The One Where We Geek Out on Learning with Hannah Maxwell

About Hannah Maxwell:

Hannah is a high school student living in Toronto, Canada. She’s also the daughter of OCMM co-host Adriana Villela. She loves showing off her artistic side, whether it’s through baking, sewing, painting, or knitting. You can see her creations on Instagram. Hannah has been bouldering since she was 3, and still enjoys going to the bouldering gym with her parents. Although both of her parents work in tech, Hannah would rather not spend her time sitting at a desk and staring at a computer all day. That’s why she’s planning on becoming a dentist when she grows up. 

Find our guest on:

• Instagram

Find us on:

• All of our social channels are on bento.me/geekingout
• Adriana’s Twitter
• Adriana’s Mastodon
• Adriana’s LinkedIn
• Adriana’s Instagram
• Adriana’s Bluesky

Transcript:

ADRIANA: Is this thing on?

HANNAH: Is this thing on?

ADRIANA: Is this thing on?

HANNAH: Is this thing on?

ADRIANA: Ready?

HANNAH: Yeah

ADRIANA: Hey Y'all. Welcome to Geeking Out, the podcast about all geeky aspects of software delivery, reliability, Observability,

TOGETHER: And everything in between.

HANNAH: I've heard this too many times.

ADRIANA: I'm your host, Adriana Villela, and with me for our very first episode of Geeking Out, I have my wonderful daughter and producer and just know overall, all around wonderful person.

HANNAH: I was going to say overall, just know your emotional support human. Actually, I think I cause you the opposite.

ADRIANA: My emotional support human, Hannah, and this is the first episode of Geeking Out, and I'm super excited to be bringing you this episode. You know, if you were a fan of the On Call Me Maybe podcast, you know, it's sad that the podcast has come to a close, but we have started this podcast talking about similar subject matter to On Call Me Maybe. And this time it's been a treat because Hannah is helping me with production of this podcast, because she has mad video editing skills.

HANNAH:I wouldn't say mad.

ADRIANA: And as a teenager is very tapped into this Youtube sub-culture...

HANNAH: I know the social media. I'm very self conscious of people walking by...

ADRIANA: Because we're recording outside. This was Hannah's idea. It's kind of nice. I mean, look, it's the end of summer. We're enjoying some outdoor time, right?

HANNAH: Yeah.

ADRIANA: Cool. Well, okay, so this very first episode of Geeking Out, I'm going to start off with a series of lightning round questions that I usually ask all my guests, and I guess my first guest is Hannah, so I'm going to read them off my phone. Sorry.

HANNAH: She doesn't have good memory.

ADRIANA: I don't.

HANNAH: Sorry if there's noise, but hopefully the microphone...

ADRIANA: I really hope so. Okay, first question. Are you a lefty or a righty?

HANNAH: Righty. But I wish I was a lefty.

ADRIANA: Because all cool people are lefties.

HANNAH: Like, honestly, leftiness is cool.

ADRIANA: It IS cool. I have to say, I love it. Okay, next question. iPhone or Android?

HANNAH: iPhone.

ADRIANA: Mac, Linux or Windows?

HANNAH: Mac? Is that correct? Is that correct?

ADRIANA: There's no wrong answer.

HANNAH: No, but I don't know. I only understand Mac.

ADRIANA: Okay, Mac it is. Okay. Favorite programming language.

HANNAH: HTML or Excel?

ADRIANA: I think Excel kind of counts.

HANNAH: Yeah.

ADRIANA: You'll see more in a future episode with Hazel Weakly.

HANNAH: Yeah, but in my business class, we had to basically code inside the cells of Excel, and then we had to make an invoice for a magic store.

ADRIANA: Yes, true. Okay, next question.

HANNAH: And HTML is great. I love HTML.

ADRIANA: I don't love HTML, sorry. Okay. Dev or ops

HANNAH: Dops.

ADRIANA: Dops! [laughts] JSON or YAML?

HANNAH: YAML! It sounds like, "ya", "yak", and "llama"

ADRIANA: Okay, awesome. That's great reasoning behind it. What is your superpower?

HANNAH: Okay, so I thought about this long and hard. Long and hard. Long and hard. Okay, that's actually a good question.

ADRIANA: I know. I just stuck it in, actually. This is a new. New for...

HANNAH: Okay. Super speed, because I feel like you can do so much with that.

ADRIANA: No, the question is not what superpower would you like? What is your actual current superpower? I'm super glad to know, though, that you would love super speed. I think that's actually a really good one, because it'd be nice to do.

HANNAH: I'm so embarrassed.

ADRIANA: Don't be embarrassed. This is hilarious. Don't worry. Wait 'til you watch one of our future episodes where I basically invent DevOps all over again. Ha. Ha. Ha. So if you feel embarrassed, don't worry.

HANNAH: Okay. That felt like a job interview. Like, what's your superpower?

ADRIANA: Yeah. One of the questions that I actually like to ask when I interview people.

HANNAH: My superpower is at certain times, I can be very laser focused on what I'm doing and get it done really effectively. And I care so much about my work that I'm going to make sure it's the highest quality that it can be. I'm never going to slack off on anything if I truly love it.

ADRIANA: That's true. Yeah. I can definitely vouch for that, which is why Hannah is such an awesome producer, video editor, social media, manager of this.

HANNAH: Did I get the job?

ADRIANA: Yes. Congratulations. Congratulations. You got the job. Okay, final question, and this is actually our topic for today, which is, do you prefer to consume information through text or video?

HANNAH: Video definitely. I cannot...like, things just don't process as much if I read. I can read an entire book and be like, I kind of know what it's about. But then if I see it visually and I have someone kind of telling me the parts with actions and videos, I understand it way more. Like for a Shakespeare test, I cannot read very well. It does not process in my head.

So it was the night before the Shakespeare test. I'm like, "Oh, my God, I don't understand any of this."

ADRIANA: I mean, Shakespeare requires a secret decoder ring to begin with.

HANNAH: Yeah, but I'm like, "I do not understand this. I'm going to fail this test." And so I watched YouTube videos breaking down each scene, and I'm like, "Oh, that makes sense."

ADRIANA: So then you pass the Shakespeare test.

HANNAH: Yes.

ADRIANA: And then some.

HANNAH: Yeah.

ADRIANA: And you know what? I think that's actually a really important thing to discuss that a lot of people don't discuss, because I think there is a lot of emphasis in reading when kids are growing up in school, et cetera. And I think yes, I think we all need to learn how to read.

It is an essential skill.

HANNAH: But you don't need to be able to read high level books.

ADRIANA: Yeah, I feel there's a lot of people are looked down upon if they're not amazing, avid readers. I do love reading. I do love to get lost in a novel, but Hannah doesn't. But I don't think any less of her or I don't think she's any less intelligent because she doesn't like to get lost in a good book. But you like to get lost in a good YouTube video.

HANNAH: Yeah, people get so mad at someone deciding to watch a movie instead of read. They're both entertainment. They both teach you things. If you have the same story in a book and a movie, they will end up teaching you the same things.

Who cares if it's on a screen or in a play or on a book? Like with text, it really doesn't matter as long as you end up getting the same or at least good things out of it.

ADRIANA: Yeah, so true. Yeah, it's funny because even as you're growing up, we watch a lot of TV. No harm in that.

HANNAH: No harm in that.

ADRIANA: No harm in that.

HANNAH:I don't like the stigma around like...

ADRIANA: Oh, you watch so much TV, you must be a horrible person.

HANNAH: I've learned so much from even TV shows like "Friends".

ADRIANA: So many good life lessons.

HANNAH: Or "That '70s Show" or "My Little Pony".

ADRIANA: "My Little Pony" is a legit good show. Honestly, every adult should watch. It';s got such wholesome messages. I love it.

HANNAH: Yeah, but it just really bothers me that people think I'm less of a human because I use YouTube videos or TV shows to learn when they're basically the same thing as a book.

ADRIANA: I don't, by the way. I honestly...I embrace your learning style.

HANNAH: I know, but when I tell someone about the Shakespeare story, they're like, "Well, that's cheating."

ADRIANA: Not cheating.

HANNAH: And it's like, but I bet if you're in my place and you just can't process stuff with reading...I can go through an entire page and not know what it was about and it's a struggle with me and I just feel like I should play to my own strength.

And there's nothing wrong with playing to your own strength. What would be cheating was if you had the YouTube video playing on a headphone while you're doing the test. That's cheating.

ADRIANA: That is cheating. Yeah, I totally agree.

HANNAH: It's definitely not cheating to just learn your own way. And there's nothing wrong with however you learn as long as you end up learning from it.

Like, maybe if I was just watching all these videos or TV and I'm not learning anything good from it, maybe then you'd have to be like, well...BUT, I'm learning something and I don't think people should get upset or tell you that you're learning wrong.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I think it's really important because everybody has different learning styles. I'm not a video person, so usually when someone sends me a YouTube link, I'm like, this better be a short video and it better have captions because that's going to capture my attention.

But if I need to learn something, I much prefer skimming through a blog post.

But I appreciate that that does not work for everyone and different strokes for different folks. And I think we shouldn't look down upon anyone because they learn in a different manner. I think what I find really awesome about you is you've found out what works for you in terms of learning and so you basically hacked yourself. Right?

The Hannah hack.

HANNAH: But also I think it's more important now as we're trying as a society to destigmatize learning disabilities and different ways that people learn.

I think one of the things that we do need to look at is we can't get mad at someone for learning in a way that maybe you don't learn.

Because I just get really annoyed when I say that I don't read books and people look at me like...

ADRIANA: "Oh, you're an idiot."

HANNAH: Yeah. It's actually very upsetting because I spend a lot of time doing the things that I like and learning about them, and I have end up learning about them and I'm proud of that.

But then for someone to say, "Oh no, you didn't learn it the right way" It's like, but I still ended up learning.

ADRIANA: Hannah wants to become a dentist when she grows up. And guess what? You learned a bunch of dentist facts. So oh, tell us some dentist facts.

HANNAH: Charcoal is bad for your teeth. Do not brush more than like two times a day. Also, this is not professional advice. This is stuff that I've learned and that braces are sometimes on dogs.

You don't want to mess with braces stuff.

ADRIANA: You don't want to put braces on dogs? Or you do?

HANNAH: No, you do want to put braces on dogs. If you have braces, you don't want to do anything else that the Orthodontist doesn't recommend, like trying to find a hack to move faster.

ADRIANA: Oh, yeah, fair enough.

HANNAH: I get that social media is like, yes, there's a lot of bad stuff that comes with it, but you

also have to think of it as a different perspective on someone who has actually been helped by social media.

I don't think I'd be the same person that I am if I didn't have social media.

ADRIANA: That's true. Yeah. You've learned so many cool things, like the most random stuff, like Hannah's been getting financial advice from YouTube.

HANNAH: I have! You know, all about investing.

Yeah, but I just think that we really need to stop thinking of social media as a bad thing.

Like this horribly toxic thing.

ADRIANA: Like you said, there's bad aspects to it that are soul sucking and trolls are horrible and that'll mess with your mind.

But we also need to remember that social media can be a really cool source of education and I think we need to embrace that as well.

HANNAH: Yeah. And someone said to me, well, you're just "mindlessly" scrolling on YouTube? And I'm like, but then if I hadn't mindlessly been scrolling, I never would have actually found these things. I don't think I would have discovered different trying to think of something I've learned, like stuff about job interviews or disability rights issues if I hadn't been just like,

I don't look for these things, but because they came to me, I'm interested in them and I can spread my information that I've learned.

And so there's nothing wrong with scrolling on social media because it'll take you to places that you never would have gone otherwise.

Because I don't think I would have actively been looking for financial advice. Yeah, financial advice, something like that. So I just think it's a really helpful tool. Yes.

I'm not saying that there isn't bad stuff. There's a lot of bad stuff and misinformation, but you have to look at the light of and think of someone else's viewpoint of it.

And we can't just say get rid of all social media, because then that would be getting rid of a resource.

It would be like getting rid of a library.

ADRIANA: Yeah. Because it's basically demonizing the whole thing, where it's like, well, guess what? There are bad books out there.

HANNAH: Yeah, they're books with, like...

ADRIANA: Misinformation...

HANNAH:...comments...Exactly. Yeah, there is misinformation books.

ADRIANA: So how's that any different? It's just, back in the day, we had books. Nowadays we have books and videos, and others...we've got, like, social media. So it's just like the evolution of how we consume information, which I think is super cool.

And I think really the moral of the story is don't judge somebody by how much they read or don't read. Judge them by like...

HANNAH: what they've come out of it with.

ADRIANA: Yeah, exactly. And being tolerant of how people consume information and understand that not everybody's going to learn like you do.

And I think it's been really cool getting to see like, you know, I learn in a very particular way and you learn in a very different way. And you also like to learn by sometimes by watching others being shown. Which is something that her teacher in the early years of Montessori, her teacher Cecile, figured out early on.

I mean, that's so cool to be able to understand how we learn so that we can be our better selves, right? Because there's no way that we can improve if we can't learn.

And part of hacking ourselves is understanding how we consume information.

HANNAH: Some may say, oh, well, you're getting better at spelling and vocabulary when you read. You can still do that by watching something. Yeah, I can learn new words by someone just saying them. And I can be like, "Hey, let me look it up."

"What's that word?"

Or if I like to watch stuff with subtitles on, I'm like, "Oh, that's how that's spelled."

ADRIANA: Yeah, that's so true. There are just so many ways that people can learn, and the more we say, well, this is bad, you're just trying to stop people from learning, which.

You're excluding an entire group of people who choose not to learn or cannot learn in the same manner.

HANNAH: Yeah. So I think that's all I wanted to say, you know. I may come back for another episode about this. We might have a guest on who has an opposite opinion.

ADRIANA: Oh, yes, on social media. Yes. Hannah's friend Alice we've tapped her to come for a future episode. We're very excited to have her on.

Yeah, well thank you Hannah for joining me today.

I hope y'all enjoy our inaugural episode of Geeking Out.

Make sure that you follow us on all the socials...

HANNAH: And let us know what you think about this topic because it's a very interesting topic that a lot of people have a lot of different opinions on, so I'd like to hear those different opinions.

ADRIANA: Yeah, definitely.

And the interesting thing about this topic too is it's not a technical topic, but it applies to pretty much any job out there, right?

Whether or not you have a techie job like me or a non techie job like you want to pursue.

I think understanding how we learn makes us better at doing the jobs that we want to.

Yay.

Well thank you, Hannah.

And with that, thank you so much for joining us on Geeking Out.

Be sure to follow us on all all the socials. We've got show notes coming your way.

Until next time...

HANNAH: Peace out, and geek out.

ADRIANA: Geeking Out is produced and hosted by me, Adriana Villela. I also composed and perform the theme music on my trusty clarinet. Geeking Out is also produced by my daughter, Hannah Maxwell, who, incidentally designed all of the cool graphics. Be sure to follow us on all the socials, by going to bento.me/geekingout.