Unlearning 101

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

 

Being Wrong Feels Like Being Right

Below is a wonderful talk by Kathryn Schulz, self described "wrongologist" and the author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. I especially liked this statement of hers:"One of the problems with being wrong ... is that it feels like being right."

This is so true and it is one of the reasons I strive to replace statements of "no doubt" with the more philosophical statement: "to know doubt."

After listening to her presentation, however, I'm even more convinced we need to teach unlearning in kindergarten and that each of us must strive to possess a little more intellectual humility."

Related Post

Someone Else Being Wrong Doesn't Make You Right

 

A Positive Spin on Negative Emotions

Have you ever considered that true happiness isn't found in the accumulation of more positive emotional experiences -- such as buying a new pair of shoes, taking a cool vacation, buying a new car, securing a better job or finding a more attractive partner -- but rather in the simple act letting go of the negative emotions of anger, anxiety, fear, greed, grief, envy and jealousy?

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Let it Go

An Easy Way to Gain Wealth: Unlearn

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10 Things Worthy of Teaching in Kindergarten

10. Teachers (and other experts) can be wrong.

9. Questions are better than answers.

8. Problems can have multiple solutions.

7. If something goes without saying, question it.

6. The opposite may also be true.

5. Certain things can be true and false at the same time.

4. Adults see and hear the world differently than children.

3. Zoning out may be more beneficial than zoning in.

2. Failure is an important component of success.

1. Unlearning is as important as learning.

P.S. Even if you disagree with the idea that unlearning should be taught in kindergarten, I'd strongly encourage all kids to keep drawing outsides the lines; maintain a notebook of things they don't know about; as well as make an occasional visit to an anti-library.

Related Posts

10 Why's About Education

10 Ways to Step into Your Discomfort Zone

Creativity Isn't All in Your Head

According to a new study ("Decisions for Others Are More Creative Decisions for the Self" in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin),  people are more creative when they're thinking on someone else's behalf. In other words, when you put yourself in the shoes of another person, you are more likely to come up with creative and innovative ideas.

So what are you waiting for? Get out of your head and into the shoes of another!

Looking for other ideas on how unlearning can enhance creativity? Check out these old posts:

An Idea So Bad It's Good

Unlearning: The Essential Element of Creativity

Seek Friends in Low Places

Zone Out to Zone In

Unlearning and the MBA

"If Indian engineers find out an executive has an MBA, they will say, 'unlearn and observe."

I love this quote is from Wim Elfrink, Cisco's chief globalization that appeared in this article. It also brings to mind this outstanding video from David Heinemeier Hansson entitled Unlearn Your MBA.

Of course rather than unlearning your MBA, I think it'd be much better to just recognize that unlearning is a critical life-long skill which everyone--MBA's included--must embrace if they wish to achieve future success.

I do take hope that MBA schools are becoming hip to unlearning. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that some business schools are trying to help students "unlearn bad behavior, such as using complicated words over simple ones." Granted, it's a modest start but it's a start. (Just another reason why, perhaps, we should begin instructing people how to unlearn beginning in kindergarten.) 

Unlearn Your Mind-Set and Adopt a Mind-Flex

I have read that when we are born our brains contain somewhere near one hundred billion neurons, and it can make a nearly infinite variety of possible connections--or neural pathways. As we grow older, however, we "pave" over many (or "hard-wire" if you will) of these neural pathways because they are so critical to our survival. 

This "hard-wiring," unfortunately, has some negative consequences. For example, it is speculated that this is why adults have a more difficult time learning a second language than children. Their brains are no longer as malleable.

In an era of relative stability (where society and our jobs didn't change much) there wasn't much of a downside to closing down seldom used neural pathways. But what about in an era of accelerating and constant change--such as society is now experiencing and will continue to experience?

I personally believe this is a bad thing. Moreover, it isn't merely sufficient to be open to adopting a new "mind-set" now and again. Instead, I believe we need to encourage a strategy of "mind-flex"--of keeping open as many possible neural pathways for as long as possible--for we must always be receptive to change and doing things in a new and fresh way.

How do we do this? To be honest, I don't have the slightest clue but perhaps we could start by:

Keeping An Open Mind; Embracing Ambiguity; Seeing Things from Different Perspectives; Asking New Questions; Acknowledging What We Don't Know; and Teaching Unlearning in Kindergarten.

If you agree--or even if you disagree--I'd love to hear your suggestions for how else we might encourage "Mind-Flex."

Teaching Kids to Live in a Multiple Answer World

Ken Robinson (the presenter of one of the best TED talks I have ever seen) has, with the help of the fine folks at RSA Animate, produced another short video on the importance of rethinking--or unlearning--how we educate our children. I highly recommend it.

 

The Most Important Thing: Questions

"[Children don't] stop asking questions because they have lost interest: it's the other way around. They lost interest because they stopped asking questions."

This simple and yet profound statement rests at the heart of a very serious problem facing America and, to varying degrees, the rest of the world: Our children are becoming less creative. (For an informative but sobering read on the topic, I encourage you to read The Creative Crisis -- an article in this week's Newsweek.)

Albert Einstein once said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created" and, Lord knows, the world has a number of serious problems which are of our own making. These problems are only compounded if we are also systematically robbing our children of the ability to think creatively about potential new solutions.

So what can we do about it? The one thing we can and must do is to encourage our children to never stop asking questions. Even if you don't know the answer to their questions (and, believe me, this happens to me all the time with my own children), I encourage you to ask them to think about potential explanations and answers to their own questions. At a minimum, this tactic will keep their mind engaged and, at best, it will nurture their inherent curiosity.

To quote Einstein again, "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The most important thing is not to stop questioning."

I love that last phrase: The most important thing is not to stop questioning. It should be the unofficial motto of every lifelong unlearner.

Related Post

The Secret to Unlearning in Seven Words

Bad Advice on Unlearning?

There is a quote on unlearning that reads: "We should teach our children nothing which they shall ever need to unlearn."

I think (but I don't know for sure) that I understand the sentiment behind the quote. Still, I fear the idea is badly misplaced. Rather than assuming we can know in advance all the ideas, concepts or knowledge which might some day need to be unlearned, I'd argue that it would be far better to teach our children how to unlearn.

The sentiment is similar to the idea so wonderfully captured in this quote: "Trying to child-proofing the world makes us neglect the much more important task of world-proofing the child." To wit, "Trying to teach our kids never to learn something which might later need to be unlearned causes to neglect the more important work of teaching our children how to unlearn." (For the record, I believe the unlearning process should begin in kindergarten--or sooner.)

I don't claim to know definitively how to teach children how to unlearn (in fact the problem with the world might be me) but I would begin by stressing that unlearning might begin by constantly asking questions; challenging assumptions; accepting failure as a natural component of personal growth; and striving to make the familiar strange--and the strange familiar. It might also emphasize the importance of keeping a beginner's mind; growing from one's inexperience; questioning the wisdom of experts; and replacing the phrase "no doubt" with "know doubt."

As always, I'd love to hear your suggestions on how we might all unlearn better.

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