How I picked up skateboarding as an adult
My personal silver lining of lockdown has been the ability to spend time learning new skills for no explicit reason.
Why did I buy a colouring book? I just wanted to (and paint by numbers was all sold out!)
Why did I start writing? I have always loved to but never thought it could make me money.
Why did I start skateboarding? Because my friends were, and I thought it looked cool.
6 months ago, these reasons would not have justified my time, but this weird new world that we live in has encouraged me to spend time learning just because I want to.
I found the idea of skateboarding scarier than (I imagine) most young children do, but I was determined not to let this get in the way of my progress.
It did, however, get me thinking about why we seem to have more difficulty picking up new skills in adulthood.
The most obvious obstacle to me was the fear I felt, so I tried to combat that first. I attempted to do this by throwing myself into it and ignoring any sense of fear.
I threw myself into it so completely that I actually broke my wrist a few weeks ago.
Not exactly the best way to conquer fear, perhaps.
Although it seems intuitive to give up skating, I am determined not to give in.
That, I feel, is the main way some of us adults let ourselves down. But it isn’t our only obstacle by any means.
Fear aside, there are definitely differences in the way children learn vs how adults learn, and fear is not the only factor.
The most common learning comparison between children and adults is usually made with language, and there has been extensive research into the subject, so I am going to attempt to simplify it.
Memories can be formed in two ways. The first way is repetition, which is how we are taught to learn, for example when studying for a test.
The second is called “semantic processing” and refers to those times when a piece of information has meaning attached to it, causing us to remember it.
No prizes here for guessing which one makes learning easier!
Children learn semantically, so much so that they are often likened to sponges. They remember information when it is meaningful to them, which is usually more often than with adults.
This means they are also more accepting of new facts. Whereas adults constantly evaluate new information, children are much more impressionable.
But that’s not the only reason it’s harder for adults
An equally major player in our ability to pick up new skills is our motivation.
A baby, for example, is motivated to communicate with their family before their language abilities allow them to.
On the other hand, us adults who already speak at least one language are far less desperate in our studies.
Relevance is also an important factor, if everyone around us speaks English then we are probably far less motivated to learn French.
So how can we learn new skills as adults?!
Since the 70s, developmental psychologists have argued that there is a critical period of about the first 15 years in which a person can learn a new language. Also since the 70s, however, there has been a parallel debate running as to whether or not this is really true.
The only way that we, as adults, can pick up new skills with anything close to the effortlessness we see in children, is to accept directions unquestionably and not try to cut any corners.
Or to desperately need said skill.
Unfortunately for me, my skateboarding ability is not a lifechanging proficiency, so I am just going to keep concentrating on blindly accepting each new lesson as it comes.
The way I see it if we aim to be accepting and unjudgmental of newly acquired skills, maybe (just maybe!) we will be able to catch up with the littluns.
