Learn to Learn

Ever had that one teacher that could make what ever you were learning exciting and easy? Or the one teacher that brought experiments to life in-front of the class.  Well I had one in high school, for the sake of this blog he was named Mr. L.

Mr. L was my Math teacher and could teach math to anyone. He could teach it to the point that your dogs dog could even understand. But the most important aspect of Mr. L's lesson plans were that he promoted a growth mindset. Mr. L made it more apparent to me than anyone that in order to truly learn this growth mindset needs to be adopted. 

The growth mindset is where the title of this blog comes from. "Learn to Learn," to me that's what the growth mindset is all about. The growth mindset means that you ask the question why, challenge yourself and try new things. By doing these 3 things you are not only growing your brain to even a bigger brain but you are doing what I like to call deep learning. 

Learning to learn, deep learning or growth mindset's - whatever you want to call it - are what these rare teachers are trying to show us. You don't have to memorize to be good at anything, it's all about the set up to what you are trying to do.

Let's use mathematics as an example; perfect because I love math. If I hadn't used a growth mindset while learning math I don't think I would love it as much as I do. To learn math to a good understanding you need this growth mindset.

A "try new things" outlook is important because you can see how your new found knowledge works in different light. Maybe even stray away from the textbook and start making up your own questions to answer. Just try new things, see what this math can actually do, this will help you understand it better. Maybe even just start learning an entirely new math are because it looks cool. What ever it is, it doesn't hurt to try new things.

The "challenge yourself" viewpoint falls neatly into the one above. By challenging yourself it insures that you actually understand what you are doing. If you are incapable of doing slightly more challenging problems I would look at paragraph under this one. But by challenging yourself you constantly grow your brain by thinking harder and harder which in-turn creates deeper connections in the brain...

Now the biggest one. The question why. The question why is one of the most important things you ask in your life. I'm only going to look at the math application. The way math is taught in school is almost the same as Russian nesting dolls. The fundamentals (like basic addition) are on the small doll on the inside and the next level encompasses that and then the next one encompass that..etc. and maybe the universe encompasses that.

In math if you don't understand something ask why. This strips off the Russian doll you are on and reveals the one underneath it. If you still don't get it, just keep asking why. Before you know it you might be back relearning basic addition because you memorized it when you were a kid.

But that's okay because by asking why you already proved you have a growth mindset. Now you just have to use your "try new things" and "challenge yourself" views to tackle the problem and build back up from there. 

There is honestly so much more I can say about the growth mindset but I'm afraid I must stop here. This is definitely a topic I will bring up again one day and revisit with a deeper thinking. Just whatever it is in life you are doing always ask why, always challenge yourself and don't be afraid to try new things. 

But hey, if you don't understand something just think about this quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson:

"The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you"

Cheers.