

You Don’t Learn to Ride a Bike by Reading a Textbook - tylermenezes
http://blog.studentrnd.org/post/34751528141/you-dont-learn-to-ride-a-bike-by-reading-a-textbook

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spin
I think that there are different types of learning, which I think are
correlated with different brain areas.

For example, learning to ride a bike likely involves the cerebellum (the chunk
way in the back, bottom). The cerebellum is involved in balance and
coordination. (People who have damage to their cerebellum still have normal
consciousness, but they become very un-coordinated and clumsy.) It's likely
that you cannot just read a book and "download" that knowledge into the
cerebellum. So skills requiring balance and coordination (riding a bicycle,
swimming, sky-diving) must be learned by doing.

Compare that to knowledge that exists in our conscious minds. This knowledge
likely exists in the neocortex. If we are conscious of the knowledge, then we
likely _can_ read a book and incorporate that knowledge into our own thoughts.

I suppose there are some professions that require a mix of skills. maeon3
brought up brain surgery. Surgeons read a lot of books, but they also practice
their cutting skills on cadavers.

But overall, I agree with the concept behind studentrnd.org. "Doing things for
yourself" is often a better way to learn. Plus, one of the points they make in
this article: the first person to do something (invent the lightbulb, etc)
didn't have anyone to learn from; they had to figure things out for
themselves.

(Plus, I have my own personal biases: I'm sick of all the hand-holding that
goes on in the modern world. Everyone has to take a class for anything, and
time is always scheduled... whatever happened to just living your own life and
trying things out for yourself? Build your own desk even though you could just
buy one from the store... simply because it's fun to just _do things for
yourself_... many people enjoy cooking their own food, etc...)

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dinedal
This article disregards everything we know about how people learn for the sake
of a cute analogy.

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tylermenezes
What do we know about how people learn which this is disregarding? Working in
the CS education field for several years, this is very in line with my
observations.

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utopkara
We don't need to read a textbook to use a spoon. But, then we need to read the
manufacturer's manual to write effective assembly code. Is this a conundrum,
or is it just that life is a little bit too complex to fit in naive
generalizations?

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maeon3
Also, when I go in for brain surgury, I want a neurosurgeon who has learned to
operate on brains by "just trying it out" and Learning from experience, rather
than one who has spent long hours painstakingly going over the routines and
outcomes of past procedures, past brain surgeons, theory of brain surgury and
other text books related to brain surgery.

Programmers should do the same, whatever you do, keep doing trial and error,
don't look at code written by the coding legends, don't know their names,
don't go over their code, don't learn from them. Just fiddle about with your
own programs, if it's good enough to know, you'll find out yourself.

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randomdata
Actually, I think I would much prefer a brain surgeon who has spend decades
learning all the intricacies of the brain operation through hands on
experience starting when they are in elementary school. I'm just not sure who
would provide access to brains in the interim leading up to my surgery, in
order to have the experience, due to the nature of the work.

The computer, however, doesn't care how inexperienced you are. You can screw
up hundreds or thousands of times and it really doesn't matter. By the time
you are old enough to enter the workforce where your work does start to
matter, you will have the solid grasp necessary to do the work professionally.

