It seems to me in all our blueprints for the New World of Work, and in our related blueprints for the New Happy Working People –or the attempts to outline in what way we could be new- one topic seems sadly underrepresented: How we all learn very differently.

I am not going to outline the different ways that are known, that is not my field of expertise, I am also not going to get lost in scientific studies, of which many exist, but I am going to give a personal view: How do I learn? And I am going to ask you, dear New Reader, to let me know if you recognise yourself. Or, does this sound completely alien? What is your own experience of how you learn? Do let me know, but now, let me begin.

Learning in School
Maybe I am a bit strange (I can see my good friends nodding), but already in school I found most ways in which we were asked to learn strange: I very often thought – even though I could not articulate it at the time – no, this cannot be how things are, because… . This was not me knowing better, I didn’t, but in my brain the thoughts and the connections appeared to sit differently, I could see connections in places that were not presented in the teaching, and some of the connections I wanted to question, query, have them explained in maybe a different way, so that I could see more relation to my way of thinking.

Unsurprisingly, this was only rarely acceptable, most of the time it did not endear me to my teachers nor fellow students.

When I entered the world of work (it was a while ago, this would have been the Old world of work), again so many ways of how things were described, explained and done did not relate at all to my ideas, thinking and intuitions about the world, it was a cause for concern. It also meant that I had to pretty much acquire all I know by myself and through my own methods, as the standard methods on offer did not cater for my needs.

It took me a few years, a considerable amount of reading and research and some conversations with people knowledgeable about different learning styles to understand. We know now much better that the standard methods of learning on offer in schools and universities and beyond do not cater for everybody’s learning and thinking needs, I was and am by no means the only one.

How do I Learn? – How do I think?
Let’s cut to the chase: How do I learn? First: How do I think? (ALERT! Personal Disclosure!):

I do not, and cannot, think from detail to concept, bottom up as it were. This does not work at all for me. I always think from concept to detail, that is, top down. If there is no concept to give context to detail, my brain (or wherever thinking happens) does not know what to do with it. There is no tree to which I can attach the baubels, so I simply drop them, fail to retain them. If, on the other hand, there is a tree of context and concept, all I need to do is clarify (i.e. ascertain by asking) where exactly this piece of information belongs and how it relates to other baubles already placed and then I can integrate and handle it.

I also need to feed my brain with a high volume of information at any one time so that patterns become visible, that a Gestalt appears. If there is not enough information on the input and I can see no pattern, nothing can be learnt, I may see colourful baubles but no indication as to their relationships to each other and to the rest of the world, and therefore can see no information what to do with them. Nothing can be learnt.

(To be continued)