7 ms·

“Learning how to Learn” will be next generation's most needed skill

139 points by Brajeshwar 1y ago

lemonberry 1y ago
I'd place this skill, "Learning how to Learn", with Cal Newport's notion of "Deep Work". Part of me wants to say that the latter is a precondition of the former, but I'm not sure that's the case.
uninformedprior 1y ago
If you need to learn how to learn then you don't know how to learn. How can you learn to learn if you don't know how to learn? Jokes aside I'm really into learning science and make youtube videos covering learning and learning papers + an ipad app. I keep a running list of my favorite learn-to-learn resources here: https://www.ahmni.app/blog/learn-to-learn-resource-list https://www.ahmni.app/blog/learn-to-learn-resource-list If I had to recommend only one resource it would be: The ABCs of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them by Schwartz
- Viliam1234 1y ago
  > How can you learn to learn if you don't know how to learn? Obviously, first you need to learn how to learn how to learn. I believe that this will be the most important skill in the future. Once you have mastered it, you can easily learn how to learn. And then you are ready to learn. It's incredible how many people try to learn how to learn these days, without spending some time learning how to learn how to learn first. Our education is failing.
- smokel 1y ago
  Even though you might be joking, I think this is a very relevant point. To take it a step further, one also has to be willing to learn to learn how to learn. I wonder if intrinsic motivation for this can be nurtured, or whether it is up to chance.
  - obbie3 1y ago
    I think the learning science itself offers solutions to this. Intrinsic motivation is apart of learning theory, specifically in the affective domain. In practice, the problem you run into, even with intrinsically motivated learners, is that they will not use the active learning techniques they are studying. Often times they will revert back to rote memorization, highlighting, re-reading, copying notes, cramming, etc rather than use the things they are learning about learning to learn the subject of learning itself. I think you have to start with: 1) Teaching learning in the first place. No one teaches learning how to learn, so we should just start there. We already have captive audiences in the form of schools, we just put the cart before the horse and teach subjects and hope the skill of learning emerges. This is poor pedagogy. 2) Work with the students and ensure that they are actually using the learning techniques they are being taught on the subject of learning itself. This is the only way I've seen it work. If you try to learn how to learn using passive learning techniques, you won't learn the subject of learning, which is what I think OP was referring to. People who do not know how to learn use passive learning techniques which results in rapid forgetting. They have to use the active learning techniques they are learning on the subject of learning itself.
  - uninformedprior 1y ago
    There are so many barriers to good learning. I like the saying "Maslow before Bloom", which refers to the two popular taxonomies. It succinctly captures the idea that students need food, shelter, and safety in order to learn effectively.
Earw0rm 1y ago
Long has been. Best bit of career advice I ever got, back in the 90s: "Get really good at the help system". (At the time, it was MSDN DVDs).
majormajor 1y ago
"Teach to the test" started this a while ago - memorizing and then forgetting bullet points vs engaging more deeply with a subject. If we're lucky, LLMs force people to put more effort into assignments and grading and then that would help kids learn to learn as well.
- ArekDymalski 1y ago
  > If we're lucky, LLMs force people to put more effort into assignments and grading and then that would help kids learn to learn as well. I'm afraid it might be exactly opposite. Having all the knowledge at hand. all the time will lead to knowledge atrophy. Just like it already happens with ability to travel without navigation.
- kg 1y ago
  With how rapidly LLMs are improving, I don't know how you would construct assignments that can't be solved relatively quickly by a student feeding it into a bleeding-edge LLM. Especially since teachers often aren't PhDs and are overworked, the idea of every class of students getting handed brand new problems that aren't in the training set feels far-fetched. I hope somebody figures this out but I don't know what the solution looks like.
- dotnet00 1y ago
  I think that's a somewhat unfair framing of the issue, since it isn't a lack of effort from teachers, but rather the pressures from higher levels towards increasing test scores. LLMs don't really change that. There's also the fact that kids are being taught the very basics, the sorts of things increasingly intelligent models are most likely to be able to solve first. I don't think there's any level of effort that can be put into designing assignments to get around this. Similar to how teachers haven't really been able to do anything to stop kids from sticking their algebra problems into wolframalpha or other tools besides just making them do the work in class (which then cuts into teaching time). Beyond a certain point, all that can be done is for teachers to try to instill the importance of practice into students, and for parents to be more proactive in monitoring how their kid is doing their homework. Maybe we'll see an increase in after-school classes for kids to do homework in, under teacher supervision.
bshacklett 1y ago
We’re in dire need of this right now. The number of people that I work with who refuse to pick up new tools and technologies is astounding. If they _do_ try something new, they seem to avoid all but the most basic knowledge of whatever it is, and look at me crosseyed if I suggest going the slightest bit deeper (`git add -p` rather than `git add .`, for example).
- rurp 1y ago
  I'm sure it varies a lot place to place but I've experienced much more of the opposite in the tech industry. I've heard countless times that we should switch to a different tool because it's newer, from someone who couldn't name a single specific way it's better than the existing tool. I see so much busy work at my employers and in products I use where things get changed just for the sake of change, without getting any better.
  - dotnet00 1y ago
    I feel like it's a mix of both, depending on how familiar thungs are. It's probably much easier for someone in tech to try moving to a new tool for no real reason than it is for them to learn a bit of CAD and a bit of electronics to make a widget (again, for no real reason).
rolph 1y ago
Google's top AI scientist says 'learning how to learn' will be next generation's most needed skill https://techxplore.com/news/2025-09-google-ai-scientist-generation-skill.html https://techxplore.com/news/2025-09-google-ai-scientist-gene...
quantum_state 1y ago
Learning how to learn is the most important skill to acquire in school. If I may add, learning how to learn effectively is a lifetime journey.
fzwang 1y ago
I run a program for high schoolers to emphasize this skill. However, the entire K-University pipeline is designed around credentialism. Ie. do whatever you need to, cram/cheat/regurgitate, to get the rubber stamp. It's really hard to communicate the importance of self-directed education/learning how to learn when the vast majority of students' formal educational experiences tell them otherwise. Very frustrating but perhaps things are changing ...
- voxl 1y ago
  School has two competing goals and this will never change: 1. Have the kids learn new things 2. Have the kids reach a desired level of competency Learning happens where you are at, not where the teacher wants you to be. Every student is at a different place in understanding. It's impossible without 1-on-1 instruction to really maximize learning. Competency is only determined via testing. Learning doesn't require testing at all, you can just speak to a student to get a good idea if they're making some progress, any progress. Competency? That basically demands a test, because it has a particular bar in mind. Now students know they need to pass the bar, somehow, but the anxiety of that is going to cause issues with them just trying to learn. This is unfixable though, because the outside pressures demand students have some level of competency otherwise teachers are viewed as failures.
  - fzwang 1y ago
    I agree. Imo, #2 is becoming more of an emphasis over time. Teacher don't have much time/energy to pursue #1. Eventually, most of them stop caring and rely on testing metrics because that's what the admins want. It's amazing what kids can learn if they just spent a little bit of time with a 1-on-1 instructor/advisor. The anxiety you mentioned can be crippling and something I deal with regularly. Even some of the "gifted" kids (perhaps due to the expectations) have trouble avoiding the trap of overindexing on productivity/competency metrics. They're not even self aware of it, just accepts it as normal. For most kids I have to go through the exercise of separating these two concerns, the learning part and the signaling part, early so they can put things in perspective.
- calf 1y ago
dfxm12 1y ago
The importance of "learning how to learn" has been emphasized by all of my teachers since I was in highschool, or maybe even 8th grade, decades ago. My computer engineering professors also emphasized user centered design. For one of Google's top scientists to bring this up is an admission that they won't, or can't, design a good user experience for their tools.
- growingkittens 1y ago
  I remember the same thing. That doesn't mean they knew how to teach us to "learn how to learn". Neither does it mean that the underlying education system supported that goal. Same goes for user-centered design. Trying to make something user-friendly is one thing, successfully doing it is another. Large organizations are especially poor at user-friendly design because the underlying structures which support that goal don't exist. Organizational science is still in its infancy.
  - threatofrain 1y ago
    The US education system only has one mode, and thats to survive in a slim way with overworked staff and huge classrooms. 40 kids in a math class is seen as normal. Everything you see of its character, including emphasizing tests and practice, follows from that. Talking about good UX is miles away.
    - borroka 1y ago
      It's a problem that goes beyond the United States, overworked staff, and constraints in general, although these are legitimate concerns. I studied in a non-US country, but the attention paid by teachers to pedagogy was virtually zero. I mean, we had five years of English classes in high school, and by the end of high school, less than five out of 30 people in my cohort were able to string a couple of sentences together in English. And my class was made up of serious, studious young people. It seems to me that the time was not well spent, but did the teacher, a caring and generally competent person, reflect on the poor results? I highly doubt it.
borroka 1y ago
One issue that is not discussed enough when talking about learning is mental preparation for learning. We have all had days when learning seemed easier than on other days, but we didn't pay too much attention to it, or we thought that the subject we were learning was more favorable to us, or we classified it as one of the many inexplicable or unrepeatable circumstances of life. While we understand the importance of warming up for physical activity and recognize the need for a certain aptitude for running, weightlifting, or boxing, when it comes to more intellectual activities, we often leave things to chance: sometimes we are more alert and receptive, while at other times we are less so. Over the years, I have found enormous benefit in practicing autogenic training, a more Western and scientific version of meditative practices that today seem to arouse the interest of those who deal with these things. I am mentally more alert, more receptive, and learning, which is always challenging, is faster.
- fuzzzerd 1y ago
  > autogenic training, a more Western and scientific version of meditative practices Do you have any tips for learning more and getting started? I have searched a bit, but always appreciate anecdotes of those that have found success enough to speak about it.
  - borroka 1y ago
    I will probably write a book on this topic because there is not enough material in English. But the practice is fairly simple overall and only requires time and a positive attitude. Since there is a somatic response, it is always easy to tell if it is “working", especially for the "lower" exercises. Originally, it had to be taught by MDs, according to Dr. Schultz--the inventor of the method--and his followers, but that ship has long sailed. It is fairly easy to find a copy of Karl Rosa's book “Autogenic Training”, a good starting point, and Luthe's in-depth multi-volume analysis of autogenic training, though I would only recommend the latter to the most avid enthusiasts.
- uninformedprior 1y ago
  > We have all had days when learning seemed easier than on other days Unfortunately it's hard to trust our feelings on this. There is a lot of literature that demonstrates an inverse relationship between how well we felt we learned and how well we actually learned. > mental preparation for learning This is actually really big in the learning literature. It's not meditation, though, it's priming through pretesting and prior knowledge activation. These types of "warm ups" have outsized effects on retention and understanding.
6stringmerc 1y ago
As a Curriculum Designer and OG dial-up Millennial I agree wholeheartedly. Too late though. Enlightenment, collaboration, and advancing human experience isn't profitable. In other words, until one learns how to hammer a nail, it's unreasonable to assume knowledge of how to tell another to do so. AI is no exception. It's speed-running US society's final threads being severed, and okay, sigh, here we go. No, I'm not interested in fixing the problems he's identifying. My ex had a saying from bench science..."if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitant." That part. Off to go live in a van down by the river...
back2dafucha 1y ago
Xlation: Classic Corporate America Condescension. Trust me if google can do something anyone can. They are trying to "define" what "they" "want" from a "compliant workforce"
mightybyte 1y ago
One of my favorite pieces on this topic is this talk "Stop Treading Water: Learning to Learn": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0XmixCsWjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0XmixCsWjs
confidantlake 1y ago
Feels like a bit of a useless cliche. Being able to learn has far more to do with iq than any pedagogical technique.
- pstuart 1y ago
  I think there's an element of curiosity that is innate, and that make a huge difference. For those so blessed, learning is fun and a welcome activity (there's an entirely separate issue of actually applying any of knowledge but at least it's a start). That said, teachers can make all the difference in connecting with students to guide them into discovery vs. cramming facts into their heads to satisfy testing metrics.
seydor 1y ago
I think all knowlwdge "work" is bust. Selling knowlwdge will be like selling knitted socks. People who do stuff will make money
- kg 1y ago
  A lot of what people think of as "doing stuff" relies on years or decades of training and experience. When you pay someone to maintain part of your house or to create bespoke furniture or repair your car you're not just paying for labor, you're paying for labor from someone with knowledge and equipment.
csours 1y ago
I know we're all good little rational kids here, but even rationalists need to learn about emotions. Strong emotional responses are currently holding back human advancement. If you look closely at history, it has been always thus. ** "in my opinion" is always implied, unless a source is given ** Reading about airline crashes has radically changed how I view blame. The way I was raised and the choices I made as an adult have given me a relatively rare point of view: people are made of humans, and humans are made of animals, and animals have limited capabilities. I can explain someone's actions, or I can excuse someone's actions, and the difference is largely in the mind of the beholder. Social punishment is micro and macro. On the macro it looks like shared morality and it feels like safety. On the micro it looks like emotional invalidation and it feels like danger and isolation.
o4c 1y ago
/s ! Future internet road maps be like: Join the Generalist bootcamp, it includes big picture of the world and everything, anything you ever need. Full access subscriptions at $1000. You will Learn the following things: Analytic philosophy, Mathematical logic, Pure and applied math, Physics, CS, Systems thinking, Engineering(Mech + electronics), creative problem solving And finally one art subject Beginer Projects: Wafer stage design. Model nano tech projects. Small nuclear fusion reactors. Portable TEM machine. Pre-req: Just enough maturity. You should be curious, persistence & hardworking. We assume you will practise problem solving till you die. Outcomes of the bootcamp: Job guaranteed at fortune 500. Testimonials: We have so many happy customers working for companies having trillion dollar values.
- rkhassen9 1y ago
  Horror of horrors. Please no.
bryanrasmussen 1y ago
first off it doesn't seem to be taught at the moment, but also I'm pretty sure that has always been the most important and foundational skill, and it seems like there might be an upper bound for what percentage of people can actually learn it.
everyone 1y ago
Imo it's simple, just learn by doing and making stuff.
- rkhassen9 1y ago
  Care to say more?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
toast0 1y ago
> Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries a lesson. -- from "The Humanity of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
- sam_lowry_ 1y ago
  Also, The Profession by Isaak Asimov is entirely dedicated to the importance of learning. https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2024/04/05/profession-by-isaac-asimov/ https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2024/04/05/profession-b...
  - godelski 1y ago
    That story had a profound impact on me when I read it as a kid. It encouraged me to learn for the sake of learning and to not get worked up over some test result. Many times the test is measuring something different than you think, than even the testers think. It encouraged me to look at things differently, so find more depth. To realize that to make things different you also have to do things differently. Reading again as I've become older I can see Asimov's call to fix education in the US and how much he resented the growing anti-scientific movements. As a child I thought it would be cool to belong to this elite group of "tape makers" (people who create knowledge)[0]. But as an adult I realized the naivety and grotesqueness of a society constructed in such a way. It is inhumane because it turns man into machine, with only a few being allowed to even be given the chance to explore the world around them. It's a really good read. I highly recommend. It's old Sci-Fi, so can be rough, but I feel it has aged well. It's under 50 pages, so easy to finish in a single sitting. It's in Asimov's "The Complete Stories Vol I" if you find a copy, but you can find it online or I believe it is also in "The Asimov Chronicles". It's also HN, so I hope everyone knows ways to get those... Btw, the Wiki[1] has spoilers. Do not read the paragraph starting with "Suddenly a stranger appears" nor the one that follows. Here's a short non-spoiler version instead: In the 66th century, school doesn't exist and instead people are educated through a direct download into their brain. They learn to read at 8 and are fully educated at 18, allowing them to live their lives as children do. Our protagonist, George, differs than his peers, being a nerd and using his new found ability to read to read whatever he can get his hands on. At 18, children are fully educated, tested, and then assigned careers by their aptitudes. George stands out, his test results suggest he is mentally challenged, is not given a designated career, and thus is not allowed to be further educated. Not being fit for any career or education, they commit him to psychiatric ward where he'll live out the rest of his days. [0] In some sense I still do. I have a deep passion for research and my dream job would be somebody giving me money to just explore my ideas. Probably not too far off from what people imagine a tenured professor does, though that's quite different from what one actually does. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession_(novella) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession_(novella)
singpolyma3 1y ago
This is every generation's .ort needed skill
tobr 1y ago
Terrible article. Did Hassabis really say ”learning how to learn” is itself a skill, like the article paraphrases it? Surely the skill isn’t that you can learn how to learn, the skill is that you know how to learn. Just like ”learning to ride a bike” isn’t a skill; it’s something you do once, leading to a useful skill. ”Learning how to learn” sounds vaguely insightful just because of the repetition, but if you think for a bit about what it actually means it falls apart.
obbie3 1y ago
Learning is a nontrivial skill even though it has historically been treated as such. It requires an embodied understanding of concepts from basic cognitive psychology, expertise theory, behavioral-affective psychology, metacognition, and more. Until people stop with the platitudes of "learning how to learn is important" and start teaching/training the subject directly as a skill that must be acquired, this will not change. Simply showing a learner a few slides on spaced retrieval will not cut it.
pdntspa 1y ago
Leaning how to think critically is what the next genertion's most needed skill SHOULD be
freefaler 1y ago
The best practical book I found that is way better than overly generic books on "deep work" is Jason Skycak's "Advice on Upskilling" https://www.justinmath.com/books/ https://www.justinmath.com/books/ (scroll for the second one) He is a math guy, who worked in Wall Street and then left and now works on math academy buidling models to improve learning. It's great, well researched and practical book. However, it's not easy at all. Go check it out. It's free and he has published google docs version.
- _boffin_ 1y ago
  Have you ever checked out Richard Hamming’s book, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn? He also has an amazing lecture series on YouTube from the naval institute up in Monterey based off this book
  - freefaler 1y ago
    Yes, but they aren't very detailed to a tactical, day-to-day level. He talks more about the strategy, how to choose the problem you're working on and etc... They are very good, just not that down to earth for regular people.
    - _boffin_ 1y ago
      Nice take of it. That makes sense. Looking forward to checking out what you provided.
- tra3 1y ago
  I looked through the google docs version 0 on my phone, it’s pretty interesting. Is there an epub or PDFs versions? 0 https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/17qFY5w9uEWL4VVyJSTEmSSRyvegh_Y4N6NMSxwCmGaE/mobilebasic https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/17qFY5w9uEWL4VVyJSTEm...
  - freefaler 1y ago
    You can export the google docs version to epub: File > Download > epub
MaysonL 1y ago
https://idriesshahfoundation.org/books/learning-how-to-learn/ https://idriesshahfoundation.org/books/learning-how-to-learn...
alexashka 1y ago
This generation's most needed skill is being born to rich parents. But it'll be totally different in the next generation. Trust me, bro, I'm rich - so I must know what I'm talking about.
Mathnerd314 1y ago
there is a book/course by that name, it's decent I would say https://www.amazon.com/Learning-How-Learn-Spending-Studying/dp/0143132547 https://www.amazon.com/Learning-How-Learn-Spending-Studying/... https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
theturtle 1y ago
For decades, I've said You don't go to college to get a job You don't go to college to get a degree You don't go to college to learn things You go to college to LEARN HOW TO LEARN If you do that, all the other things will come to you. If you get out of college and have not learned how to learn, your "degree" is toilet paper.
ivansavz 1y ago
We could simplify it even further: it's all about intellectual stamina. From my personal experience and from my observations of others, the limiting factor to learning is the availability of mental energy to persevere/endure in the learning process. You have a problem. Either an academic homework problem or a real-world problem of some sort (think error message in the console). You try one thing but it doesn't work... then another, and still you're not making progress. You're starting to realize solving this problem is not obvious and will require some "brain sweat" and you have to make a choice whether to invest the hour (or day!) of your time to learn enough to solve your problem. Learners willingness to persevere in their efforts to solve the problem depends on lots of factors, but most importantly they are conditional on the level of learners' interest/motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic). Ideally, learners will be motivated purely by the "knowledge buzz" of learning new concepts and seeing the connections between them, but any source of motivation is OK: as long as it pushes/pulls you enough to go through the necessary learning and solve the problem. I recognize that learning to learn is a useful multiplier, but learners need to have base rate of (1) intellectual stamina (brain muscles?) and (2) interest/motivation to push through. Otherwise learning is not going to be happening.

139 points by Brajeshwar 1y ago

I'd place this skill, "Learning how to Learn", with Cal Newport's notion of "Deep Work". Part of me wants to say that the latter is a precondition of the former, but I'm not sure that's the case.

uninformedprior 1y ago

If you need to learn how to learn then you don't know how to learn. How can you learn to learn if you don't know how to learn? Jokes aside I'm really into learning science and make youtube videos covering learning and learning papers + an ipad app. I keep a running list of my favorite learn-to-learn resources here: https://www.ahmni.app/blog/learn-to-learn-resource-list https://www.ahmni.app/blog/learn-to-learn-resource-list If I had to recommend only one resource it would be: The ABCs of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them by Schwartz

Viliam1234 1y ago
> How can you learn to learn if you don't know how to learn? Obviously, first you need to learn how to learn how to learn. I believe that this will be the most important skill in the future. Once you have mastered it, you can easily learn how to learn. And then you are ready to learn. It's incredible how many people try to learn how to learn these days, without spending some time learning how to learn how to learn first. Our education is failing.
smokel 1y ago
Even though you might be joking, I think this is a very relevant point. To take it a step further, one also has to be willing to learn to learn how to learn. I wonder if intrinsic motivation for this can be nurtured, or whether it is up to chance.
- obbie3 1y ago
  I think the learning science itself offers solutions to this. Intrinsic motivation is apart of learning theory, specifically in the affective domain. In practice, the problem you run into, even with intrinsically motivated learners, is that they will not use the active learning techniques they are studying. Often times they will revert back to rote memorization, highlighting, re-reading, copying notes, cramming, etc rather than use the things they are learning about learning to learn the subject of learning itself. I think you have to start with: 1) Teaching learning in the first place. No one teaches learning how to learn, so we should just start there. We already have captive audiences in the form of schools, we just put the cart before the horse and teach subjects and hope the skill of learning emerges. This is poor pedagogy. 2) Work with the students and ensure that they are actually using the learning techniques they are being taught on the subject of learning itself. This is the only way I've seen it work. If you try to learn how to learn using passive learning techniques, you won't learn the subject of learning, which is what I think OP was referring to. People who do not know how to learn use passive learning techniques which results in rapid forgetting. They have to use the active learning techniques they are learning on the subject of learning itself.
- uninformedprior 1y ago
  There are so many barriers to good learning. I like the saying "Maslow before Bloom", which refers to the two popular taxonomies. It succinctly captures the idea that students need food, shelter, and safety in order to learn effectively.

Earw0rm 1y ago

Long has been. Best bit of career advice I ever got, back in the 90s: "Get really good at the help system". (At the time, it was MSDN DVDs).

majormajor 1y ago

"Teach to the test" started this a while ago - memorizing and then forgetting bullet points vs engaging more deeply with a subject. If we're lucky, LLMs force people to put more effort into assignments and grading and then that would help kids learn to learn as well.

ArekDymalski 1y ago
> If we're lucky, LLMs force people to put more effort into assignments and grading and then that would help kids learn to learn as well. I'm afraid it might be exactly opposite. Having all the knowledge at hand. all the time will lead to knowledge atrophy. Just like it already happens with ability to travel without navigation.
kg 1y ago
With how rapidly LLMs are improving, I don't know how you would construct assignments that can't be solved relatively quickly by a student feeding it into a bleeding-edge LLM. Especially since teachers often aren't PhDs and are overworked, the idea of every class of students getting handed brand new problems that aren't in the training set feels far-fetched. I hope somebody figures this out but I don't know what the solution looks like.
dotnet00 1y ago
I think that's a somewhat unfair framing of the issue, since it isn't a lack of effort from teachers, but rather the pressures from higher levels towards increasing test scores. LLMs don't really change that. There's also the fact that kids are being taught the very basics, the sorts of things increasingly intelligent models are most likely to be able to solve first. I don't think there's any level of effort that can be put into designing assignments to get around this. Similar to how teachers haven't really been able to do anything to stop kids from sticking their algebra problems into wolframalpha or other tools besides just making them do the work in class (which then cuts into teaching time). Beyond a certain point, all that can be done is for teachers to try to instill the importance of practice into students, and for parents to be more proactive in monitoring how their kid is doing their homework. Maybe we'll see an increase in after-school classes for kids to do homework in, under teacher supervision.

bshacklett 1y ago

We’re in dire need of this right now. The number of people that I work with who refuse to pick up new tools and technologies is astounding. If they _do_ try something new, they seem to avoid all but the most basic knowledge of whatever it is, and look at me crosseyed if I suggest going the slightest bit deeper (`git add -p` rather than `git add .`, for example).

rurp 1y ago
I'm sure it varies a lot place to place but I've experienced much more of the opposite in the tech industry. I've heard countless times that we should switch to a different tool because it's newer, from someone who couldn't name a single specific way it's better than the existing tool. I see so much busy work at my employers and in products I use where things get changed just for the sake of change, without getting any better.
- dotnet00 1y ago
  I feel like it's a mix of both, depending on how familiar thungs are. It's probably much easier for someone in tech to try moving to a new tool for no real reason than it is for them to learn a bit of CAD and a bit of electronics to make a widget (again, for no real reason).

rolph 1y ago

Google's top AI scientist says 'learning how to learn' will be next generation's most needed skill https://techxplore.com/news/2025-09-google-ai-scientist-generation-skill.html https://techxplore.com/news/2025-09-google-ai-scientist-gene...

quantum_state 1y ago

Learning how to learn is the most important skill to acquire in school. If I may add, learning how to learn effectively is a lifetime journey.

fzwang 1y ago

I run a program for high schoolers to emphasize this skill. However, the entire K-University pipeline is designed around credentialism. Ie. do whatever you need to, cram/cheat/regurgitate, to get the rubber stamp. It's really hard to communicate the importance of self-directed education/learning how to learn when the vast majority of students' formal educational experiences tell them otherwise. Very frustrating but perhaps things are changing ...

voxl 1y ago
School has two competing goals and this will never change: 1. Have the kids learn new things 2. Have the kids reach a desired level of competency Learning happens where you are at, not where the teacher wants you to be. Every student is at a different place in understanding. It's impossible without 1-on-1 instruction to really maximize learning. Competency is only determined via testing. Learning doesn't require testing at all, you can just speak to a student to get a good idea if they're making some progress, any progress. Competency? That basically demands a test, because it has a particular bar in mind. Now students know they need to pass the bar, somehow, but the anxiety of that is going to cause issues with them just trying to learn. This is unfixable though, because the outside pressures demand students have some level of competency otherwise teachers are viewed as failures.
- fzwang 1y ago
  I agree. Imo, #2 is becoming more of an emphasis over time. Teacher don't have much time/energy to pursue #1. Eventually, most of them stop caring and rely on testing metrics because that's what the admins want. It's amazing what kids can learn if they just spent a little bit of time with a 1-on-1 instructor/advisor. The anxiety you mentioned can be crippling and something I deal with regularly. Even some of the "gifted" kids (perhaps due to the expectations) have trouble avoiding the trap of overindexing on productivity/competency metrics. They're not even self aware of it, just accepts it as normal. For most kids I have to go through the exercise of separating these two concerns, the learning part and the signaling part, early so they can put things in perspective.
calf 1y ago

dfxm12 1y ago

The importance of "learning how to learn" has been emphasized by all of my teachers since I was in highschool, or maybe even 8th grade, decades ago. My computer engineering professors also emphasized user centered design. For one of Google's top scientists to bring this up is an admission that they won't, or can't, design a good user experience for their tools.

growingkittens 1y ago
I remember the same thing. That doesn't mean they knew how to teach us to "learn how to learn". Neither does it mean that the underlying education system supported that goal. Same goes for user-centered design. Trying to make something user-friendly is one thing, successfully doing it is another. Large organizations are especially poor at user-friendly design because the underlying structures which support that goal don't exist. Organizational science is still in its infancy.
- threatofrain 1y ago
  The US education system only has one mode, and thats to survive in a slim way with overworked staff and huge classrooms. 40 kids in a math class is seen as normal. Everything you see of its character, including emphasizing tests and practice, follows from that. Talking about good UX is miles away.
  - borroka 1y ago
    It's a problem that goes beyond the United States, overworked staff, and constraints in general, although these are legitimate concerns. I studied in a non-US country, but the attention paid by teachers to pedagogy was virtually zero. I mean, we had five years of English classes in high school, and by the end of high school, less than five out of 30 people in my cohort were able to string a couple of sentences together in English. And my class was made up of serious, studious young people. It seems to me that the time was not well spent, but did the teacher, a caring and generally competent person, reflect on the poor results? I highly doubt it.

borroka 1y ago

One issue that is not discussed enough when talking about learning is mental preparation for learning. We have all had days when learning seemed easier than on other days, but we didn't pay too much attention to it, or we thought that the subject we were learning was more favorable to us, or we classified it as one of the many inexplicable or unrepeatable circumstances of life. While we understand the importance of warming up for physical activity and recognize the need for a certain aptitude for running, weightlifting, or boxing, when it comes to more intellectual activities, we often leave things to chance: sometimes we are more alert and receptive, while at other times we are less so. Over the years, I have found enormous benefit in practicing autogenic training, a more Western and scientific version of meditative practices that today seem to arouse the interest of those who deal with these things. I am mentally more alert, more receptive, and learning, which is always challenging, is faster.

fuzzzerd 1y ago
> autogenic training, a more Western and scientific version of meditative practices Do you have any tips for learning more and getting started? I have searched a bit, but always appreciate anecdotes of those that have found success enough to speak about it.
- borroka 1y ago
  I will probably write a book on this topic because there is not enough material in English. But the practice is fairly simple overall and only requires time and a positive attitude. Since there is a somatic response, it is always easy to tell if it is “working", especially for the "lower" exercises. Originally, it had to be taught by MDs, according to Dr. Schultz--the inventor of the method--and his followers, but that ship has long sailed. It is fairly easy to find a copy of Karl Rosa's book “Autogenic Training”, a good starting point, and Luthe's in-depth multi-volume analysis of autogenic training, though I would only recommend the latter to the most avid enthusiasts.
uninformedprior 1y ago
> We have all had days when learning seemed easier than on other days Unfortunately it's hard to trust our feelings on this. There is a lot of literature that demonstrates an inverse relationship between how well we felt we learned and how well we actually learned. > mental preparation for learning This is actually really big in the learning literature. It's not meditation, though, it's priming through pretesting and prior knowledge activation. These types of "warm ups" have outsized effects on retention and understanding.

6stringmerc 1y ago

As a Curriculum Designer and OG dial-up Millennial I agree wholeheartedly. Too late though. Enlightenment, collaboration, and advancing human experience isn't profitable. In other words, until one learns how to hammer a nail, it's unreasonable to assume knowledge of how to tell another to do so. AI is no exception. It's speed-running US society's final threads being severed, and okay, sigh, here we go. No, I'm not interested in fixing the problems he's identifying. My ex had a saying from bench science..."if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitant." That part. Off to go live in a van down by the river...

back2dafucha 1y ago

Xlation: Classic Corporate America Condescension. Trust me if google can do something anyone can. They are trying to "define" what "they" "want" from a "compliant workforce"

mightybyte 1y ago

One of my favorite pieces on this topic is this talk "Stop Treading Water: Learning to Learn": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0XmixCsWjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0XmixCsWjs

confidantlake 1y ago

Feels like a bit of a useless cliche. Being able to learn has far more to do with iq than any pedagogical technique.

pstuart 1y ago
I think there's an element of curiosity that is innate, and that make a huge difference. For those so blessed, learning is fun and a welcome activity (there's an entirely separate issue of actually applying any of knowledge but at least it's a start). That said, teachers can make all the difference in connecting with students to guide them into discovery vs. cramming facts into their heads to satisfy testing metrics.

seydor 1y ago

I think all knowlwdge "work" is bust. Selling knowlwdge will be like selling knitted socks. People who do stuff will make money

kg 1y ago
A lot of what people think of as "doing stuff" relies on years or decades of training and experience. When you pay someone to maintain part of your house or to create bespoke furniture or repair your car you're not just paying for labor, you're paying for labor from someone with knowledge and equipment.

csours 1y ago

I know we're all good little rational kids here, but even rationalists need to learn about emotions. Strong emotional responses are currently holding back human advancement. If you look closely at history, it has been always thus. ** "in my opinion" is always implied, unless a source is given ** Reading about airline crashes has radically changed how I view blame. The way I was raised and the choices I made as an adult have given me a relatively rare point of view: people are made of humans, and humans are made of animals, and animals have limited capabilities. I can explain someone's actions, or I can excuse someone's actions, and the difference is largely in the mind of the beholder. Social punishment is micro and macro. On the macro it looks like shared morality and it feels like safety. On the micro it looks like emotional invalidation and it feels like danger and isolation.

o4c 1y ago

/s ! Future internet road maps be like: Join the Generalist bootcamp, it includes big picture of the world and everything, anything you ever need. Full access subscriptions at $1000. You will Learn the following things: Analytic philosophy, Mathematical logic, Pure and applied math, Physics, CS, Systems thinking, Engineering(Mech + electronics), creative problem solving And finally one art subject Beginer Projects: Wafer stage design. Model nano tech projects. Small nuclear fusion reactors. Portable TEM machine. Pre-req: Just enough maturity. You should be curious, persistence & hardworking. We assume you will practise problem solving till you die. Outcomes of the bootcamp: Job guaranteed at fortune 500. Testimonials: We have so many happy customers working for companies having trillion dollar values.

rkhassen9 1y ago
Horror of horrors. Please no.

bryanrasmussen 1y ago

first off it doesn't seem to be taught at the moment, but also I'm pretty sure that has always been the most important and foundational skill, and it seems like there might be an upper bound for what percentage of people can actually learn it.

everyone 1y ago

Imo it's simple, just learn by doing and making stuff.

rkhassen9 1y ago
Care to say more?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

toast0 1y ago

> Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries a lesson. -- from "The Humanity of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

sam_lowry_ 1y ago
Also, The Profession by Isaak Asimov is entirely dedicated to the importance of learning. https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2024/04/05/profession-by-isaac-asimov/ https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2024/04/05/profession-b...
- godelski 1y ago
  That story had a profound impact on me when I read it as a kid. It encouraged me to learn for the sake of learning and to not get worked up over some test result. Many times the test is measuring something different than you think, than even the testers think. It encouraged me to look at things differently, so find more depth. To realize that to make things different you also have to do things differently. Reading again as I've become older I can see Asimov's call to fix education in the US and how much he resented the growing anti-scientific movements. As a child I thought it would be cool to belong to this elite group of "tape makers" (people who create knowledge)[0]. But as an adult I realized the naivety and grotesqueness of a society constructed in such a way. It is inhumane because it turns man into machine, with only a few being allowed to even be given the chance to explore the world around them. It's a really good read. I highly recommend. It's old Sci-Fi, so can be rough, but I feel it has aged well. It's under 50 pages, so easy to finish in a single sitting. It's in Asimov's "The Complete Stories Vol I" if you find a copy, but you can find it online or I believe it is also in "The Asimov Chronicles". It's also HN, so I hope everyone knows ways to get those... Btw, the Wiki[1] has spoilers. Do not read the paragraph starting with "Suddenly a stranger appears" nor the one that follows. Here's a short non-spoiler version instead: In the 66th century, school doesn't exist and instead people are educated through a direct download into their brain. They learn to read at 8 and are fully educated at 18, allowing them to live their lives as children do. Our protagonist, George, differs than his peers, being a nerd and using his new found ability to read to read whatever he can get his hands on. At 18, children are fully educated, tested, and then assigned careers by their aptitudes. George stands out, his test results suggest he is mentally challenged, is not given a designated career, and thus is not allowed to be further educated. Not being fit for any career or education, they commit him to psychiatric ward where he'll live out the rest of his days. [0] In some sense I still do. I have a deep passion for research and my dream job would be somebody giving me money to just explore my ideas. Probably not too far off from what people imagine a tenured professor does, though that's quite different from what one actually does. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession_(novella) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession_(novella)

singpolyma3 1y ago

This is every generation's .ort needed skill

tobr 1y ago

Terrible article. Did Hassabis really say ”learning how to learn” is itself a skill, like the article paraphrases it? Surely the skill isn’t that you can learn how to learn, the skill is that you know how to learn. Just like ”learning to ride a bike” isn’t a skill; it’s something you do once, leading to a useful skill. ”Learning how to learn” sounds vaguely insightful just because of the repetition, but if you think for a bit about what it actually means it falls apart.

obbie3 1y ago

Learning is a nontrivial skill even though it has historically been treated as such. It requires an embodied understanding of concepts from basic cognitive psychology, expertise theory, behavioral-affective psychology, metacognition, and more. Until people stop with the platitudes of "learning how to learn is important" and start teaching/training the subject directly as a skill that must be acquired, this will not change. Simply showing a learner a few slides on spaced retrieval will not cut it.

pdntspa 1y ago

Leaning how to think critically is what the next genertion's most needed skill SHOULD be

freefaler 1y ago

The best practical book I found that is way better than overly generic books on "deep work" is Jason Skycak's "Advice on Upskilling" https://www.justinmath.com/books/ https://www.justinmath.com/books/ (scroll for the second one) He is a math guy, who worked in Wall Street and then left and now works on math academy buidling models to improve learning. It's great, well researched and practical book. However, it's not easy at all. Go check it out. It's free and he has published google docs version.

_boffin_ 1y ago
Have you ever checked out Richard Hamming’s book, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn? He also has an amazing lecture series on YouTube from the naval institute up in Monterey based off this book
- freefaler 1y ago
  Yes, but they aren't very detailed to a tactical, day-to-day level. He talks more about the strategy, how to choose the problem you're working on and etc... They are very good, just not that down to earth for regular people.
  - _boffin_ 1y ago
    Nice take of it. That makes sense. Looking forward to checking out what you provided.
tra3 1y ago
I looked through the google docs version 0 on my phone, it’s pretty interesting. Is there an epub or PDFs versions? 0 https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/17qFY5w9uEWL4VVyJSTEmSSRyvegh_Y4N6NMSxwCmGaE/mobilebasic https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/17qFY5w9uEWL4VVyJSTEm...
- freefaler 1y ago
  You can export the google docs version to epub: File > Download > epub

MaysonL 1y ago

https://idriesshahfoundation.org/books/learning-how-to-learn/ https://idriesshahfoundation.org/books/learning-how-to-learn...

alexashka 1y ago

This generation's most needed skill is being born to rich parents. But it'll be totally different in the next generation. Trust me, bro, I'm rich - so I must know what I'm talking about.

Mathnerd314 1y ago

there is a book/course by that name, it's decent I would say https://www.amazon.com/Learning-How-Learn-Spending-Studying/dp/0143132547 https://www.amazon.com/Learning-How-Learn-Spending-Studying/... https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

theturtle 1y ago

For decades, I've said You don't go to college to get a job You don't go to college to get a degree You don't go to college to learn things You go to college to LEARN HOW TO LEARN If you do that, all the other things will come to you. If you get out of college and have not learned how to learn, your "degree" is toilet paper.

ivansavz 1y ago

We could simplify it even further: it's all about intellectual stamina. From my personal experience and from my observations of others, the limiting factor to learning is the availability of mental energy to persevere/endure in the learning process. You have a problem. Either an academic homework problem or a real-world problem of some sort (think error message in the console). You try one thing but it doesn't work... then another, and still you're not making progress. You're starting to realize solving this problem is not obvious and will require some "brain sweat" and you have to make a choice whether to invest the hour (or day!) of your time to learn enough to solve your problem. Learners willingness to persevere in their efforts to solve the problem depends on lots of factors, but most importantly they are conditional on the level of learners' interest/motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic). Ideally, learners will be motivated purely by the "knowledge buzz" of learning new concepts and seeing the connections between them, but any source of motivation is OK: as long as it pushes/pulls you enough to go through the necessary learning and solve the problem. I recognize that learning to learn is a useful multiplier, but learners need to have base rate of (1) intellectual stamina (brain muscles?) and (2) interest/motivation to push through. Otherwise learning is not going to be happening.