I, too, thought this piece took a strange position. It would be better titled "Books and lectures don't work if all you do is passively consume them in a single

I, too, thought this piece took a strange position. It would be better titled "Books and lectures don't work if all you do is passively consume them in a single pass", which I don't think anyone argues or believes or prescribes. The piece touched on the importance of metalearning strategies, but stopped short at simply designing experiences that lighten the cognitive load on learners by doing much of the heavy lifting for them. This is valuable but misses what the true goal should be. We should be teaching learners how to take some information source (e.g., a book, lecture series, etc.) and apply those metalearning techniques (e.g., spaced repetition, distillation, etc.) in a self-directed manner. Otherwise, you only have learners capable of learning those things that already have great experiences built by skilled learners and are otherwise still not capable of self-directed learning.