As a child, I was able to simply read through things (history books, forum discussions about motors and cars, wiki.c2.com...) barely understanding them - but half way words would begin making sense. I could then reread the same things with understanding and keep reading through until bored - which seemingly implied understanding. Nowadays, I need comprehensible input the whole time, hooks to actually understand what'…
It’s almost certainly dependent on age. I see the same youthful development in my own children that I no longer have.
As a child, I was able to simply read through things (history books, forum discussions about motors and cars, wiki.c2.com...) barely understanding them - but half way words would begin making sense. I could then reread the same things with understanding and keep reading through until bored - which seemingly implied understanding. Nowadays, I need comprehensible input the whole time, hooks to actually understand what'…
I feel the same. I think it's mostly "impatience" or the fear of losing time. We get older and busier and the "price" we pay to spend hours on a book gets more and more expensive.
Learning is an investment, and as my salary increases and life gets more comfortable, my brain doesn't feel the urge to learn and prefers leisure.
I'm looking for ways to "hack" my brain and get back into the habit of learning in my free time and wanting to figure things out. When I have kids I hope they will be curious and I'll learn with them.
> I learned more things from entertainment than any textbook or classroom ever taught me. It sounds like you should have probably paid more attention to your books, and in the classroom. If you can't get much value out of subject matter experts condensing the salient points of a topic into a book, with accompanying exercises that require you to master those points to solve... It probably means you didn't do the exerc…
No, I'm serious when I say that formal education taught me nowhere near what the rest of life did. Oregon Trail taught me more about American history than textbooks ever did, likewise Age of Empires II than textbooks ever did concerning medieval history. One of those Carmen Sandiego games did a better job teaching me English than any textbooks or classes ever did. And god damn RPG Maker (read: computer programming) t…
> Looking back, the core lesson I took away is that you need to find the subject matter fun or meaningful to be able to learn it. No amount of "effort" is going to help if you simply don't, or worse can't, give a damn about the subject matter or the way it's presented.
While there are plenty of folks for whom this is true (myself included at times), it’s not a universal experience. I am good friends with folks who find joy in learning no matter how it is presented.
> I learned more things from entertainment than any textbook or classroom ever taught me. It sounds like you should have probably paid more attention to your books, and in the classroom. If you can't get much value out of subject matter experts condensing the salient points of a topic into a book, with accompanying exercises that require you to master those points to solve... It probably means you didn't do the exerc…
No, I'm serious when I say that formal education taught me nowhere near what the rest of life did. Oregon Trail taught me more about American history than textbooks ever did, likewise Age of Empires II than textbooks ever did concerning medieval history. One of those Carmen Sandiego games did a better job teaching me English than any textbooks or classes ever did. And god damn RPG Maker (read: computer programming) t…
Just curious, but once those games trigger curiosities you could still fall back into books and papers which are more in depth.
I feel there are two kinds of academic(or anything technical) knowledge in the world: One is of sugar, tastes sweet but does not provide much depth -- most youtube videos, blog posts and HN belong to this catalog. The other is of full course which provides in depth knowledge, and one needs not only to read but to try and practice based on them -- books, papers and some videos/blogs belong to this catalog.
Business knowledge is hard to apply in the field as they require authority, buy in, and can be very consequential. And the other items outlined in the article (like lecturing on something you haven’t tried) appear to be just vehicles to spread misinformation.
As a child, I was able to simply read through things (history books, forum discussions about motors and cars, wiki.c2.com...) barely understanding them - but half way words would begin making sense. I could then reread the same things with understanding and keep reading through until bored - which seemingly implied understanding. Nowadays, I need comprehensible input the whole time, hooks to actually understand what'…
According to Krashen, effort is not needed for comprehensible input to be effective. Rather, it is more likely that you are simply not consuming enough comprehensible input
As a child, I was able to simply read through things (history books, forum discussions about motors and cars, wiki.c2.com...) barely understanding them - but half way words would begin making sense. I could then reread the same things with understanding and keep reading through until bored - which seemingly implied understanding. Nowadays, I need comprehensible input the whole time, hooks to actually understand what'…
I'm definitely in this camp except for one area - PBS Space Time[0].
I have _NO CLUE_ about 80% of the topics on the more complex subjects. Especially when he's explaining the equations. I rewatch the videos sometimes 4-5 times and still learn things that my mind glossed over. Lots of "ah ha!" moments. Love this channel.
As a child, I was able to simply read through things (history books, forum discussions about motors and cars, wiki.c2.com...) barely understanding them - but half way words would begin making sense. I could then reread the same things with understanding and keep reading through until bored - which seemingly implied understanding. Nowadays, I need comprehensible input the whole time, hooks to actually understand what'…
It’s almost certainly dependent on age. I see the same youthful development in my own children that I no longer have.
I believe it's just learned impatience/discomfort. I have over half a century, and yet can still approach things with the attitude of "it's all greek to me" — meaning that a bunch of funny characters may initially make me feel like I'm back in kindergarten, but I can remain confident that it will all become comprehensible after I have learned* what each splodge signifies and in what ways they are combined together.
> μὴ εἶναι βασιλικὴν ἀτραπὸν ἐπί γεωμετρίαν — E
* of course, a major part of this learning process involves doing the exercises, and if no one has been nice enough to set any exercises, then one simply has to provide one's own by playing around with other combinations of splodges to see if anything interesting results. cf http://www.willamette.edu/~fruehr/haskell/evolution.html
As a child, I was able to simply read through things (history books, forum discussions about motors and cars, wiki.c2.com...) barely understanding them - but half way words would begin making sense. I could then reread the same things with understanding and keep reading through until bored - which seemingly implied understanding. Nowadays, I need comprehensible input the whole time, hooks to actually understand what'…
I feel the same. I think it's mostly "impatience" or the fear of losing time. We get older and busier and the "price" we pay to spend hours on a book gets more and more expensive. Learning is an investment, and as my salary increases and life gets more comfortable, my brain doesn't feel the urge to learn and prefers leisure. I'm looking for ways to "hack" my brain and get back into the habit of learning in my free ti…
That's super annoying, because while I procrastinate on reading papers or even articles on the things I want to learn (as in, I feel - at least occasionally - motivated and positive about learning), works of fiction, like novels or short stories, can instantly suck me in for days. Somehow, when it comes to fiction, the beancounter in my head just packs up and goes on a leave.