Is Learning Intrinsically Volatile?

Michael Gray

Most of us have had hundreds of gallons of facts poured into our heads and have at best a trickle of recall. What has happened to all that information? It can’t have just evaporated—or can it? Mark Twain said, “If teaching were the same as telling, we’d all be so smart we could hardly stand it.”

Is education merely a rite of passage to keep children and adolescents occupied, or is it the actual basis for adult accomplishment? In the “Shoe” comic, Skyler bemoans his horrific educational losses. If he keeps forgetting stuff at this rate, what will he be left with? His uncle Cosmo (aka The Perfesser) wryly tells him, “an education.”

Adults say that education is important, but their personal experiences have generally been less than satisfying. Thousands of hours in the classroom, thousands of dollars spent on books to discover an area of personal interest, or at least personal ability. The standard batch processing model is certainly not a model of efficiency.

As a veteran professor of nearly 45 years, I believe there is a more excellent way. It starts with respecting the way the brain learns. Brains are sophisticated in recognizing patterns and interconnections but quite limited as information storage devices. Information needs a justification. Students legitimately ask (or at least wonder) why they need to know “this.” A robust learning environment is a step ahead because information enters only as needed to answer essential questions. This does not mean that anything is “dumbed down.” Rather, the learning environment is not cluttered with irrelevant facts and vocabulary. This carefulness enables students to engage deeply with powerful ideas in quest of understanding. It enables learners to make connections among ideas to enable problem-solving and prediction. Powerful ideas are not just retained— their potency creates a drive to learn more!

I am thrilled to announce https://deepanddurablelearning.com

The theme is: Igniting a passion and providing a path for deep and durable learning.

Deep and Durable Learning is the home for resources that empower and encourage learners to explore deep learning for themselves. A biweekly podcast and complementary blog are the featured resources, and they are a uniquely practical and accessible blend of philosophy, concept-building, analogies, and reflections on the nature and practice of deep learning.

You can download my podcast in Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The podcast is audio only, but it can be found along with a few video resources on my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8DnmlI_5kY0LkZ40B3AC1Q/featured