I Can Never Learn in a Classroom

I can never learn in a classroom

I’m not sure who this will resonate with, but I can just never learn in a classroom.

The only thing that makes sense to me is learning skills as you need them. There is no other way.

I have been a project-based learner my entire life.

If I am building an iOS app and I want to add In-App purchases, I just look up how to implement them. If I am trying to host a database on Azure, I’ll just watch a video about how to set it up.

In this way, I can be the most productive actually accomplishing things with what I know, and only take time out of my day to learn something new if it is truly mission critical to the project or goal.

Contrast this with the way traditional education works now. Every single concept is taught on the presumption that you will need it in the future, and that you don’t need to spend time understanding why you need it.

That may work in elementary school, since those skills are obviously used throughout your life. It also works for broad skills, like business, project management, and communications, but it just doesn’t work when your studying niche technical topics.

It’s draining, time consuming, and wasteful.

I have spent hours diving down the most complex rabbit holes- Azure Cognitive Search, AI-to-Human API platforms, DNS settings for servers, building rocket engines- all out of passion and necessity.

Yet modern education still promotes filling out worksheets and working on “examples.” There is just no incentive. I know I’ll work the rest of my life likely never needing to know this information again. So why would I learn it.

In fact, this is one of the worst tortures I can feel. Not only do I have to put time into solving made-up problems that aren’t relevant or important, but it TAKES TIME AWAY from the actual cutting-edge, interesting, and timely work that I ironically enjoy. Don’t even get me started on tests or midterms. It is actually sickening to me.

I know the natural response to the above is to align what you’re studying to what your passionate about, but for millions of students, that’s just not a possibility. This problem is obviously industry dependent, but most careers have the ability to learn on the actual job itself and not a dumbed-down simulation. Unless you want to become a doctor or pilot, let’s learn the skill as you do it, and improve over time.

That being said, bringing together 40,000 incredibly smart and talented individuals within 4 square miles is a recipe for utopia. Just stop putting them in lectures and distracting them work on what they are actually passionate about.