming you had a friend who played guitar and knew the song in question); you could buy a guitar magazine and check out the included sheet music (assuming they transcribed that specific song in that specific issue)…
It took me a while to understand that the idea of "learning" was not a one and done concept but an enduring, long lasting one.
There are a number of reasons for this as I discuss in today's episode and my key message or takeaway is that, while we've made progress over the years, the path is continuous - so long as we shift how we think about it.
When I was in my teens and learning to play the guitar, there was a guy I knew who had been playing for a few years and was really quite good. He knew how to play all the cool songs I wanted to learn to play, knew all the cool riffs and could play by ear. But he wasn’t interested in sharing any of his knowledge.
I specifically remember him playing Stairway To Heaven, a song I was trying to learn.
The reality of the learning process is that it’s often non-linear and, most importantly, unpredictable.
There’s a tendency to think of it (hope?) as a “paint-by-numbers” approach: follow these steps and you’ll get to your destination. And while aspects of learning are indeed structured and conventional in that sense, many others are not. That, in so many respects, is where real learning happens.
A common lament these days is that kids don’t read, or at least, they don’t read enough. Give them a spare moment and their first inclination is to pick up their phones and surf. Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, etc. - the mode varies but the rabbit hole is the same.
And the way things are progressing - we’re only moving deeper into our virtual worlds, with more and more social media platforms emerging - we’re only going to be spending more time in front of our screens, not less.
