🪴Sprout 😁Strongly-Agree 🟢Conviction
Importance: 90%
The Big Idea
Humans were not created to just have information or content dumped into our brains as if we were a machine that runs on some kind of fossil fuel. Rather, thinking and learning is a continual process that needs to be encouraged and shepherded across the full life span of an individual.
- There is no age that is too old to learn.
- There is no learner who has finished learning.
Slow thinking is especially needed in a world that is increasingly obsessed with the artificial synthesis of information by AI. While that may be useful in particular domains, it should not be a replacement for the hard mental work of thinking for ones self and applying ones beliefs to all of life.
- A particular area slow thinking can be seen to be important is with The Preservation of Tail Knowledge. Just because a piece of information is statistically significant does not mean that it is the most important or true way to think or be.
Our thinking is shaped by the way we live. This can be seen in the idea of the Pedagogy of Space. That is, the way our world is physically structured around us teaches and promotes particular ways of life. Not only this, but learning happens over time through repetition, practice and Failure Based Learning.
All of these various ways we learn are most effective when in a Pedagogical Feedback Loop. But these loops are often hijacked today by things like the push to be busy and productive always needing an “end result.” Or through the media and social media we consume, or create, always looking for the fast pay off rather than the slow build.
I have a lot of other thoughts about thinking and learning that I have been dumping into this note: My Thoughts on Learning