Some years ago, I was teaching at a graduate school of business and became intrigued by this problem: How do we learn? How do we know how to know? We obviously can learn and know, but how? My background in systems design led me to focus not just on analyzing the problem but on building solutions.
This was my analysis: Just as surely as we are born knowing how to eat, move, breathe, and communicate, we are also born with multiple, sophisticated, learning skills.
Philosophers call these mysterious, evolutionary gifts Agencies. Pediatricians call them Reflexes. Noam Chomsky calls them Faculties. Freud called them Unlearnt Urges. I call them the Eleven Hybrid Skills. They are – Questioning, Game Playing, Storytelling, Pattern Recognition, Imitation, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Problem Solving, Communications, Ideation, and Multiple Intelligences. Together, they enable anyone to instinctively refine raw data into their authentic, new, and truthful knowledge, their Ideations, their Justified Beliefs. And in so doing, adapt to circumstances. They are our hardwired survival skills.
We know people under thirty will be the first generation to inherit multiple existential problems, none of which they caused, but to which they must adapt. They include climate change, pollution, biological viruses, geopolitical instability, data velocity, and especially the dangerous trifecta of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and social media that is spreading non-biological viruses, which evidence suggests will stunt our children’s intellectual growth and humanity’s cultural development.
Because of their inherent Hybrid Skills, children need help; but not as much as you might think. They need less didactic instruction and more encouragement and stimulation to polish their existing hybrid skills.
A good way to think of teaching and learning is to imagine us as Curling Stones launched by our parents across a sheet of ice. The adults we encounter should be like the sweepers, smoothing their passage with brooms and guiding us on our journey. We know how to know. Those who are responsible for teaching, training, coaching, should just let us and help us.
My solution? Find out by downloading my FREE Terego Ideation Method™
Download my FREE Terego Ideation Method™ Workbook
Thanks for reading.
Alex
