The Agile Daily Standup - AgileDad

Why We Should Learn Everything The Way We Learned To Walk

Jun 14, 2024

Babies teach us to embrace failure and get back up with a smile. Celebrate and encourage learning efforts like we do with a baby's first steps. The importance of patience, laughter, and genuine excitement in the learning process.

08:14

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Quick takeaways

Maintain a positive attitude towards learning by embracing failure and finding humor in mistakes like babies learning to walk.

Replicate the genuine excitement, encouragement, and love shown when celebrating a child's first steps in all learning experiences to make learning more enjoyable and successful throughout life.

Deep dives

Learning Process: Walking vs. Schooling

The podcast compares the learning process of a child learning to walk with the educational system. It highlights how children like Sophie learn to walk at their own pace without pressure, celebrating each attempt even if they fail while in school children may face impatience and pressure to meet set standards, potentially leading to confidence issues. The podcast suggests that if schooling allowed for more individualized learning and time for mastery, mental health among young people could improve, and a broader range of essential life skills could be included in education.

Lessons Learned from How We Learn to Walk applied to Education

8min

Why We Should Learn Everything The Way We Learned To Walk

Watch home videos of babies standing and walking for the first time and two things in particular stand out:

1) They fall over a lot. They are trying and failing constantly, which isn’t surprising considering how tricky standing up and walking can be. What is surprising is just how readily they get up again, without seeming to be at all disheartened by the experience of failing. In fact they often find it funny. They are not only unconcerned by their failures, they are entertained by them. How might we maintain this attitude to our learning later in life?

2) Their efforts are celebrated and encouraged by everyone around them. If you are lucky enough to witness a baby taking their first steps, take a moment to take your eyes off the magic happening in front of you and look at the parents, grandparents, siblings and friends who are watching. I wonder if we ever really celebrate our children’s achievements with the same amount of genuine excitement, encouragement and love as we do when we watch them take their first steps. What if we could keep replicating that level of encouragement and joint celebration throughout their lives whenever they learn something new?

Maybe babies have something to teach the rest of us. Maybe they realise more than we do the importance of taking your time, laughing at your failures and encouraging others with genuine love and excitement. Maybe, just maybe, if we learned to do everything the way we learned to walk, learning itself might not seem as painful as it sometimes seems at school. Maybe instead it would feel easy, like … well … like a walk in the park.

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