How to Learn Anything

Tweet

Dale J. Stephens is an American entrepreneur, speaker, and author of Hacking Your Education, best known as one of the original 24 recipients of the Thiel Fellowship. He is also the founder of UnCollege, which is a social movement that aims to change the notion that going to college is the only path to success

I’ve been hiding away working on Hacking Your Education. It isn’t going to write itself, and I have to focus all of my energy on getting my edits back to Penguin before July.

Last weekend I was in Porto, Portugal, where I spoke at EDEN—the European Distance and E-Learning Network. I caused quite a stir at EDEN, which is exactly what I wanted to do. In countries like the United States, it can be a controversial topic to discuss alternatives to the traditional systems. But in the United States, we have homeschooling, we have unschooling, and many alternative schools—from Montessori schools to self-directed colleges like Goddard. However, in European countries such as Germany, Sweden, and Spain, homeschooling is illegal. It is much more crass to talk about education reform in many parts of Europe than in the US.

27 Non-School Skills Children Need

Tweet

Leo Babauta is the creator of zenhabits. He is a writer of numerous books, is a vegan and an unschooling dad.

Everyone knows that our school system, in general, is not giving our kids the basic reading, writing, ‘rithmatic and science skills needed to be competitive in the high-tech workforce of the upcoming generation (at least, that’s the general assumption, and we won’t argue it here).

But there’s much more to life than those basic subjects, and unless you have an exceptional teacher who is willing to break out of the mold, your child isn’t learning the crucial things he or she needs to learn in life.

Why Textbooks Suck

Tweet

Roger Schank is an American artificial intelligence theorist, cognitive psychologist, learning scientist, educational reformer, and entrepreneur. He has worked at faculty positions at Stanford University and Yale University. He is the author of, Coloring Outside the Lines, and his website is here.

I take as my starting point LIFE: The Science of Biology, since it is certainly the best textbook ever written.

LIFE has chapters that start with a question. This is very good. Here are some examples subchapter headings:

1.1 What is Biology?
1.2 How do biologists investigate life?
2.2 How do atoms bond to form molecules?
3.2 What are the chemical structures and functions of proteins?

Real Education Is Human

Tweet

A beautiful account by Dr. Kirsten Olson. She is author of the book, Wounded by School. Visit Kirsten Olson at her website.

At an extraordinary and unusual school I visited recently, I observed a seven-year-old girl come before the school’s judicial council. The day before she had violated a cardinal rule of the school.  She had failed to look after her own safety.  She and four of her friends had ventured to a pond dock on the school grounds, where they saw a water snake.  Intrigued, they wanted to catch it. 

Using a Tupperware container, string, and some duct tape, they made a trap and dipped it into the water.  The little girl, her heavy backpack still on her back, leaned too far out over the dock and fell into the water.  Some of the older, high school boys saw her fall in, rushed to the pond, and pulled her out. The water was only waist-deep and slow moving, but in the life of the school, where children are allowed full freedom to roam the school grounds as long as they look out for their safety, no kid had ever fallen into the pond before.  The adults at the school, understandably, were beside themselves.

Why Play=Learning

Tweet

In sum: Play = Learning. As children move from the sandbox to the boardroom, play should be the cornerstone of their education. The research is clear: Playful pedagogy supports social-emotional and academic strengths while instilling a love of learning.

By Roberta M. Golinkoff, PhD & Kathy Hirsh-Paske, PhD. They are the authors of 12 books. You can read the original article with references on Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development.

"Our children from their earliest years must take part in all the more lawful forms of play, for if they are not surrounded with such an atmosphere they can never grow up to be well conducted and virtuous citizens."
--Plato, The Republic   

The study of play has a long history. From Plato to Kant, from Froebel to Piaget, philosophers, historians, biologists, psychologists, and educators have studied this ubiquitous behavior to understand how and why we play. Even animals play. This fact alone leads researchers like Robert Fagan, a leader in the study of animal play, to speculate that play must have some adaptive value given the sheer perilousness and energy cost to growing individuals. Researchers suggest that play is a central ingredient in learning, allowing children to imitate adult behaviors, practice motor skills, process emotional events, and learn much about their world. One thing play is not, is frivolous. Recent research confirms what Piaget always knew, that “play is the work of childhood.” Both free play and guided play are essential for the development of academic skills.