The Only Skills That Matters

The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner (Jonathan A. Levi)

- Your Highlight on Location 306-308 | Added on Wednesday, October 14, 2020 8:11:44 AM

You see, the types of information that gave our Paleolithic ancestors a survival advantage didn’t come from textbooks or Bible verses. It was olfactory, gustatory, and visual information—in other words, smell, taste, and sight. Allow me to explain: smell and taste, which are

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The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner (Jonathan A. Levi)

- Your Highlight on Location 308-310 | Added on Wednesday, October 14, 2020 8:12:24 AM

connected senses in the brain, were among the first to develop. In fact, they predate even the mammalian brain and are hardwired into the much older, deeper, reptilian brain.

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The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner (Jonathan A. Levi)

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If you think about it, this makes perfect sense. If you’re a dinosaur roaming Pangaea two hundred million years ago, you’d best remember what rancid meat or poisonous plants smell and taste like. If you don’t, it’s only a matter of time until repeatedly gorging on them kills you. Plus, chances are, that’s going to happen before you have the opportunity to mate. You know what that means: your anosmic (unable to smell) genes aren’t getting passed

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The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner (Jonathan A. Levi)

- Your Highlight on Location 317-317 | Added on Wednesday, October 14, 2020 8:13:00 AM

Behind smell and taste, the next most survival-inducing sense is, of course, sight.

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The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner (Jonathan A. Levi)

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The point is, after hundreds of millions of years of cruel evolution, you, me, and most of our mammalian friends are left with brains that are really good at remembering smells, tastes, and sights. As Homo sapiens, we’re especially adapted to learning in ways that are vivid, visual, and experiential. Scientists refer to this as “the picture superiority effect.” And though many of you have been led to believe that you’re an “auditory” or “tactile” learner, the truth is, we are each naturally gifted at remembering pictures. What we’re not so naturally gifted at is learning from boring lectures or dense textbooks. Heck, we only invented writing systems some five thousand years ago, and the average person couldn’t read until a few hundred years ago. Evolution is an all-powerful mistress, but she’s not a fast-moving one.

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The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner (Jonathan A. Levi)

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Dr. Malcolm Knowles. Educated at Harvard and Chicago University, Knowles began his career at the National Youth Administration and later became the director of adult education at the Boston YMCA.

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The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner (Jonathan A. Levi)

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There, he authored over 230 articles and eighteen books, nearly all of them on what he called andragogy: the science of adult learning.

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The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner (Jonathan A. Levi)

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FOUNDATION First and foremost, Knowles understood that as adult learners, we have a lot more life experience than children do. Not only do we have a larger body of knowledge to draw from; we’ve been around the block a few times, made our fair share of mistakes, and had our fair share of wins. For this reason, as adult learners, we come into the learning environment with some strongly held beliefs about the way things work. To the untrained learner, this prior experience and knowledge can be both an asset and a liability. On the one hand, it is easier for us to understand the world around us—and, as you’ll see later on, to create powerful connections

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The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner (Jonathan A. Levi)

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between our memories. On the other hand, holding on to our beliefs makes us less open to new information—even when it’s correct. What does this mean for us as adult learners? Put simply, it means that we should actively leverage our prior knowledge and experience when learning. We must compare and contrast the things that we’re learning to the information that we already know. How is it different? How is it the same? How can the information and experience we already have contribute to our understanding of this new and exciting topic? Far too often, we approach a “new” subject as if it’s completely foreign, when in fact, the whole of human knowledge is connected in some way. By making this powerful mindset shift alone, you will almost instantly become a more effective learner.