Challenge Accepted?

Read this article first: Ethiopian kids hack OLPCs in 5 months with zero instruction. 

 

Wow. If "uneducated" kids can do that, why aren't we "educated" adults doing even more amazing things?

I don't think it's age. There are people out there that think kids are the best learners. I remember seeing an advertisement of this track saying something like, "Your brain is like a Jello mold. You have to get everything you want in there before it sets!" Meaning that at sometime in childhood (late teens, if I'm remembering my brain research correctly), your brain "sets" or actually stops forming. And then if you want to get REALLY pessimistic, I also recall in that same that they said that the sponge years-- where you absorb and store EVERYTHING-- ends in early childhood, at about 6-8, then until those late teen years, your brain is actually DELETING the extra stuff-- pathways of knowledge you have but don't ever use. My conclusion, at the time, was, "So we get measurably dumber as we age. Great." And these are smart people... PhDs! However, now I'm thinking, not true. Read on...

What I do think is the problem is the way we are taught is the "right" way to learn stuff-- going to a class and memorizing a bunch of facts, categories, pathways to make decisions. Here's an example of the later I saw on Pinterest the other day.

 I'm thinking that the above-- facts, categories, decision trees-- are great tools, but memorizing them... not so much. The problem is with learning them in a classroom. In a class, you get a grade on how well you memorize such things and can't move on-- advance to other classes/grades-- until you've mastered memorizing the previous set of stuff. Apparently this is called "explicit learning."(Sorry that's not the best link. Wikipedia doesn't have anything on it, except in relation to the next topic...)

The problem is, there's no room for mistakes in the classroom. You can't just stick your brain's fingers into a big pile of facts and play around, arranging the facts until you come up with the categories, decision trees yourself. You know,... actually use the brain God gave you! This is called "implicit learning."(Even Wikipedia knows this way is better. lol)

So, this is what I'm thinking... the pruning going on in our brains in the teen years is a good thing. We've assimilated a lot of facts during those early childhood years, then the pruning is our brain making the decision trees and categories for us-- its throwing out the dead ends! 

However, if this-- implicit learning-- is the way our brain works, why are we still trying to learn stuff explicitly?

I'm thinking at least in part through our schooling process we were taught that making mistakes is bad. 

Get in there and get your brain fingers dirty! Years ago I gave myself the challenge to always be reading something. My new challenge for myself is to always be learning something. Right now I'm doing my best to make my Spanish functional. (Which is why the majority of my links in this today have to do with language learning.)

Here's my challenge to you: Go learn something! 

Pick something that excites you! Something that you'll actually enjoy learning. Something you could use in real life. I know there's something out there you've always wanted to learn. 

What's your excuse?  Make your own list of excuses and then debunk them until there are none left. 

What harm could come of you learning? What good?

Try it! Maybe read a book on the topic first to lessen the chance of your mistakes actually causing serious physical harm or death first... lol. 

Now tell me (or someone else in a public way), what are you learning?