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The key claim of this post is buried in the middle: > preliminary learning is quite bad for learning tools but is the only way of learning concepts. This clai

The key claim of this post is buried in the middle: > preliminary learning is quite bad for learning tools but is the only way of learning concepts. This claim is not justified. Why must concepts be learned just-in-case (preliminary) rather than just-in-time (on demand)? I can imagine you might struggle to get a good map of some territory, or a deep explanation of why something is true, without a teacher and/or setting aside some time. But what does this have to do with just-in-case versus just-in-time?

shkkmo 4y ago
I agree, the article conflates several different learning dichotomies that are often only loosely correlated. The specific quote you include isn't totally wrong, but it overstates the connection and ignores the contextual differences that maken it more or less true. One of those contexts in the amount of time pressure vs. slack time you have. When you are under lots of time pressure, it's harder to take the time to learn concepts and easy to skip straight to tools. To me, this indicates that the author has misunderstood the cause of the problem. The problem isn't that tool learning replaces concept learning, but that workplace/management cultures commonly don't value concept learning and as a result don't schedule time for it or reward it.
- deleted 4y ago
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- civilized 4y ago
  Yeah, it seems like the author is reasoning like "concept learning can't happen at work, it can only happen at school where there's time, and school is a just-in-case learning environment". I would hope we can reconsider whether concept learning can really never happen at work!
commandlinefan 4y ago
> Why must concepts be learned just-in-case (preliminary) rather than just-in-time (on demand) Because you don't know which concepts you need unless you already know what they are.
- civilized 4y ago
  It's unclear how just-in-case learning solves this problem. By learning more things "just in case" you might happen upon the thing you didn't know you didn't know, or you might not. It's a shot in the dark and could waste a lot of time.

shkkmo 4y ago

I agree, the article conflates several different learning dichotomies that are often only loosely correlated. The specific quote you include isn't totally wrong, but it overstates the connection and ignores the contextual differences that maken it more or less true. One of those contexts in the amount of time pressure vs. slack time you have. When you are under lots of time pressure, it's harder to take the time to learn concepts and easy to skip straight to tools. To me, this indicates that the author has misunderstood the cause of the problem. The problem isn't that tool learning replaces concept learning, but that workplace/management cultures commonly don't value concept learning and as a result don't schedule time for it or reward it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
civilized 4y ago
Yeah, it seems like the author is reasoning like "concept learning can't happen at work, it can only happen at school where there's time, and school is a just-in-case learning environment". I would hope we can reconsider whether concept learning can really never happen at work!

commandlinefan 4y ago

> Why must concepts be learned just-in-case (preliminary) rather than just-in-time (on demand) Because you don't know which concepts you need unless you already know what they are.

civilized 4y ago
It's unclear how just-in-case learning solves this problem. By learning more things "just in case" you might happen upon the thing you didn't know you didn't know, or you might not. It's a shot in the dark and could waste a lot of time.