Non-Linear Learning Works

Feel free to learn things in any order that works best for you.

“I’m a very organised and rational and linear thinker, and you have to stop all that to write a novel.” Hilary Mantel

Starting with our first day of school, most of us were programmed to think of learning as a linear process. In other words, the predetermined curriculum says first you learn this, then you learn this, then you learn this, and so on. Sometimes that’s an effective way to learn things, but it is not the only way.

We are all innately curious human beings. It’s built into our humanity that we naturally explore our world and learn. If you think about our more primitive ancestors and how they learned, it was not in a linear, planned fashion. Instead, they learned amid often tumultuous and challenging environments in which they had to react and adjust to the information they gathered along the way. They continually experienced something, decided if that was a good or bad thing, self-corrected if necessary, and tried something again until they got it right.

This is also why real-world experiences often teach us better than classroom-based instruction. Formal methods of teaching aren’t the only way to learn. Real-life situations engage us in a total immersion, self-correcting style of learning that’s an incredibly effective learning method. That is why…