The point of learning is to alter the patterns of your brain. It’s about changing the way you see and interpret the world so that you can better achieve what you want. (Sometimes what you want is simply the pleasure of knowing!). New facts or information can alter your thinking patterns, but it’s rare that raw data alone will rewire your brain unless it’s the kind of data that runs counter to an accepted belief. The best learning requires conscious examination of your paradigms and theories (which are often unconscious), consumption of information in the form of new theories and new facts, and a re-examination of whether your previous notions were complete and correct. If they’re not correct, you begin the work of creating new ones that more accurately measure up to your new knowledge.

This all sounds a bit esoteric, but remembering what learning actually is plays a huge part in determining how much you learn from the Praxis course and from life in general. The schooling approach is focused much more on a menu of raw data you are supposed to memorize, along with a set of predetermined questions you must be able to answer with that data. It asks nothing of you in terms of rewiring your brain or smashing your paradigms. You needn’t have the foggiest idea of the causal relationships in an economic order to memorize tropes like, “A) Black Tuesday was the event that caused the Great Depression,” for example. This kind of information, which you’ve been loaded up with throughout your life, has very little transformative power.

The incentive structure in a schooling system is geared to make you know all the answers, or at least be able to fake that you know them. You have to prove that you know certain things, regardless of whether you’ve been transformed or improved by that knowledge, and if you don’t you have to pretend you do. In other words, school’s incentives have nothing to do with you or what’s beneficial to you, but everything to do with repeating certain things that allow parents, teachers, and other members of the schooling institutions to check things off their lists. The idea of pretending to know things you don’t is antithetical to learning. Knowing you don’t know something is wonderful, and nothing to be shielded against or treated with shame. It’s the greatest motivator for actually learning!

As you continue through the curriculum, don’t worry about memorizing facts you think examiners want to hear. Take ownership. Look at the curriculum as a smorgasbord of content that can be used to transform your thinking in ways beneficial to you. Talk about what you do know and what you did learn – don’t say words you think you’re “supposed” to know.

This ain’t school – it’s life. And in life, learning is not only amazingly enjoyable, it’s the difference between stagnation and growth. We’re tossing you a trowel and some water and fertilizer, then coming back later for a tour of the garden. Your growth is in your hands.

Watch Six Things I Wish I Knew On The First Day at Berklee

Read Playing with Legos is More Valuable than Learning Algebra

Read How To Learn From Any Experience

Read Why Knowing Stuff Doesn’t Really Matter

Read Learning for Life in a Changing World: How to Make Your Education Antifragile

Read Ask Questions That Create Value

• Make a list of the six most valuable lessons you’ve learned in life so far — These lessons can be insights you’ve picked up from life experience or things you’ve studied for school. Just be sure to pick the lessons that matter most to you.

• Make a list of your top three life goals

1. In your own words, what does it mean to learn?
2. What are the most important subjects to learn? Why?
3. Are there any subjects that aren’t worth learning? Why not?
4. Can learning be fun or is it mostly boring? What can be learned from activities like playing Legos?
5. What makes a good question “good”?
6. How do you think learning will change in the future?
7. There are some people who believe that learning is only useful for getting a good job or getting into a good school. Do you agree with that perspective? If so, why? If not, can you think of any additional reasons for learning new things?