{"id":385,"date":"2003-06-13T21:06:05","date_gmt":"2003-06-14T01:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/metasj\/2003\/06\/13\/teaching-old-hounddogs-new-tricks\/"},"modified":"2003-06-13T21:06:05","modified_gmt":"2003-06-14T01:06:05","slug":"teaching-old-hounddogs-new-tricks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/2003\/06\/13\/teaching-old-hounddogs-new-tricks\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching old hounddogs new tricks"},"content":{"rendered":"

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[This needs to be turned into a story about learning potential, and how communication between teachers and students changes over time.]  <\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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It’s clear to me that a certain kind of learning potential is natural during youth, and has to be regained once one is more conscious of one’s surroundings [perhaps only if one falls from that state to begin with?  but nowadays most do].  Most of the methods people use to regain that learning zone are discipline- or activity-specific.  More general methods have a mythical aura about them — consider enlightenment<\/EM>, or hypnosis<\/EM>.  As Gerry Sussman likes to say, once you learn how to learn<\/STRONG>, you can do anything.  In any case, few people try to actively regain this ineffable quality; that doesn’t keep them from improving their ability to learn, or in suddenly rediscovering how to walk, sing, play, write, observe, react, or imitate naturally<\/STRONG>, an important first step.  
      Slashdot recently had an IT-centered discussion on ageism<\/A> in the workplace and how much  the modern glow of youth is justified.  I’m sorry I didn’t see any world historians offering comparisons to other civilizations and times, but here are a few noteworthy quotes:<\/FONT><\/P>
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I’m a flight instructor, and it’s easy to see where the illusion <\/STRONG>that young people learn better\/faster comes from. Despite the popular notion of today’s youth, they’re not as cynical <\/STRONG>or as questioning\/probing of your instruction as adults are. As an example, if I tell a 16 year-old kid that when you bank <\/STRONG>the airplane to the right, there is an initial yaw <\/STRONG>to the left because of a phenomenon we call “adverse yaw,” he’ll probably say “OK” and correct for it on the controls. If I state it so simply to a 40 year-old student, he’ll ask why<\/STRONG>. So who has learned it better? The kid is immediately compensating for its effects, and is flying the airplane properly a bit sooner; but does he know why he’s doing so? The adult <\/STRONG>understands the reasons behind the correction; but has delayed implementing the knowledge because of the time spent questioning.

Over the course of learning any complex <\/STRONG>task, these moments add up to a perception that the adult isn’t learning as fast or as well as the younger person. In fact, they are. You simply have to tailor <\/STRONG>your training <\/STRONG>and your expectations <\/STRONG>for the difference in approach.
                            –delcielo, via <\/FONT>slashdot<\/FONT><\/A> on <\/FONT>ageism<\/FONT><\/A><\/P>
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Ken Williams<\/STRONG>, the founder of Sierra Online<\/A> felt a missionary zeal <\/STRONG>in converting people to the belief that learning how to program a computer could change your life<\/STRONG>. Ken met Bob and Carolyn Box, who were an older married couple in their fifties. Bob was “…a former New Yorker, a former engineer, a former race car driver, a former jockey, and a former Guinness Book of World Records champion in gold panning.” When they both tried to get a job working for Sierra, Ken told them to “put up something on the screen using assembly language <\/STRONG>in thirty days”. According to how the story is told, they both became very able assembly language programmers. Roberta Williams <\/STRONG>(Ken’s wife) considered the Boxes “inspiring” and felt that learning how to program “rehabilitated their lives”.
                          — paraphrase of Steven Levy’s Hacker’s<\/U>, via the same thread<\/A> <\/FONT><\/P>
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My son and I started taking drum lessons 8 months ago – together. There is no comparison<\/STRONG>. While he may be more technical and able to do the marching snare roll, etc. I rock all over him on a kit<\/STRONG>. We both put in the same amount of practice time. 
      But I love the looks I get from the middle age women <\/STRONG>as I walk out of the lesson room. Which is probably the root of the problem. Most middle age folks don’t think someone their age should<\/STRONG> be learning new skills and definitely not having fun!
                         — Black-Man<\/STRONG>, posting to the same thread<\/A><\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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I’ll be updating this post at some point, perhaps replacing it with a story-link.  For now, send me your thoughts<\/FONT><\/A>.<\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This needs to be turned into a story about learning potential, and how communication between teachers and students changes over time.]  It’s clear to me that a certain kind of learning potential is natural during youth, and has to be regained once one is more conscious of one’s surroundings [perhaps only if one falls from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[210],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chain-gang"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVvB-6d","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}