Learning From the Inside Out

What we’re talking about today is the “How to Win Friends and Influence People” version of inquiry and learning. Classically, it was Dale Carnegie who advised folks looking to do the things in the books’ namesake to make others feel like things were their idea. A high school teacher looking to have influence over her student’s participation in a project could make Carnegie proud by helping the students to feel that the project itself was their idea in the first place, for example. 

This same concept holds weight when learning new things. Immersive learning practices that lead one to the learnings on their own, so to speak, tend to have deeper cognitive roots than learning from authoritarian external sources, memorizing facts, and the like. 

Knowing this fact is power whether you’re an educator or you’re a student. Both roles can benefit the same from tapping into not just what we teach and learn, but most importantly how we happen upon that learning. 

Keep going!