Learning Is An Act of Sovereignty
and a fight against 'School French'
Learning is the ultimate meta-skill. Skills. Knowledge. Mindsets. These compound through life with our ability to learn. The better we are at owning our learning, the better life can become. Learning is our medium of power.
But schools and universities don't teach us how to learn.
Dry curriculums. Rigid grade systems. Routinized time tables. These cathedrals of education are optimized for a different outcome.
Compliance, not individual progress.
Schools Teach ‘’School French”
At 14, I met my reckoning: a Parisian. On vacation, my parents nudged me to talk to a security guard at the Louvre. After a feeble Bonjour, no other words would come out. I wasn’t tongue tied. It was worse. I didn’t know how to use my words.
But, why did I expect to speak French with a local?
Because I had spent 8 years in school, learning ‘French’. Turns out, that was ‘School French’. Grammar rules, sentence structures and vocabulary lists were bursting from the seams of my skull. With my 3 hour written exams and casual reading of essays about Joan D’Arc, I figured I was on the path to ‘fluency’.
But ‘School French’ was only one of the school system’s limitations.
School is a performance. I was the Lover, chasing my sweetheart, grades. With enough grades, I’ll be happy. And so, I put in the time. And tears. But, no grades. Jilted, I wondered what was wrong. Did I have to work harder? Was I born dumb?
In hindsight, it was my misunderstanding.
Schools are machines. It has nothing to do with the individual. I was just a number in this system. Not my knowledge or skills, just my ability to score. It wasn’t about learning, but acing the test. My excitement or innate interests weren't going to serve me. To tap into those interests, I had to embrace learning on my own. Learning by my own design.
I realized I had to learn by curiosity.
Learners Need Curiosity
Every system has ‘waste’. For schools, that’s Summer Projects.
The school system’s way to give ‘homework’ for vacation. With no grades attached, it is intended as a pointless chore.
I loved it.
The ‘pointless chore’, was an excellent excuse for deep rabbit holes. From the history of feudalism to the Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy, I was consuming knowledge like a forest fire. With curiosity as my light, it didn’t matter how ‘smart’ I was. I could learn as much as I could.
Curiosity is energy. Without direction, that candlelight can lose control. In the name of curiosity, my summer projects were engaging. But they didn’t move the needle in my life.
But Curiosity Isn’t Enough
Going down rabbit holes can become productive, with your own sense of direction.
A great example is CGP Grey’s YouTube channel. With 6M subscribers, it’s one of the largest and longest running channels. And it’s powered by niche deep dives.
CGP Grey’s videos have no theme or pattern. Grey jumps into topics as an amateur and through The Forest of All Knowledge, he comes out from the darkness with his videos.
These forays can be month-long journeys into the unknown. For instance he has a video called “Someone Dead Ruined My Life…Again” which is a spin-off from another video about the medieval origins of the name ‘Tiffany’.
This video covers his 6 months sojourn down medieval history. The twists and intellectual detours make my head shake in wonder.
In Grey’s own words, these videos don’t really make business sense. Here’s the kicker: this video has 8.3 million views. From a channel standpoint, this video is a success.
The question is, can we be like CGP Grey?
Yes. And we don’t have to have a YouTube channel.
CGP Grey is a sample of one. And that’s the point. Grey created his own direction. He repackaged his bugs into something valuable for his audience.
For the rest of us, we need to take a step back. We need to borrow from somewhere we bashed early in this piece.
We need learning goals, like in traditional education.
Round 2 With French
Almost 8 years post highschool French, I put my learning skills to the test. Somehow, I got a masters program acceptance in France. And I took this acceptance, as a sign I should take up French again.
This time, I was going to actually learn the language, not ‘School French’.
Curiosity driven flings are fun, but not long lasting or impactful in one’s life. You need to use what you’ve learned in a specific fashion. For schools, those are exam papers. For CGP Grey that’s his YouTube channel. For my french learning efforts, this was to have conversations.
I luckily found one French colleague and sat with her during coffee breaks to attempt speaking the language. Through broken phrases and my colleague’s patience, I was managing to get used to speaking.
In a month, I was speaking better French than after 9 years of 'learning’ the language.
Learning Needs Curiosity and Self-Direction
Learning is a path you define for yourself. Traditional education serves a different purpose (e.g. grades) that is not always aligned with your goals. But curiosity alone is not enough. Curiosity is a fire and can be uncontrollable. Without direction, we can end up never making meaningful progress.
Our opportunity is to set our own learning goals, to keep the end in mind when learning anything.
To learn curiously, with direction.
PS: To make this essay more actionable, I’m going to steal a tip I got reading Cedric Chin on Common Cog:
In the middle of learning or doing anything, ask yourself “Why are you doing this?”
This essay took a village to write 🙏
A huge thank you from ideation to the final touches with the headline.
From ideation/figuring out which sketch to pick:
, , , , Vivaddhana Khaou,(I know I didn’t pick the popular sketch but it still helped a lot)
Initial drafting and figuring out what the idea was:
, , Jasmine Aug, ,Refining the draft and multiple re-writes: Tahsin Khan, Deb Gruelle, Jalal Wilson, Jolly, Arjun Mehrotra, Malgo,
&Final draft & ironing out the logic:
, , , Josh Burgener, Adya Singh, Rana Mobarak &
Was this the post we talked about on the first day we met at the online gym? 🥹 time flies
Yeah, The idea of skill building services for graduates sounds good! I'm sure there's a market for it, especially among the current work force. However, charging employers for it is a concept that hasn't made its way into the mainstream in India but is definitely a win-win for both parties.
I fully agree with your point about universities being run by bureaucrats and not willing to adapt. I recently came accross a piece that highlighted the current scenario of education especially for yound children very well. I really liked it- https://open.substack.com/pub/simonsarris/p/school-is-not-enough?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1d3zrp