Learning and Skill Acquisition
We, humans, are wired to get irritated by our problems. That uncomfortable feeling is what drives us to solve the problems that irritate us. How do we go about solving the problem? - we guess a way forward. We take the step towards the guess, and we observe how our guess has worked. If the guess has contradicted the results we expected - we go back and rehash the guess and modify it with the new-found knowledge we have just gained. We go through this iterative process until the problem is deemed to be solved. This is how we learn anything new. This is how inventions and discoveries are made.
Skill acquisition comes next. If we decide that the gained knowledge is worth making part of our unconscious process, we repeat the steps that have worked for us in solving the problem. The repetition is based on our knowledge of what has solved our problem.
Take for example learning to ride a bicycle. The novice learner has some theory in their mind about what it would be like to ride a bicycle. This theory of course needs to be tested and corrected. The learner sits on the bicycle and pushes the pedals and they experience falling. This at first is jarring to the senses, but this is now a problem that irritates them. The learner gets on the bicycle again, and perhaps with some help from someone holding the seat, asking them to look in front and not down towards the ground, etc., they go a little further than before. This process is now repeated over and over again, perhaps over a few days or weeks. Now the learner has gotten the knowledge and basic idea of what works and when doesn’t. If they continue to ride the bicycle and repeat what they have learned, the bike riding becomes an unconscious process and we say the learner has gained the skill of riding a bike.
This is why, rote memorization of maths, history, science, or any subject is worthless in long run. We might pass an exam we have just crammed for overnight, but there is no true knowledge gained. Cramming for exams skips the first phase of exploration, where we make guesses, refine them and come to a solution ourselves! What is worse is that the school system favors those who can get good grades based just on the outcome of the exams. One can gain knowledge in the process of studying for the exam, but more often than not, one only gains knowledge about how to game the system!