At the 2015 Aspen Ideas Festival, we asked a group of professors, engineers, and journalists how to absorb information effectively and move towards creativity. “What we need to work on is getting comfortable with the struggle in learning,” says the journalist Amanda Ripley. “With the discomfort that comes from not knowing something.”
In this video, they discuss what it takes to learn, like the fact that people who have belief in themselves, do better in math. That when they make a mistake, their brains actually spark and fire, because they know mistakes are good. Or that you remember more if you practice right before you go to sleep. That school is too structured and that students are used to answering questions, not asking them. That is a problem, certainly when it comes to creativity. A very good way of helping people understand the world around them is by stories because that takes you to different times and places and into the minds of other people so you see things in different ways.
Other panelists include Josh Kaufman, Susan Greenfield, Anne Libera, Tim Brown, and Jo Boaler. The Big Question is a series inspired by The Atlantic‘s back-page feature. Authors: Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg, Sam Price-Waldman, Jaclyn Skurie
Video by The Atlantic