46. Why do people stop learning (.. Do they?)

Topic 46 4 May 2018 Why do people stop learning (.. Do they?)

1. 9, 19 or 109 years old - When & Why do people stop wanting to learn new stuff?

2. What do you think is worth learning? something for a diploma, something for a career edge, something out of sheer curiosity ...?

3. There are 24 hours in a day. How much do you put aside for socializing, how much for being a spectator, how much for finding out about new stuff?

4. What are some things you have decided not to try to learn more about in this life? Why?

5. What are the most effective ways you know for learning complex skills or knowledge?

6. Do you think learning another language is similar or different from learning other things? Why/why not?

7. Average literacy and numeracy ability worldwide actually declines after 14 years of age - i.e. for most, not all people. (Working for a mass circulation tabloid newspaper, I was told that the reading age our customers was around 11 y.o.). Why do you think this is so? What are the social consequences of this decline?

8. From your formal education, how much of the information from the courses have you retained in memory? How fast did you forget stuff? Why did you forget it? Is there any fix for this kind of loss?

9. Large numbers of adults (and a proportion of teenagers) are completely incurious about anything unfamiliar. Why do you think this is so? Must it be this way, or is there some kind of cure?

10. 'Confirmation bias' is the tendency we all have to only notice or take in those ideas which confirm what we already believe. This effects even professional researchers. It is endemic in social media. What do you think is the best way to minimize confirmation bias?

11. Mass education has emerged as a vast industry in the last 150 years. It has greatly changed most cultures, but for many students the process is very, very inefficient. Can you suggest of a better way to go about teaching and learning?