I remember learning about sequences and series in GCSE Maths and I was struggling to pick up one of the concepts, so I went home and my Dad and I found a method that solved the problem step by step. Suddenly I wasn’t confused anymore! The next day when I used the method at school my teacher told me no you’ve got to use the method I taught you. I told her that that method was confusing me whereas this new method made sense - but it didn’t matter to her.
The exams expected a particular type of method - not the one that walks you through the problem and allows you to understand why you got the answer but the shortcut method that skips steps.
This became a core memory for me.
It was the moment that felt like understanding mattered less than if you could memorise the method to answer the question.
Essays at school and uni followed the same structure. The instructions always told you exactly what they want to hear - you make sure to hit the criteria, you’ll get the grade. But if you let your curiosity out of bounds, explore a side not explicitly told to, they downgrade you for it.
Sterilised learnings, no exploration.
In the same lesson, you get given the problem and the solution.
The maths we learn in one lesson at school would have been explored by mathematicians for years. They were staring into the infinite and ethereal face of the mathematical universe and figured out each absolute truth till they formulated the solutions. A eureka moment every time.
We don’t see that moment.
It’s especially telling how many people slogged their way through maths despite how boring they made it, only to find 3Blue1Brown YouTube Channel and suddenly find concepts make sense and that there can be a spark of enjoyment for numbers. The YouTuber explains maths visually and makes it easy to follow each step - he takes you through each eureka moment.
School taught people to forget the beauty of EUREKA!
Babies don’t learn like this
Babies are constantly learning, they want to know about the world, they ask lots of questions, they figure things out. You can see when they discover their hands and stare at them like wow I can move my fingers around, this is so cool!
Then they learn to crawl and then walk and then run. They pick up an entire language from hearing people around them speak and point to objects! This is curiosity driven learning.
When you’re a student at school trying to learn a language, the focus is on grammar rules and memorisation. This is criteria driven learning - they forgot about the curiosity.
In the 1980s, a guy called Stephen Krashen, an American linguist, figured out that by listening to input slightly above your current level of understanding, you pick up language a lot faster.
From my own language learning in Thailand I’ve met people who take this method a lot further by putting off any writing or speaking and completely focusing on listening. The key is to not focus too hard on each word, instead picking up the associations to them.
From my own attempts at this I found it difficult not to fixate on a word. After a time, I noticed Thai words started to come to me more easily, but unlearning the school’s method of rote memorisation slowed progress.
It’s odd that this method gets left behind as soon as we enter the school system.
Learning from someone who inspires you
Some teachers seemed frustrated with their work, and that affected how their lessons felt.
If you don’t want their life, don’t take their advice
- Alex Hormozi, entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist
There was a phase online where having a Bugatti became shorthand for being successful. Students started asking their teachers, “Where’s your Bugatti?”
I think there was a question underneath that: why should I follow the path you’re recommending, and where does it lead? I don’t want a Bugatti, but I do want to learn from someone whose direction I respect. If you’re telling me to work hard and follow this path, show me what it’s for.
Why pay attention to someone if they cannot explain a subject they were supposed to know inside out.
Later in my time at school, in sixth form, as I prepared for university, everyone had to meet with the careers advisor.
I wanted to hear from people who had actually taken the paths I was considering.
The best person to learn from is someone who is one step ahead of you
- Jack Tolley, entrepreneur, tech wizard and my husband :)
The teachers whose enthusiasm came through made a difference. I wish I’d experienced more of that. It’s no wonder so many kids do not enjoy sitting in a classroom when the person they are listening too isn’t enthusiastic.
Teach but forget to inspire
I have seen many a time when a person advised a friend or family member, but the friend or family member did not heed it. They will then say how frustrated they feel - they know their advice would work or be helpful, but they just refuse to listen!
The truth is, hearing words and feeling them are completely different. You could tell your friend, that guy is no good. You see it, they don’t. Eventually they get their heart broken and realise he was bad - but they only changed their ways once they felt the full consequences.
You could say you gotta work hard, but why would they unless they have felt how it’ll pay off and benefit them. When you are telling them, it just feels like pain right now for nothing.
You could tell your kid to stop smoking in the bathrooms, but right now they’re having a great time with their friends. They don’t see what you see in that moment, and they can’t feel the consequences.
People will only take action when they want to. It may be begrudgingly, painfully, or with full and happy motivation - but it’s only if they want it.
You’ve got to make them want it.
I often struggled to see that connection at school.
Teach but forget how to get the kid to relate
If you cannot relate to a story in any way, how can you learn from it?
At school, the English syllabus is full of texts that are unconventional enough to read, let alone relate to.
When I was 14 I wasn’t experiencing an excruciating heartache. So why would I understand Romeo and Juliet?
I had never been so incredibly conflicted it was driving me insane, so why would I understand Hamlet?
I had never exercised a sort of ambition where I’d be unkind let alone violent. I had never felt such power that I’d fall weak to the pull of corruption. So why would I understand Macbeth?
Shakespeare’s works are incredible, but they were not written for teenagers.
Clockwork Orange deals with rape, insanity, murder and a repressive government.
Frankenstein deals with loneliness, obsession, parenthood, revenge and the corrupting power of knowledge.
A Streetcar Named Desire deals with betrayal, delusion, abuse, desire, alcoholism and social class.
Reading the words are not the same as feeling them.
Did I have any semblance of understanding when Blanche, from a Streetcar Named Desire, said:
Oh, in my youth I excited some admiration. But look at me now! [She smiles at him radiantly] Would you think it possible that I was once considered to be-attractive?
Or
Death is expensive, Miss Stella!
Or
BLANCHE: No, I - rarely touch it. STANLEY: Some people rarely touch it, but it touches them often.
Or did I just add them to my essay because I knew talking about what she said would get me the grade?
Well, the success of my English exams was because I listened to how my teacher would talk and morphed my writing to sound exactly like her. Every paragraph was a great piece of waffle that shot me from Bs and Cs to A*s.
Moving into adulthood, teaching myself how to code, travelling across the world, getting married and building a business, I see more. Adulthood is filled with an incredible amount of ups and downs.
When I was a kid and I read Alfred, Lord Tennyson saying:
It is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.
I thought it sounded beautiful, but I didn’t understand it. Now I do.
Education for everyone
In England and Wales, state schooling expanded during the nineteenth century. The 1870 Education Act established school boards alongside existing voluntary schools, and in 1880 attendance became compulsory for children aged five to ten.
Giving more children access to education was a great achievement. But what I keep coming back to is the experience of learning itself. Getting everyone into a classroom is one thing. Helping them understand, ask questions and find a reason to care is another.
What this has become
In quite a few of my classes, there were around thirty of us and it was difficult to get individual help. Disruption took time away from people who were trying to learn, and we sometimes reached major exams without finishing the syllabus. One of my classmates threw a chair across the room. I didn’t even realise till it flew over my head. At another point, people broke into the school field and set up camp for weeks. The place you send your kids to learn ended up with people taking over the entire field, and we were still expected to come in as normal. But if you took your kid out of school for those weeks, now you were the one in trouble. That really frustrated me.
I wasn’t the only one frustrated. In my experience, following instructions was rewarded more consistently than exploring ideas.
Taking notes wasn’t enough for me
When I hit university I was shocked to hear from some of the top students that they didn’t take any notes. I couldn’t compute it, I’d been taking notes as a core part of my studying since the beginning of school! Yet once I stopped, my grades got higher. I replaced all those hours of passive learning with answering question after question after question and it paid off.
I felt very frustrated! I had spent so many hours, for so many years, taking notes, only to now realise it was a waste of time! School told me notes were a great method of study and revision. In fact, the majority of my lessons consisted of the teacher having copied and pasted paragraphs of textbook notes onto a powerpoint slide with the class copying it down in silence.
Why is it that this passive learning is such a major part of school? Hours are filled up with a method that isn’t very effective. It leads people to take pride in making their notes beautiful rather than focusing on the content.
I felt we could have spent more of that time working through questions instead of rewriting the textbook.
Learning is awesome
I expected to find minds thirsty for knowledge, but a lot of the conversations around me were about getting through the coursework. I found that frustrating because I wanted to explore the subject. Over time, I realised that learning by building suited me better. So I left.
Now, as a dev trying to make money from apps online, every day I’m learning. Three years ago when I started to code the computer told me I was stupid all the time. Now I can build an app and get people to use it. This year I’ve learnt about design, marketing, sales, AI and a whole bunch of other tech. Each day the rug could be pulled out from under me with a bug I’ve never seen before, a competitor appearing, a new tax to comply to or another global software outage that takes part of the internet down - this has been happening a lot lately!
I finally have the opportunity to learn all the time and it feels more real than school ever did.
Learning keeps your brain healthy, learning pushes you closer to successes, the focus of learning makes a moment feel more real; when you learn about things you enjoy it can help make the rest of your life more joyful. Learning gives me a sense of movement and possibility.
This world is so incredibly weird and beautiful - learning about all its parts is supposed to be exciting and fun. School kills the fun, but don’t ever let it stay dead.
Never stop being curious
“If you don’t have a plan, you become part of somebody else’s plan.”
- Terence McKenna
At school, every so often someone would ask, “Why are we learning this? How will it help us in life?” I wanted an answer beyond the exams.
For a long time, I focused on the next goal: good grades, a good degree, a good job. Those goals gave me something to work towards, but I hadn’t spent enough time asking what I actually wanted to do.
Teaching myself to code and building things gave learning a reason. I wanted to make something, so I had to understand how it worked. Suddenly the questions were mine.
Everyone only has one life to live. There are places to visit, things to build, instruments to play and subjects to explore. This world is so incredibly weird and beautiful, and learning about its parts can be exciting and fun.
If school left you feeling that learning wasn’t for you, it doesn’t have to stay that way. You can find something that makes you ask, “What can I do next?”
