Getting Comfortable With The Struggle A Video about Becoming a Better Learner

The Vectors Team recently received this video, which was posted on the website of the magazine The Atlantic. The article is part of the venerable, 159-year-old publication’s series called “The Big Question” – and the prodigious interrogatory in this piece is “What can people do to get better at learning?”

In the humble opinion of Team Vectors, that’s a truly fine large query, contemporary Atlantic editors! (Note: The Atlantic‘s founders included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Good questions are in its DNA!)

It’s a very short video – less than three minutes long – and, though it was posted about a year ago, you’ll quickly understand why we think it’s still well worth looking at, and why it speaks to us at Vectors, and the entire BASIS.ed network.

Indeed, the video says a few things we’ve been saying for many years; things we know very well:

• Learning isn’t easy.
• Asking questions is encouraged, and always, always, always okay.
• Making mistakes is a part of learning.
• Building confidence is vital.

Incidentally, among those speaking in the video is Amanda Ripley, the journalist for Time and The Atlantic who often focuses on education – and who is the author of one of the Vectors Team’s favorite books – “The Smartest Kids In The World: And How They Got That Way”. Ripley’s best-seller (published in 2013, and as a paperback in 2014) is a unique first-person look at how we educate our children in the U.S., and worldwide – the similarities, the differences, and which ones are significant. The book includes a mention of BASIS.ed schools – but that’s not why we like it. It’s truly a page-turner, a fantastic read, like a lot of the best contemporary non-fiction.

Enjoy – and, as ever, please let us know what you think!