![]() When you write out an idea from start to finish in simple language that a child can understand, you force yourself to understand the concept at a deeper level and simplify relationships and connections between ideas. If you look at a painting and describe it as “abstract” because that’s what you heard in art class, you demonstrate no understanding. ![]() The truth is, if you can’t clearly and simply define the words and terms you are using, you don’t really know what you’re talking about. It turns out that one of the ways we mask our lack of understanding is by using complicated vocabulary and jargon. ![]() It sounds silly, but it’s a forcing function to make you walk through your thinking as simply as possible. Software engineers sometimes tackle debugging by explaining their code, line by line, to a rubber duck. Or, for a different angle on the Feynman Technique, you could place a rubber duck on your desk and try explaining the concept to it. It’s important to remember that you are not teaching to your smart adult friend, but rather a child who has just enough vocabulary and attention span to understand basic concepts and relationships. Now write out everything you know about the subject as if you were teaching it to a child or a rubber duck sitting on your desk. At the top, write the subject you want to master. Go back to the source material to better understand it. Pretend to teach a concept you want to learn about to a student in the sixth grade.We have adapted it slightly after reflecting on our own experiences using this process to learn. There are four steps to the Feynman Learning Technique, based on the method Richard Feynman originally used. It takes a touch of genius-and a lot of courage-to move in the opposite direction.” “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. To avoid the pain of being bewildered by the unexpected, the Feynman Technique helps you turn information into knowledge that you can access as easily as reaching for a chair. Consequently, life kicks us in the ass time and again. As we continue through life, we don’t extrapolate from our experiences to broaden the applicability of our knowledge. We memorize what we need to as we move through school, then forget most of it. But most of us don’t bother to deliberately learn anything. Ultimately, the point of learning is to understand the world. The more you know, the fewer surprises you will encounter because most new things will connect to something you already understand. When you really learn something, you give yourself a tool to use for the rest of your life. The Feynman Technique gets more mileage from the ideas you encounter instead of rendering anything new into isolated, useless factoids. ![]() Information is learned when you can explain it and use it in a wide variety of situations. Learning doesn’t happen from skimming through a book or remembering enough to pass a test. Devised by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, it leverages the power of teaching for better learning. The Feynman Technique is the best way to supercharge your learning. ![]()
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