Unlearning 101

Don't Play Russian Roulette With Your Future: Unlearn!

The first chapter of my new book, Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future, is entitled “Unlearn or Die.” To better appreciate why unlearning will be such a critical skill in the future, I’d like to share this paragraph from Josh Linkner’s outstanding article, Vu Deja: Tricking Yourself Into Looking At Problems With a Fresh Perspective:

The way you solved a customer issue or launched a product in the past may have worked great, but the world isn’t standing still. Quite the opposite–every night when we go to bed and wake up the next day, things have changed. Those who get stuck in the past and lean on the golden ways of a time gone by are playing Russian roulette with their future.

In other words, unlearn or die!

If you’d like some concrete examples of how to look at a problem from a fresh perspective, my new book (also available as an e-book) has plenty of examples along the lines of this old post: 5 Ways to Make the Familiar Strange.

 

Unlearning Learning

I once read a wonderful quote that went something to the affect of this: "The great scandal of education is that every time you teach a child something you deprive them of the opportunity to discover it for themselves."

According to this new fascinating study, school children can learn complex subjects on their own. More interesting still, three months after the students had taught themselves they had better recall of the information which they had taught themselves.

I'm not suggesting that teachers are irrelevant but I do believe a great many need to unlearn what they think they know about learning--and teaching.

For further proof that children can learn on their own, watch this insightful TED talk by Sugata Mitra on Child-driven education.

Related Posts by Jack Uldrich on unlearning and education:

Teach Unlearning in Kindergarten

10 Things Worthy of Teaching in Kindergarten

Please, Let's Stop Unlearning Creativity

 

Permission to Become Your Own Authority Figure

Does no one in a position of authority like your business proposal, your manuscript or your idea?

Stop listening to others "no" and say "yes" to yourself. Give yourself permission to become your own authority figure.

Creativity and Unlearning

August Turak has written an insightful post entitled Can Creativity Be Taught. I have also written about unlearning and the creativity process before but I'd like to just highlight a few key points from his article:

1. "Asking radically different questions in a non-linear way is the key to creativity." (If you're looking for some new questions you might try these, and if you're looking to think in a non-linear way you might recall the lesson of the lily pad).

2. "Becoming creative is an unlearning rather than a learning process ... because it upends existing assumptions." (This is why "If something goes without saying, you should question it.)

3. "Creativity is highly correlated with self-knowledge but it is impossible to overcome biases if we don't know they are there."

4. "You should seek a mentor that infuriates your ego rather than soothes it." 

Related Posts

Never Let Your Ego Stop You From Unlearning

Unlearning: The Essential Element of Creativity

Creativity Isn't All in Your Head

Crossing Over the Border of Unachievable Takes Practice

William "Red" Whittaker, a world-class roboticist, likes projects that "border on the unachievable." To cross this border, it's essential to first unlearn your idea of what's achievable.

One strategy Whittaker employs is to "plunge into production by trial and error, rather than seeking the perfect design." In other words, Whittaker practices intentional imperfection.

Malcolm Gladwell on Unlearning the Need for Order

Keep an Open-Mind to Unlearning

Are you open-minded?

If so, when was the last time you changed your mind about a long-held belief?

When was the last time you publicly admitted you were wrong?

When was the last time you acknowledged that another person could look at the exact same thing and come to an equally valid -- but opposite -- conclusion?

When was the last time you asked yourself this question: What if I'm wrong?

Keeping an open-mind isn't just about staying open to new ideas and learning new things; the other (and harder) half of keeping an open mind is a relentless willingness to discard and unlearn those things that you think you already know.

An Antidisciplinary Approach to Learning -- and Unlearning

“One of the most important disciplines in the twenty-first will be no discipline at all,” writes Frank Moss in his new book, The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices—a new book about MIT’s Media Lab.

So does this mean the hard disciplines of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and engineering can be abandoned?

Absolutely not.

Instead, the school—whose stated mission is “to invent the future”—takes an “anti-disciplinary” approach to problem-solving by putting its ideas into the public domain for anyone to take and run with.

What I like about this approach is that it recognizes that every discipline has approaches, methods or boundaries which constrain its thinking. The only way to overcome these artificial barriers is to push your ideas out to other disciplines (and peoples) who view the world from a perspective different than your own.

Interested in other "anti"-approaches to unlearning? Check out these older posts:

Unlearning Requires an Anti-Library

What's on Your Anti-Resume?

 

 

A Curious Connection? Brains, Mind Maps and the Universe

Take a look at the pictures to the right. The symmetry between microscopic neurons and a macroscopic galaxy is rather surprising. Is there a connection between the two?

Honestly, I don’t know but I do believe the human mind is capable of discovering the answer.

To this end, I invite you to watch this six minute video of a fascinating and powerful (and potentially disruptive) new educational tool called Nibipedia. Pay special attention to the configuration of the “Mind Map”—you may be surprised at the similarity to the above images of the brain and the universe.

Is there a connection? Again, I don’t know but, perhaps, with the assistance of Nibipedia, James Burke and the brainpower of millions of other people we can find out.

Related Posts

Dancing into the Future with Three TED Videos 
Make More Connections to the Future

 

The Tale of the Junky Carrot

What do you do if you want to sell more carrots?

One thing, apparently, is to begin viewing the world from a different perspective.

Recently, Fast Company, published this insightful article describing how the creative team at Crispin (an advertising firm) helped BoltHouse Farms increase sales of its pre-cut baby carrots.

How did they do this? I'll let you read the whole article but they began by questioning assumptions. To wit, one executive said he wanted carrots "to be junk food."

This might sound ridiculous but his reasoning was sound: Baby carrots share many of the same characteristics as junk food -- they're "neon orange, crunchy, dippable, and kind of addictive." (The team at Crispin also argued that it was only slightly silly to spend money telling people that carrots were healthy.)

I would submit that Crispin's work is not only an excellent example of seeing the world differently and questioning assumptions, it is also a wonderful example of turning a problem into an opportunity.

Interested in other health-related unlearning madness?

How About Trying This Corny Idea