My Road towards Enlightenment

How I learned to learn

How do we master knowledge? I don’t think that the same recipe holds true for everyone. Everybody probably has a personal story of one’s own knowledge enlightenment. We evolve, we proceed, sometimes we fail on the way, but usually that makes us better.

Every modern educational system is segmented in one or the other way. The system I grew up with had four main segments (and still has to most extent): kindergarten, elementary school, secondary school and university. I guess for many students the change from one of these institutions to the next is most stressful. It’s like moving to a new town, only that everybody is new. Frequently, this is also connected to a literal relocation — boom, then you got the full package. The reason for feeling uncomfortable are that every institution has its own rules. Everybody, teachers and parents, expects a fast adaption. The way, information is presented and to be learned, changes. And with it, the expected performance.

Kindergarten

My time in kindergarten was way before any tries to establish institutional learning there. All I can remember are lots of time to play. My first real highlight was my discovery of Lego — for me one of the most important educational developments of the previous century. Early on I was a very mechanical and visual learner (though, of course, I did not know that at this point). Also, I always played with everything: dolls, miniature cars, in nature and at home.

Elementary School

Okay, changing from the kindergarten to elementary school did not leave an as big impression on me, as did the other transitions. For the most part it was just a major increase in self responsibility. I could walk to and from school on my own, I liked these walks a lot, since there was always something new to discover. In school, I was good in math from the very beginning. Well, frankly it was not real math but calculating, mainly multiplication tables. So I was good in understanding basic recipes for repetitive content.

Talking of raised self responsibility: I also remember elementary school as the first time attending lessons, which I was utterly uninterested in. Funnily, I consider this as an important lesson learned on its own. From the social perspective, this time represents the first occasions, when you independently find new friends (still very much parental-supported though).

Summarizing, this period has been dominated by simply growing up than a deep educational experience.

Towards the end of my time at elementary school, everybody got really nervous — teachers, parents, and pupils. What happened was that the final grades in elementary school decided the fate in which type of school you were allowed to go afterwards. This, at the age of ten, paves much of the way of your career, giving much power in the hands of the elementary teacher. I was good enough (or enough liked) to make it through. The psychological pressure resting mainly on the parents is of course partly passed on to their children. So for the first time I observed that not performance alone is important, but politics.

Secondary School

Everything was new in secondary school. All new people, and there was a different teacher for every subject! Having started my education playfully in kindergarten the presentation was now solely data-based. Information was presented according to a fixed method and, of course, difficulty was raised. I was bored from the very beginning. There was no place for a motivational approach or competing perspectives.

At that time, I did enough at school to get good grades — and that was not much. In this system, ambition is seen as a threat (see The Ambition Problem) and I had not realized yet that my own future was at stake. Learning was essentially repeating and memorizing data. I never thought I was any good at this, but from my CV I can deduce I was good enough for the various occasions.

Why are we still doing this? I don’t know, but I cannot imagine that’s fun for teachers either.

I think one main reason for this thinking, roots in the believe that learning happens more or less linear. That means: if you double the time or effort you double the learned content. But this is not true at all — learning is amongst the most non-linear things in the world. If you do not understand a topic, explaining it to you 10 times in the same way usually will not change that.

To be honest: the experience during class got better during my years at the “Gymnasium”. Later on, one could choose subjects one was interested in. I chose physics and computer engineering, and especially in physics we build cool stuff in a small group (yes, even then the physics guys were a minority). I still remember every experiment and machine we built, which proves to me now that I memorize things best when I have to creatively design, build something or solve a problem independently. A lesson I had to learn the hard way…

Towards the end of my time at secondary school, everybody was discussing what to do later on. Everything has been simple for me so far, so I wanted something challenging. I had read two books, when I was around 17, which really impressed me: “Fermat’s Last Theorem” from Simon Singh and “Black Holes and Time Warps” by Kip S. Thorne.

The former tells the story of a mathematical problem which remained unresolved for 300 years, and I thought: Wow, there are hard problems in math, that sounds rewarding (and so much not like the math in school). The book from Kip S. Thorne on the other hand, described the concepts of curved space-time in a simple language. I thought: the description is beautiful, but you can smell the underlying hardcore science. So, not knowing what to prefer I decided to try both, physics and math, and see what happens.

University

At school, I mostly read to learn. It seemed quite natural to do so, since books appeared to be the integral part in education. So I read, but I hardly understood, as it turned out. I guess, coming from any school to math and physics at university is quite a challenge. For me, these times were the hardest ~18 months of my life when it comes to learning. In these first three terms, I was a very bad student and did not really understand anything.

The information was simply to much and I had no method to cope with it.

I, who had come with mainly A-Bs from school, was getting Ds and I had to even fight for that like never before. I was attending the courses, reading the material, doing the exercises. When this did not help, I started highlighting stuff in the books, but this only rendered my books unsalable, without helping me a bit. I was asking myself: What am I doing wrong? Do I have overdone it and should quit one study or quit altogether? I did not want to give up, also, since for the first time it seemed risky to move on and thus far more rewarding if I’m gonna make it. Finally, I was the only one who could help me.

Due to my choice making two independent majors, I did not really have time to really reflect about how to improve my learning technique in the first months. This is, when I found out for real, how to prioritize learning: How can I use a given time effectively to maximize my success at the exams (and by maximize, I mean pass at the beginning)? This prioritization is a crucial prerequisite towards a functioning personal learning technique.

A turning point of my exams was Algebra in math. Again, I was reading the script, trying to memorize the content. Again, it was hard, and I could not see how to succeed in the available time. So I started leaving the script. In Algebra, one has fields, mathematical entities following certain laws and rules. Before, I was confused by the necessity of these rules and tried to memorize them. I knew that the professor loved to ask a question at the exam on how to formally construct such a field. This triggered me to turn the question around: What happened if one does not have rule A or B? So, starting from fields, I segmented the material in short logical sections.

I stopped trying to understand everything and started to understand something.

Everything was centered around the motivation of the topic, why do I need this and that? Do I really have to use this approach? If yes, why? What happens if there is a change of perspective? In the end, I got my first B at university.

First of all: it is a lot of effort to prepare the material for an exam I’m learning for. It just works for me and I don’t think that there is a general method. I am a very little motivated learner and I have to play myself the trick of making the learning interesting, even if it’s the most boring stuff you can imagine. That’s why, and that’s what I found out in the beginning of my study, I have to make a game out of it, with rewards and punishment. (No, there was no physical self-punishment ;-) ). The human mind tries to circumvent difficulties, so learning for me always meant discipline. I made my objectives with questions, not time, so I was finished earlier if I was good or had to keep on until it was done. For a young student that’s a highly rewarding motivation. If I failed at a problem, it queued at the bottom of the line and hit back at the end of my learning unit.

After I learned to learn my way, I essentially got only A and Bs again. Furthermore, it coined the way I approach problems up to this day. I try to get to the essential part of a task, the abstract background every problem in the world has: Have it been solved before? If yes, apply the solution. If no, is there a similar problem that can be customized? And if the answer is still no: solve the problem using everything you have. This abstract pragmatism is the reason for my success.