MindSwitch Mondays Issue #5: The Art of All Learning
The art of learning, unlearning, relearning, and practice.
You’ve probably been taught that learning is only about adding more knowledge. We navigate through life just by adding more knowledge to our minds, without questioning if something is useful or not.
I have been guilty of this as well.
But reviewing past information, to see if it’s still relevant, and making adjustments, is just as important.
These past two months I have been unlearning and relearning writing. In school, I was taught methods of writing for more technical uses. But I have discovered that the methods I had already learned in school can be used in a different way to gather information, save ideas, and create writing in a more playful and creative way! I’ve experienced the process of unlearning and relearning writing.
Unlearning and relearning a skill is a skill in and of itself. Bear with me now because it may sound like a tongue twister, but, by learning to unlearn you are learning a way to learn. And, if this is a new way to learn, let’s think of it as another skillset for the bundleI talked about last week.
1 MindSwitch Idea💡
Life, society, and everyone around us are changing constantly. It is inevitable. Navigating through life with constant knowledge will only keep us from evolving with our surroundings.
The solution: unlearn, relearn, add more knowledge, and practice again!
2 Interesting Finds 🔎
When thinking about adding new information, we either have to add knowledge in something we have little experience in or something that we probably missed at the time of studying it. After all, we are humans with a human brain, and even though we have evolved to have a capacity for thinking that’s superior to other live beings, we have to accept the fact that we will miss information here and there. This is why adding information is still useful.
Scott Young, writes about The Art for Unlearning, and explains unlearning as adding knowledge to what is previously in our minds. Unlearning might matter more than adding knowledge because it is what keeps us “up to date” in any area of life in which we operate regularly. For example, we need to understand our work, the culture we exist in, the people we interact with, etc.
Unlearning can be seen as updating your software. Imagine yourself having to elaborate designs for the latest marketing campaigns while still using the first version of photoshop ever created. This would be really hard to deliver quality content without upgrading to a newer version that can serve the desires of the new market being targeted.
Or imagine being a dentist, using nineteenth-century technology to remove a molar; no anesthesia, only plucking it out.
Unlearning allows you to upgrade the tools in your skillset bundle. Unlearning is like updating ways to see, do, or think about things.
3 Actionable Steps to flip the Switch. 🏃🏻
Read. 📚 Find a topic or area you are interested in and start reading about it. This will start pulling up and modifying old knowledge.
Seek bold experiments 🧪 in your life. Try new ways of doing things at work, and in life. Even though this requires you to “get out of your comfort zone” it will allow you to see situations and ideas from a different point of view.
Revisit your skillsets❓ Identify where you have fallen behind in your skills. Research the latest findings on that skill, and start unlearning and relearning about it.
“I can feel that just by being here, reading this weekly newsletter, you are already on a great path to unlearn and relearn about education!”
Thanks for reading!
I enjoyed reading ALL your replies to my newsletter last week! I want to learn how last week’s MindSwitch Steps went for you. When you feel like sharing, hit the reply button, and let me know what’s on your mind. I respond to EVERY email I get.
Stay safe, stay healthy! 😷
P.S My family and I are going glamping (glamorous camping) ⛺ with 8 adults and 9 kids this weekend. I enjoy being in nature but with the city’s commodities. Any tips?
Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash