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I opened a volume of the books linked in the page, and found this: « Learning allows us to discover what kind of person we can be. Learning widens knowledge, i
by Reventlov 5y ago
I opened a volume of the books linked in the page, and found this:
« Learning allows us to discover what kind of person we can be. Learning widens knowledge, improves intelligence and provides a sense of achievement. Therefore, learning from a book, especially one about nature, should be efficient and enjoyable. Avoid bad learning methods like the plague! Do not use a marker, a pen or a pencil to highlight or underline text on paper. It is a waste of time, provides false comfort and makes the text unreadable. And do not learn from a screen. In particular, never, ever, learn from the internet, from videos, from games or from a smartphone. Most of the internet, almost all videos and all games are poisons and drugs for the brain. Smartphones are dispensers of drugs that make people addicted and prevent learning. Nobody putting marks on paper or looking at a screen is learning efficiently or is enjoying doing so. »
My sarcasm detector is broken, is that sarcasm ?
- irrational 5y agoYeah, this is clearly BS. Recently I changed the turn switch on my car. How did I learn how to do that? From the Internet, specifically from watching videos. It was easily the most efficient way to learn.
- dr_dshiv 5y agoWhich book?
- Reventlov 5y agoI was interested in electromagnetism, so https://www.motionmountain.net/motionmountain-volume3.pdf https://www.motionmountain.net/motionmountain-volume3.pdf, in the « Advice for learners » section of the introduction. I reckon this is the same text in every volume.
- dr_dshiv 5y agoYeah, not sarcasm. But contradictory for a free online downloadable. I do like the next advice, to be able to say the ideas in your own words. Maybe the point (which seems very overstated) is that highlighting and videos create the sensation of knowing, but not necessarily the knowing.
- micromacrofoot 5y agono there are a lot of old academics that think this way, it’s almost like a form of self-flagellation… if you’re having fun then you’re not learning hard enough one professor I knew like this (decades ago now) was the type of person that would violently throw chalk at students with the gall to not hang on every word he was saying
- sdoering 5y ago> Do not use a marker, a pen or a pencil to highlight or underline text on paper. It is a waste of time, provides false comfort and makes the text unreadable. What a load of elitist BS (pardon my French). When I was at University we were trained early on to cut the notion of a book being sacred. We should mark, note, create meaning on the pages with pens. I would not have been able to learn as much in my life if I had not taken this advice seriously. > In particular, never, ever, learn from the internet, from videos, from games or from a smartphone. Yeah. Exactly. OK. So I have not learned new things recently about both World Wars through documentaries telling me about findings that I did neither learn in school or at university studying history (among other subjects). I know. I am just anecdata. But wow. What a view on learning in the quotes book.
- PrettyPebble 5y agoWriting notes and comments is great - the text only says highlight or underline!
- sdoering 5y agoEven highlighting and marking is essential to help identify the core ideas on a page.
- ravi-delia 5y agoI sort of agree with the book on highlighting and underlining. If you don't jot a note down in the margin, you'll forget your state of mind and have no idea what made some underlined section meaningful. A false comfort.
- dhosek 5y agoWhen I taught LaTeX classes, I would often see students highlighting whole pages of the class notes I passed out. I often said that I should just print them on yellow paper to save them the trouble.
- 5y ago
- archhn 5y agoI like it. The author is being real. This is what he sincerely thinks. You don't have to agree with everything an author says. I for one appreciate the candor. It's also a proven fact that many smartphone applications are effectively dispensers of dopamine at regular intervals. People check their social media like smokers take a smoke break. The author is right...albeit a bit terse and dramatic.
- Tarq0n 5y agoSharing one's thoughts candidly is worth less than good epistemology.
- archhn 5y agoThere's always some truth behind genuine expression, even it happens to be riddled with lies.
- 323 5y agoAuthor says "In particular, never, ever, learn from the internet", but then author makes a website teaching things. Hmm
- archhn 5y agoThe site is an advertisement for his books. I think he's just old fashioned and believes learning from physical paper books is superior. He even has a link at the bottom of his site that says "Paper book lovers."
- bitexploder 5y agoBut we have studied learning and how memories are formed. I hate when people make stuff up because it worked for them it must work for everyone. Things like spaced repetition and Khan academy are completely valid ways to learn.
- tvanantwerp 5y agoI can't say what the author's intent was, but I see two ways to parse this: one I disagree with, one I agree with. The disagreeable interpretation is that the only way to learn is from a pristine book. This is so obviously stupid that I see no reason to discuss it further. The other interpretation, which I think is more useful but unclear from the text, is that _passive activities are subpar learning activities_. From what I've read of effective studying techniques, things like highlighting text don't help. Active recall techniques like spaced repetition are much more useful for cementing learned knowledge. Likewise, if you're "learning" from a screen by just staring at it, consuming it, then your knowledge-to-inputs ratio is going to be low. I've watched plenty of YouTube videos on how to do numerous things, but I couldn't do any of them on the spot because I've never tried. The knowledge went in one ear and out the other. The material must be engaged with somehow.
- zaphar 5y agohighlighting and underlining don't per-se cause you to learn. However they do have two useful properties. 1. The act of looking for and underlining or highlighting text helps you to focus on identifying core ideas or concepts in the text. 2. Underlined and highlighted text are useful as hints when reviewing a text and reviewing a text is a critical part of learning. These properties are so helpful that many texts actively help you to absorb their content by bolding, underlining, or otherwise calling attention to core concepts and ideas for you.
- sockaddr 5y ago> The disagreeable interpretation is that the only way to learn is from a pristine book. This is so obviously stupid that I see no reason to discuss it further. Agreed. I actually prefer to see markings in used books I'm reading. Not only does it provide possibly useful context into how another person is thinking about the topic, but it even makes it feel like there's a bit of friendship or community in the book.
- abdullahkhalids 5y agoIf you steelman the author's claim, the unsaid interpretation is, the optimal way of learning Physics is to solve questions. Lots of them. On the order of thousands for an undergrad Physics curriculum. Reading the textbook and getting some concepts out is only a precursor to real understanding which is when you apply those concepts to scenarios in questions. Far too many people get stuck thinking reading the book and highlighting is sufficient, but it is only the foreplay not real sex.