The Perfect Hypothesis

Previously I talked about learning and how it can be perceived in different ways. Someone replied with a pretty good video discussing the topic further which can be viewed here. I highly recommend giving it a look!

I would like to dwell on this a little further before moving on by sharing an experience I once had with someone who did not share my views. When I proclaimed that I was capable of learning anything, the response I got was predictable. What followed afterwards bewildered me even to this day and seems like a good foundation for a debate.

Providing you have read my previous posts, it is not news to learn that I personally believe I have the capability to learn anything. Furthermore I believe that this ability extends to everyone. The most predictable response I get from people who do not share this belief is something similar to

"That's very arrogant of you"

This is a perfectly acceptable statement to make and certainly has a degree of truth to it. I have not tried to learn everything, therefore how could I possibly know that I am capable of such a task? It's fair to say I will never know if I am capable of learning everything, unless I happen to come across something that I cannot learn for one reason or another. Which when you look at it that way, means I am more likely to discover an inability to learn than I am to prove my ability to learn. I'm basing my opinions on what I know about myself and how I perceive the world and the people around me, similar to what other people do when they tell me I am arrogant.

What stumped me however was that one such person, only minutes after proclaiming that (and I quote) it was "ridiculous" to think in such ways, then proclaimed themselves that they aim for perfection in everything they do.

This sparked a thought in my head, which I would like your opinions on. To me at least the claims:

"I can learn anything"
and
"I can become perfect at something"

are very much two sides of the same coin. Both are rather extreme statements to make, neither one of which could ever be proven. What confused me further was that the person telling me that my opinion was "ridiculous" did not see the relationship between what I had said and what they had just said. To strive for perfection at something was somehow more justifiable than to learn as much as possible.

This is where I would like your thoughts and opinions. My brain cannot comprehend perfection and if anything I see it as a perspective. Trying to achieve perfection requires your action to be flawless and for the people around you to see it this way. Can you ever satisfy everyone's opinion with your actions? Is perfection attainable in any sense of the word?

Learning more about learning - Part 2: Childs play

Carrying on from the theme of learning, I'm now going to try and take you back to your years as a child. How many of you remember how you learnt to count? Or add? Or subtract? At what stage did the word "Three" become more than just a word. We all take for granted that three is a representation of a value/number/quantity that can be changed by adding, subtracting or dividing another number/value/quantity, but how do you teach it to someone? It's so basic to you and me as adults and is used almost every day by all of us when counting our change, paying for a loaf of bread or even counting down the days to christmas, that you forget how difficult it can be for someone to grasp the concept at all.

I'm going to be sneaky here and steal the ideas of a guy I used to work with. As far as I'm concerned everything this man said was pure genius, whether it be advice for general life, how to help teach kids or even if he was using his wit to mock you in some way. I will show you exactly what I mean by using one of his methods to place you in the shoes of a child who is struggling to learn addition and subtraction.

You are all familiar with  the numbers 1-10 (I hope). But then again, teaching a child a bunch of numbers is easy. My nephew isn't even 2 years old yet and he's counting "1,2,3,4,6,". Granted there's a bit of work to be done there, but come on! He's barely two! This isn't where kids struggle. They struggle in making those words represent values that can be changed.

What's 4+6?

Chances are you jumped straight to the number 10. Why wouldn't you? It's basic maths.
A kid will most likely start at 4 and then either out loud or using their fingers start counting upwards: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9...10!
"This is easy!" you cry. "You should be doing these things in your head!"
Where you have over the years learnt more than you realise about numbers, pairs of numbers, groups of numbers and so on; a child has been given a list of words and been told to add them together to make another word...that is seemingly obvious.

Here is the activity I am going to get you to do:

From this moment, numbers are a thing of the past. You're far too familiar with them and any question I ask you will get in a matter of seconds. Instead I'm going to use words...

The first word represents the number 1
the second word represent the number 2
and so forth

Here are our word numbers:

Mary - had - a - little - lamb - its - fleece - was - white - as





What's Had + Fleece?
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Did you work it out in your head? Or did you start at Mary and count 1, 2, 3, 4... until you reached 'Fleece'
Come on this is easy! You should be doing this in your head!!

I suppose the answer you came up with was nine right? If it was; slap yourself right now for failing to add two single digit numbers together. You want the answer? The answer is "White". Take away the links that we are all so familiar with and we struggle to do even basic arithmetic. Now imagine the words weren't even on this page and someone had told you them. "Don't use your fingers" they say. Now you have to run through mary had a little lamb in your head each time you want to figure it out making the process even slower! Consider this the next time you ask your children "What's 4 + 6" and they stand there for an age trying to work it out. You've just been reminded why they take so long.

We expect kids to pick up maths so quickly because we have developed links in our heads between numbers. We have seen visual representations. If I placed 3 dots on the floor I could arrange them in any way I wanted, but they will always be three. If I placed another 2 dots, I can see that there are 5, no matter how I arrange them. Everyone recognises the patterns on a dice. Nobody ever counts the number of dots on a dice to find out what they rolled...

It's these links that make it so easy for us as adults to manipulate numbers and we make up our own ones in our head as we grow up. For me 40 / 5 is easy. I can jump to the answer straight away. 36 / 6 another one. All these links that have "short-cuts" to the answer mean I don't have to work it out. Children who have yet to develop these links would struggle.

If you want to put yourself to the test I've left some maths problems for you below. Don't scroll up. Just use your head.



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1) Little + Had
2) Its + A
3) White - Little
4) Was - Its
5) Snow - Fleece

Remember to answer with the appropriate "word" not a number ;)

Learning more about learning

I love learning. I can say that with absolutely no doubt in my mind. If I could live forever I would try and learn everything. Maths, Physics, Biology, Drawing, Painting, Cooking, Archery, Synchronised Swimming, you name it. I have never come across something and thought "Learning more about that seems like a really bad idea...". It just doesn't happen.

The focal point of this post however is my beliefs and opinions on learning itself. Not everybody agrees with my views and I'll leave it to you to decide and possibly debate (if you wish to leave a comment) whether you agree with these views or not.


"A healthy brain can learn anything."


Woooaaaaahhhh! Say what? A "healthy brain"? What the hell does that mean!?
By 'Healthy' I mean does not suffer from a disorder or disability. I'm not saying people with disability's can't learn whatever they want, but at least for the purposes of this post "disability" covers a whole lot of unknowns that I can't account for.

The general crux of this idea stems from the fact that there are no logical or physical reasons why a healthy brain cannot learn something. On the face of it, that can sound like a pretty bold thing to say but ultimately it all boils down to perspective. If I phrased it differently and said "Given adequate time, anyone can learn anything". Suddenly the idea of learning changes...
What would happen if I tried to teach A level maths to a child just starting primary school? Would this person be able to learn what I am trying to teach them? Any normal person would say "No, they do not yet have a good enough foundation of mathematical knowledge to understand or learn that level of maths". Of course they would be right...But I didn't ask if they could learn it in time for next weeks SATS, or even in time for their A level exam. So many people feel that learning has a time limit attached to it and that if they do not understand it by a certain day, then they have crossed a line and there is no going back. They will never be able to understand it.

When someone claims that they "don't get it" or "don't understand" this can sometimes trigger something to snap inside that persons head. Suddenly "I don't understand" becomes "I never will understand".

We've all felt it. Even me and I'm the one who is claiming that I should be able to learn anything! So what changed? Why is it that nowadays when I come across something I don't understand I merely think "oh well, I'll try again tomorrow". For me personally it was coming out of education. Once I could learn the things I wanted to learn in my own time, the whole process became embarrassingly easy. Better still, my time at university made me aware of how I learn best.

Things aren't as simple as feeding information into our brains and hoping it sinks in. Everybody is different and everybody learns things differently. It's not just a case of 'having more time to learn something'. This only works if you spend that time trying different approaches to trying to understand the thing you are learning. Read a book, do some exercises from it. Didn't work? Try youtube and see if there are any visual representations. Not helping? Try iTunes U (in fact just try it out anyway, it's brilliant) and see if an audio approach helps. Get a friend to explain. Get a friend to study with you.

People often think that once they have tried to learn something and failed then that is it. What people tend to forget is that the same things can be taught in hundreds of ways. The key is finding the one that is right for you. Even if it takes you 10 years, you've still learnt it...
Sound extreme?
What if I said I was learning the violin. Suddenly that seems acceptable...but why? It's no different to anything else. Foundation, fundamentals, technicalities and then practice practice practice until you are happy you have "learnt" it. After all there is a difference between practising until you get it right and practising until you don't get it wrong.

I still proclaim to this day that I can learn anything and have yet to come across anything that has proved me wrong. Believing you can learn anything is the first step of actually being able to do it.

Don't you think?

Introduction

Welcome to my new blog! Unlike my previous blog which was used to keep people up to date with some of my work, this blog will most likely be updated daily with general thoughts and ramblings that build up in that glorious head of mine. More specifically, ramblings about psychology; which happens to be one of my many fascinations. I will tell you about events that have shaped my life, explain how people are fooled by what's right in front of them, debate religion and the supernatural, bring to light just how vulnerable and unreliable your memories are, plus many more things you probably didn't know about yourself.

Interested? Maybe a little sceptical? It's possible some people reading this blog have never met me and yet I claim I can tell them things about themselves that they didn't know. Is that possible? Well if you want to find out I guess you'll have to keep reading ;)

Unfortunately I don't have time to write any more on this introductory post, but suffice to say I will tell you more about myself and the reasons why I made this blog in the first place as time goes on. Even the people that have known me for years may find out a little bit more about me! Check back for regular updates.