The Muse

I’m sure you can still remember late nights memorizing lists of facts when you were studying for tests in school. And as soon as the test was over, that information evaporated out of your brain. That approach to teaching has never been very effective and is probably responsible for a lot of people assuming they’re no good at “book learning”.

Well, that’s NOT how we learn. We learn by doing. We learn by understanding the reasons and how the information and processes fit together.

Memorizing facts and figures never helped anyone. You probably have to recite rhymes and silly songs to remember such things, even now. (Columbus sailed the ocean blue in…..)

Learning information, and truly understanding a process, becomes a tool that you can keep using over and over again. Every time you use that knowledge, it pays you back.

You can forget things that were superficially placed in your memory. But you can’t unlearn. You can forget facts and figures and dates and lists, but you don’t forget things that you understand.

And if you’re taking a class or reading a tutorial, look to see if you’re getting the information needed to understand why you do something. If not, you’re merely memorizing the steps, and that won’t get you anywhere. Demand better learning experiences!