The Great Divide
Learning is fundamental. But then, somewhere down the road, learning and doing got separated. This is a great divide. And that’s how education looks like today.
Possible? It’s certainly possible.
But then, it’s like learning to swim by reading a manual.
Or, it’s like learning to ride a bike by watching others [and worst, watching a lot of videos about it]
Think of baking a cake.
Teaching a toddler to walk.
Selling something.
You can try to learn without doing. But my question is… Why?
People think I am against education. How could I be? Why would I be?
But yes, I am against the form of education that separates learning from doing. Now what’s my fault if majority falls in here. Even worst, in many cases, education business owners [I respect educationists] think that 'doing' interferes with 'learning' [and makes cost of learning high, which is not good for business].
And I am not just thinking or talking about elementary school. I am talking about professional education too.
I am talking about learning to be a doctor.
I am talking about learning copywriting.
I am talking about learning digital media marketing.
I am talking about learning entrepreneurship at a business school for a full-time professor. [enough said]
I am talking about… about almost everything.
Education, as we know, is about 2 things… compliance and ranking. If you are good at school, it’s no guarantee that you will thrive in world beyond ranking and grades.
Apart from commercial reasons, I think one reason why 'doing' is separated from 'learning' is that it takes away authority. Lectures are safe. It covers up for your incompetence.
This separation of 'learning' and 'doing' leads to an even bigger disaster. When we enter the so-called practical life, we kind of pack up our learning gears — as if now it’s all about 'doing'.
I’ve been in corporate trainings for more than 14 years now. Having met so many professionals and entrepreneurs in my career, very few of them read books or take lessons regularly [on their own expense] about how to do their work better. That’s considered a distraction or, at best, inconvenient or simply wasted time.
It took gastroenterologists a generation before they fully accepted that most ulcers were caused by bacteria and changed their approach.
73 years into being a nation and we still haven’t learned much. Simply 'doing'.
This divide between education and application/learning must go. This assumption that in education, someone else is 'in charge' is ridiculous.
What happens if the learning we do is always in conjunction with our doing?
What happens if we look at our doing, and passionately go back to learning to get better at doing?
Learning must embrace doing. Doing must marry learning. The alternative? Ignorance.
If you want to learn soccer, play soccer. If you play soccer, it helps to learn soccer. Isn’t that simple.
That same equation applies to just about everything.
Concluding thoughts… on a separate note.
This idea that education leads to better job must go. It makes the very concept of learning look so ugly. It’s ugly at the root. It’s ugly at the branch. This very idea gets you stuck. Because once you get a job, you somehow park the idea of learning. Such stuck employees are a threat. Threat to themselves, their families, their organizations. These are the people who lose their jobs first.
Don’t blame organizations for not investing in your learning. Learning is a personal affair. Have you invested in your learning as much as you have invested in your car or in your weekend dinners?
Learning makes you a better person.
It helps you in making better decisions.
It makes you more confident.
Either you’re learning or you are marching towards irrelevance.
