Dear Readers:
Effective September 1, 2011, this website has moved to www.schoolofunlearning.com. Please joined me there for my latest insights on unlearning.
As an incentive, here are some links to just a few of the "unlearning" essons that can be found in my new book, Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future:
Unlearning Lesson #1: Unlearn or Die
Unlearning Lesson #6: Study at an Anti-Library
Unlearning Lesson #14: The Grass isn't Greener on the Other Side
I am in Iowa to deliver a keynote presentation (entitled "Why Future Trends in Healthcare Will Require Unlearning") to the Iowa Healthcare Collaborative today.
After working on my presentation early this morning, I decided to go for a walk at sunrise. The photo to the right offers a view of what I saw.
As I stared at the pool of fog in the distance, it occurred to me that I was also standing in fog--I just couldn't see it clearly.
It then dawned on me that it is always easier to see when someone else is enveloped in a fog; it's far more difficult to comprehend that you are also in the thick of it.
One key to unlearning is to begin to appreciate--whether you realize it or not--that we are all in a fog.
The following poem was written by an unknown monk living in the 11th century. It's relevance to today is, however, undiminished.
When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.
It reminds me of this wonderful quote by an 8th century monk, Meister Eckhart, "Only the hand that erases can write the true thing."
(Note: Unlearning101.com will be transitioning to www.schoolofunlearning.com soon.)
(This wonderful story was taken from Garr Reynolds' excellent book, Presentation Zen. It is a story of simplicity.)
When Vijay opened his store he put up a sign that said “We Sell Fresh Fish Here.”
His father stopped by and said that the word “We” suggests an emphasis on the seller rather than the customer, and is really not needed. So the sign was changed to “Fresh Fish Sold Here.”
His brother came by and suggested that the word “here” could be done away with — it was superfluous. Vijay agreed and changed the sign to “Fresh Fish Sold.”
Next, his sister came along and said the sign should just say “Fresh Fish.” Clearly, it is being sold; what else could you be doing?
Later, his neighbor stopped by to congratulate him. Then he mentioned that all passers-by could easily tell that the fish was really fresh. Mentioning the word fresh actually made it sound defensive as though there was room for doubt about the freshness. Now the sign just read: “FISH.”
As Vijay was walking back to his shop after a break he noticed that one could identify the fish from its smell from very far, at a distance from which one could barely read the sign. He knew there was no need for the word “FISH.”
Related Posts
The first chapter of my new book, Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future, is entitled “Unlearn or Die.” To better appreciate why unlearning will be such a critical skill in the future, I’d like to share this paragraph from Josh Linkner’s outstanding article, Vu Deja: Tricking Yourself Into Looking At Problems With a Fresh Perspective:
The way you solved a customer issue or launched a product in the past may have worked great, but the world isn’t standing still. Quite the opposite–every night when we go to bed and wake up the next day, things have changed. Those who get stuck in the past and lean on the golden ways of a time gone by are playing Russian roulette with their future.
In other words, unlearn or die!
If you’d like some concrete examples of how to look at a problem from a fresh perspective, my new book (also available as an e-book) has plenty of examples along the lines of this old post: 5 Ways to Make the Familiar Strange.
"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him." Leo Tolstoy
(This quotation was brought to my attention by Futurist Simon Anderson and reminds me to two of my favorite unlearning strategies: Question the Wisdom of Experts and Replace "No Doubt" with the Phrase "to Know Doubt".
The following paragraph is from a review of Cathy Davidson's new book, Now You See It:
Ms. Davidson notes that our schoolmaster-led classrooms and grading customs look pretty much as they did not just in the last century but in the 19th century. She contrasts this with Duncan Germain's classroom at Voyager Academy, a charter school in North Carolina, where learning is made to resemble a collaborative game. Self-organized teams engage in a contest to build the best bridge out of Popsicle sticks. Along the way they learn for themselves not just principles of engineering but also strategies of management—just what they need to thrive in the new world of work. Students in such a setting, Ms. Davidson writes, "are mastering the lessons of learning, relearning, and unlearning that are perfectly suited to a world where change is the only constant."
If Ms. Davidson's name sounds familiar it is because I wrote about her in this post in 2009: Cathy Davidson on Unlearning.
My question to you, though, is this: Are you mastering the lessons of unlearning?
If not, you might want to start with my new book, Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future.
Want to get started unlearning? A while back, I suggested it could be done in seven words. It's still solid advice but I have continued to unlearn myself and how believe it can be done without any new words.
Rather than explain, let me show you. Review the two examples below and notice how much powerful the second questions are than the first--even though no new words have been added or subtracted only rearranged).
Example 1 (Appropriate for teachers, parents and educators):
How intelligent are you?
How are you intelligent?
Example 2 (Appropriate for everyone):
Will I make a difference?
I will make a difference!
Related Post
"Stocks eked out a slight gain as investors weighed earnings from some high-profile retailers against signs of rising input costs and continued dissatisfaction over efforts to find a solution to Europe's debt woes.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 4.28 points, or 0.04%, at 11410.21, after gaining 124 points early in the session."
So began this article ("Earners Help Dow Inch Higher") in today's newspaper describing yesterday's action on Wall Street.
Following on the heels of last week, in which the stock market crashed down more than 500 points in a single day only to soar back 400 the next--for seemingly no reason, does it really make sense to think that anyone has a logical explanation for why the stock market fluctuated a mere .04%? To put this in perspective last week's wild gyrations were 100 times larger!
As human beings we love to explain things and we love to think that everything has a rational cause-and-effect but, as numerous writers have eloquently explained in books such as Fooled by Randomness; The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and Markets and A Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives--randomness plays a far larger role in our lives than most of us care to admit.
One good way to begin acknowledging this randomness (and unlearning your need to explain away everything) is to simply respond to many questions by saying, "I don't know."
Put another way, a more honest lead into today's Wall Street Journal article (perhaps entitled "Dow Inches Higher for Unknowable Reasons") might have read, "The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 4.28 points, or 0.04%, at 11410.21, after gaining 124 points early in the session, as a result of millions of individuals, corporations and institutions making decisions for a variety of unknown reasons."
Not a fun or particularly enlightening read, but probably a little closer to the truth.
I once read a wonderful quote that went something to the affect of this: "The great scandal of education is that every time you teach a child something you deprive them of the opportunity to discover it for themselves."
According to this new fascinating study, school children can learn complex subjects on their own. More interesting still, three months after the students had taught themselves they had better recall of the information which they had taught themselves.
I'm not suggesting that teachers are irrelevant but I do believe a great many need to unlearn what they think they know about learning--and teaching.
For further proof that children can learn on their own, watch this insightful TED talk by Sugata Mitra on Child-driven education.
Related Posts by Jack Uldrich on unlearning and education:
Teach Unlearning in Kindergarten
10 Things Worthy of Teaching in Kindergarten
Please, Let's Stop Unlearning Creativity