5 Things you have to unlearn to succeed at work
A big theme in my life has been how much I had to unlearn to come to the decision to homeschool my kids.
I had to unlearn all my assumptions about parenting (it turns out that kids don’t need teachers, they need love). I unlearned my assumptions about self‑management (well-roundedness is a false goal). And I had to change my assumptions about how much respect each child deserves (freedom to choose what we learn is a fundamental right).
Now that I’ve been homeschooling for a while, I understand that the reason it’s traumatic for most young adults to enter the workforce is because they have to unlearn so many things from school in order to survive in adult life.
No matter what age you are, the faster you start your unlearning the faster you can shed the weights that hold you back from moving forward in today’s knowledge-based workforce. Here are five things most people need to unlearn.
1. Accommodating forced learning
Gen Y’s latest thing is binge learning, where you become so interested in what you’re doing that you don’t want to stop until you’ve learned it all. But the only way that you can binge learn is to know how to find course materials on your own and choose the sequence of those materials that works best for you. This means you can’t rely on someone else’s syllabus and you can’t rely on somebody laying out the steps for you.
In the workplace, to create our own value, we must create our own learning path. You have to unlearn the habit of waiting to be told what comes next in your education if you want to take control of your adult life.
2. Studying for the grade you can get on the test
Adult life doesn’t give letter grades. Sometimes adult life gives promotions or if you’re good at sales you might win a trip to Hawaii for your family, but in general, the reward of adult life is being able to find a path that’s good for you and put yourself on it. There’s no letter grade for that because the only person who can judge whether it’s a good path or not is you.
The act of making decisions independent of letter grades is completely opposite to everything that school stands for, because if you’re doing work that is separate from earning an A, then you’re completely uncontrollable in the classroom as you start losing the need to even show up to the classroom.
So school teaches you that you should study what’s on the test. Work is the opposite. What matters will never be on the test.
3. Saving self-discovery for vacation
For those of you who don’t follow the lives of Prince William and Prince Harry, a gap year is when somebody finishes high school and takes a year off before university study, presumably because you don’t learn about yourself while you are studying, so taking time to learn about yourself is important enough to give it a whole year.
This is actually true that usually you don’t learn about yourself when you’re studying, because if people tell you what to study, then you gain no insight into who you are. But if you take a year off to learn about yourself, you reinforce the idea that education and self‑knowledge are two completely different things.
However, in the workforce, education and self‑knowledge through work are the twin tickets to adult happiness. If you’re not synchronized so that you have them moving together, you will always feel like you’re missing something.
4. Saying something even when there’s nothing to say
In sixth grade my teacher gave us a list of topics about Mesopotamia for a ten-page paper she assigned. When she got to the topic of medicine in Mesopotamia, she said it was a hard one. I picked that one.
I brought it home to my dad who can win Trivial Pursuit in one turn every time and my mom who was on Jeopardy, and they said, “Medicine in Mesopotamia? There wasn’t any. What are you going to write about this?” We did a bunch of research to determine that, indeed, there were not ten typed pages to be written about medicine in Mesopotamia. We did conjecture instead, but that only got us to five. So I learned the art of bullshit by writing ten pages about medicine in Mesopotamia.
Paul Graham, one of the premier investors of college‑age startup founders, talks about how forced yammering on topics about which you have nothing to say end up affecting you negatively in the workforce.
He talks about kids who have great ideas for startups and they think it’s time to raise money, so they force themselves to start talking about why it’s time to raise money when, in fact, it’s not time to raise money. They have nothing to say about raising money. They should just be at home doing their business idea.
Graham points out that the idea that it doesn’t matter whether something is relevant or pertinent or necessary is lost on kids who have been forced to talk about nothing for eighteen years.
5. Using video games as a reward for finishing learning
It’s fashionable right now for parents to use video games as a reward for having finished schoolwork or, for the really nice parents, as a reward for just having made it through the school day. But in my house, video games are the content of learning rather than the reward after learning because kids who play video games do better as adults. And video games actually teach important skills for work.
I’m really happy to tell you that human resource managers understand this so well that it’s been shown that people who play World of Warcraft at work during work hours on the work computer are higher performing employees. There are lots of reasons for this. World of Warcraft is extremely competitive. It requires long‑term commitment and strategy, and it favors people who understand how to shift between different sorts of tasks that require different kinds of thinking.
Parents need to unlearn schooling in order to parent so that their kids don’t need to unlearn schooling in order to work.
My boss will be so happy to know that I still play a lot of Call of Duty and Minecraft with my brother since moving back home with him. I’ll have to send her this link, haha.
This is f’ing awesome.
This is about the future of learning. Do you sign up for four years absorbing what others have determined is a well rounded education? Or do you determine what you’d like to accomplish and learn what you need to get there. Because you’re going to need different knowledge and skills every year anyway, best to just get used to figuring out how to learn… on your own.
This is one of your most brilliant essays. And I don’t say that lightly.
I am not interested in entirely home schooling my 4 and one year old, but I will hopefully remember that most of what they really need to learn about life will go on outside the classroom. And to give them an opportunity to get there on their own.
Excellent article Penelope! I wasn’t home schooled (and always had near perfect marks) but always struggled against the “curriculum”. Studying engineering at university the focus was better – how to learn / solve problems in the real world but still the focus was study what it takes to keep your GPA high. I quit my masters in computer science because I couldn’t fit anymore. So I started a company and 20 years later know that was the right choice. My best performers are those who can do, how they get those skills is irrelevant. Lifelong learning is the way of the present (not just the future) so kids (well everyone) need to understand how to design and contribute to their education goals from a very early age.
A few years ago, I was going to start playing a videogame, like World of Warcraft or League of Legends or something. But then I couldn’t decide which to start with and it was a hassle to download the programs. So I still don’t know what the games are about. Now I have an excuse to start playing World of Warcraft. I just don’t want to become a cliche gamer, hunched over the computer and munching on pizza absentmindedly (which probably won’t happen, I can’t stomach a lot of pizza).
Amen, Penelope. I’m showing this to my kids, who are unschooling, so they can see that I’m not the only person in the world saying this stuff. And in fact, that’s another thing we have to unlearn if we’ve been conventionally unschooled: that just because you seem to be the only person saying or thinking something, it doesn’t mean you’re wrong. You might just be the first one to think of it, or the first one to be brave enough to give it words.
When reading “#5. Using video games as a reward for finishing learning”, I thought of myself growing up with no video games. I played board games such as Scrabble, Monopoly, Risk, etc. So I thought about the different experiences of each and did an Internet search on “board games vs. video games”. I found a reddit thread and a Forbes article as examples that I found interesting. I think the choice comes down to personal preference and other players in the game.
My favorites from this post:
“You have to unlearn the habit of waiting to be told what comes next in your education if you want to take control of your adult life.”
I’m finally realizing how exciting and freeing it feels to finally have the time and mental energy to focus on learning what I want to learn. I can go as fast as I want!
“Paul Graham, one of the premier investors of college‑age startup founders, talks about how forced yammering on topics about which you have nothing to say end up affecting you negatively in the workforce.”
Oh my God! 9/10 when I’m required to write for school or work my mind goes into bullshit mode even if I care about doing a quality job. The only times I like writing is either when I can write whatever I want and I have something truly substantive to say.
I have found your article to be extremely true. As an unemployed twenty-three year old, I’ve come to realize how much secondary education HURT me. I wasn’t top in my class in a field where only the top survive (biological sciences). I focused so much on making the grade than I never gained any marketable skills outside of my field of study.
As a K-12 home schooler, I’ve found that independent learning is fantastic if the child is shown HOW to learn independently. Without hands-on instruction from a parent, children will just do enough to get by rather than finding the world to be a learning place. Be the parent that guides the child toward a science fair project rather than placing a text book in his hand.
Great article! Thanks for the insight.
Thanks for this, Penelope, it is very timely for me. I am allowing my quirky, smart 14 year old son to try this, instead of starting 9th grade. I am a little petrified, but deep down know it is right for him. He is smart and interested, and completely squashed by traditional school’s social expectations and slower pace of learning. I have never seen him so excited as he is about learning whatever he wants to learn!
being okay with not getting a high school diploma is one challenge, but the thing that makes me most nervous is not having transcripts for him to use in applying for college. How do you handle that?
Good for you Annie! I’m not sure what path your son wants to take for college. But normally you can enter a junior college through placement tests and you don’t need transcripts or SAT scores. If he wants to go straight to a top ranked school, he can start studying for SAT/ACT now for as long as he wants or desires. There are tons of resources online that will help you put a transcript together. You can also put together a portfolio of his work. A lot of top schools are accepting homeschoolers more and more. So don’t be worried! Just take it one year at a time
Annie,
Good for you. Be patient.
No one can tell the future, but your son may find mentors in his areas of interest that help guide him to education in a way that matters to him, no need of a report card.
my favorite part of this article:
” So I learned the art of bullshit by writing ten pages about medicine in Mesopotamia.”
Yeah I enjoyed reading that anecdote too. Because we all did something like it in our past, right? I did, anyway. It wasn’t Mesopotamian medicine though.
Right Ari. It reminded me of the time when my teachers forced me to join an extemporaneous speaking contest and I was given a topic on the spot to talk about “Agro-industrialization” for 5 minutes. I was in 5th grade and I had not mastered the art of bullshitting yet.
Thanks Penelope,
We are also thinking of home schooling and we are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead of us and our boys. Your articles have been of help!
Just would like to point out that none of the links in #5 re: WoW say at all what you are suggesting they say — two articles quote the researcher, John Seely Brown (who concluded WoW players would make good employees), as saying HE would hire WoW players. Another is about someone who got hired at Yahoo and who also was very good at WoW — but it specifically says Yahoo didn’t know about his involvement in WoW — and incidentally, it’s written by John Seely Brown and another person.
I feel you on #3, although ironically, both times I have taken time off of school — a gap year abroad and then a junior year abroad — it has reminded me how much I love learning at college and that I probably want to be an academic.
This is ridicolous! I do respect everybody’s opinion but the arguments here are really weak. The single most important thing you learn at school, which is the most important thing in your career, is interaction with other people. It’s not about bullshitting about medicine in mesopotamia (which in any case is a great learning tool as bullshitting is 80% of most people’s jobs these days)!
It’s about learning how to blend in a group, how to interact with people, how to make friends, etc. If you stay home with your mummy you learn how to interact with your mummy, it’s not the same!
Sooner or later your kids will need to go out of the nest and, guess what, not everybody loves them like their mummy does, and they won’t have the tools to deal with this and to deal with other young people….
Then of course there are tons of other arguments, the fact that a good school does teach you useful things, the fact that you should not only learn things that you like, but also things you don’t like, because if one kid only likes maths and you don’t teach him history and geography, he won’t even know where
mesopotamia was and how is it called today, and therefore he won’t be able to understand what happened in Iraq recently because he does not understand what the hell the Iraqi are talking about, just to give you an example.
Tons of other things to say about this but unfortunately I’ve got to go back to work, and not to play videogames….
Wow, Claudio.
At no point in my working life has it been important for me to blend in with a cohort of my age mates. In fact, my successes at work have come from standing out among my peers and being recognized for my achievements.
Getting along with people does not require you to be co-located with your age mates for 7+ hours a day.
The biggest problems at are at work when somebody brilliant cant get along with the rest of us.
Most good hires are about “fit”, and less so about skills-although there are exceptions. Claudio has some good points.
Claudio, if school could teach kids social skills then there would not be so many smart kids with social skills disorders.
Almost everyone has an innate ability to learn social skills, wherever they are in the world – as long as there are other people around. People with Aspergers do not have this ability to intuitively learn social skills. And it cannot be taught. Social skills cannot be taught, which is why Aspergers exists. If school could teach social skills the world would be a very different place.
So the idea that kids go to school to learn to interact with other people is totally false. In fact, in school teachers have to encourage kids to not talk because 30 kids talking all day would be too much.
Here’s a post about why social skills are not something you learn in school:
http://homeschooling.penelopetrunk.com/2012/12/18/its-a-myth-that-school-is-good-for-socialization/
Penelope
This does not make sense. If you state that almost everyone has the innate ability to learn social skills-as long as there are other people around…where and who are the other people if they are at home most days. A few or perhaps many siblings and mom or dad. Most people who engage in home schooling also engage in some sort of annual “get-together” with other local homeschoolers, which is just like being at any form of school. Why does it matter if you are around anyone or everyone, if social skills cannot be taught? This notion defeats the purpose of any human interaction, not just school. Babies learn how to socially interact innately but also my seeing faces close up so that they can focus the image, process said image, and make inferences, such as how to mimic, which is a form of social interaction. Whether you are an average child or a child with any medical or physiological condition, social skills can be learned from interaction from other people, which you do state, but then you state social skills cannot be taught, and hence, learned. Interesting topic, for sure.
I have to respectfully disagree with your opinion that getting along with people is the intention of school. Learning to tolerate people, maybe. Learning to behave a certain way to be rewarded with carved out high school social statuses, perhaps. I didn’t come into my own until school was long out of my life. I would say I didn’t learn to interact with people on a deep and meaningful level until I was on my own and had to figure out how much social interaction I personally need to thrive, and it is nothing like how I behaved in school.
My husband is an ENTJ, and he swears that someday when he teaches a management course, he’s going to have his students play Transport Tycoon. He said he learned more about business playing Transport Tycoon than he did in his MBA program. He’s excited about the new iPad version of the game coming out — your boys might like it.
I discovered your blog recently and have to say thanks for delivering some fresh ideas to the table. Based on having endured 20 or more years of institutional “learning” in various settings up to the professional trade school referred to as Law Schoool, where items 1 (binge learning), 2 (studying for grades), and 4 (having to say something when there was nothing to say) were considered keys to “success,” I have to say “amen.” Thanks again.
Thanks for coming at this topic from a place of personal experience. So many people are at a crossroads, trying to figure out which steps to take next. And hearing someone describe the path they did take as being educationally stifling is so helpful to others – yet so few people are willing to admit they made mistakes in their educational choices.
Education is such a huge investment that we end up lying to ourselves and everyone else about the value of it so we don’t feel bad about our time and money spent.
Comments like this one are brave and helpful.
Penelope
In spite of the fact that schools exist for the sake of education, there is many a school whose pupils show a peculiar “school helplessness”; that is, they are capable of less initiative in connection with their school tasks than they commonly exhibit in the accomplishment of other tasks. — F.M. McMurry
It’s been repeatedly shown that the “school helplessness” sets in by 3rd grade (classroom instruction). It does seem to transition into the work world as well. Seems to be many of your elements are simply working to overcome this affliction.
#4 (“Saying something even when there’s nothing to say”) is alive and well in the corporate world. Oh, how I wish my co-workers would unlearn it!
Hahahaha… the difference between William and Harry’s gap years is hilarious. ;)
I graduated from college in 2007 and it was HELL to figure out to how to join the work world. That first year out of [liberal arts] college was so rough I still feel scarred from it. (As you can imagine, I started off my career post-college at a coffee shop.) And I had always been a good student. I just had zero preparation for the work world.
6 years later, I only now feel like I’m STARTING to get a stronger grasp on my career…
Penelope Trunk needs to be sedated and committed. Anyone who pays for her biased and unenlightened knowledge, superficial analysis and research, and clearly unqualified advice should be flogged. She’s not funny (nor sardonic). She’s not bright or even remotely sane. She advocates abuse, discrimination, compulsive sexual behavior, seemingly easy yet ineffective shortcuts, fuzzy logic, half-witted career strategies, and frivolous, foolish ideas. The idea of Penelope giving career advice or advice of any kind to anyone as she continues to feign to be a “qualified counselor” is utterly absurd. Who reads her grammatically incorrect drivel? It’s so moronic that it’s not even entertaining anymore. Is she doing drugs? Drunk on a regular basis? Or simply a sadly disturbed woman? I suspect the latter. Her children should be removed from her home and placed into foster care. Move on folks — nothing to see here. Penelope is simply a woman trying to gain attention for all the wrong reasons. Ad nauseum.
You had me at “Ad nauseum.” What does that mean anyway, I feel bad not knowing that seemingly educated phrase.
Educated. . .go drink a few gallons of water to wash some of that bitterness and bile out of your system.
“Who reads her grammatically incorrect drivel?” Are you serious? Do you own a mirror, thou currish, hasty-witted varlot?
It is curious that someone who admits to being a terrible listener also claims to be able to provide counseling.
The theme I read, repeatedly, through your posts is really one of self-accountability and responsibility. We do need guidance and time to know what’s available to us but at some point, everyone must decide their direction and walk their path. Our successes and failures can and should really only be determined from within.
I think one CAN grow from the standardized education system but they can’t rely on it to give them all they need- good teachers and responsible parents already understand this and that’s one reason their children do so well, even if the ‘A’ level work isn’t as challenging or topically essential as the letter grade might suggest.
The ones who have to unlearn (and are shocked by that) usually haven’t even assessed what path is best for them and are just content to float along. I have no problem with the floaters or those who know right where they’re headed. I just wish the floaters wouldn’t sit and talk on their cell phones when the light turns green. Really, it’s not getting any greener. Seriously, we’re all burning gas back here. OK, I’m going to honk. No, they’ll move. Surely they’ll move- they’re right up front. :-)
Oh, I love this comment. Because personal responsibility is what have been the driver behind my writing about workplace, and I realize now that it’s the same driver that is behind my writing about education. It’s all the same. If you are taking responsibility for your life – you yourself are making it interesting and fulfilling and engaging – then you will always take personal responsibility for your work and your learning and the two will become inseparable, more like the same thing.
Penelope
I think the reason kids take a gap year is because they don’t know what else to do, the same motivation for many kids to go on to grad school. We’re shepherded through school with the promise of getting a good job when we’re done but we’re never told the truth of what a good job means. Money? Respect? Happiness? We’re left with our diplomas and our crippling loans to find that out for ourselves.
In the past few weeks, I have been noticing my almost-teen has mastered something that schools don’t teach.
He keeps hitting roadblocks.
A bridge he was building fell down when he put it into action. And then the fix made it unsymmetrical. And he ran out of glue. And he stopped.
He got to the tricky point in learning German.
He got to a tricky point in learning music.
He got to the next level of swim competition.
It all happened nearly simultaneously. And he doesn’t *HAVE* to do any of this stuff. I consider them hobbies; he has sought them out and pursued them on his own. And sure, he vegged out for a couple of days re-reading Timothy Zahn novels and comic books. And I kind of mentally flagged his behavior as something he might need encouraging about… but I said nothing.
But he recharged himself and … just plain attacked. I mean the persistence to go single-mindedly at a project has always been a hallmark of this kid, but you might also have observed that he got turned off by failure. But it started with German, where he basically went back to basics and tackled the problem, and then he also got out old music books that he had long since mastered, and he’s pulled apart a section of the bridge to try again. Tackle, tackle, tackle. Nothing half-hearted, he just found it within himself.
Complulsory education doesn’t give kids this opportunity. The project must be completed. The subject must be learned. You must comply with the teacher’s goal, because it’s for a grade. Is this on the test? And involved parents nagging their kids to comply, or else put their extra-curricular activities at risk. Education is something done *TO* kids, rather than something kids do for themselves.
The ability to muster yourself to solve your own problems and meet your own goals is a great part of becoming adult. And it’s a key to a happy existence.
I’m glad to see it in my child, and I feel bad for the schoolkids who slouch through their school day… compliantly.
P,
The college program in which I am presently enrolled is in transition, from a “teaching to the test” letter-grade course with clinical rotation, to a “real-world” training program, a combination of less-strict paper testing and heavy incorporation of theory in the lab evaluations. One may ace every paper/computer test, but will quickly wash out if he doesn’t master the practical application.
They aren’t where they need to be with it yet, but this is a positive move and will yield phenomenally qualified graduates, graduates who will need the minimum amount of indoctrination when they enter the health-care field full time.
The schools are in full crisis management & damage control mode, and have been since the latest crop of freshman legislators and our governor (who is a M.D., BTW) have broken the iron grip the state educational union once had on our children and college students. Also, the poorer teachers, instructors and professors are desperately trying to catch up, because they are now being evaluated on whether or not their students exhibit mastery of the skills taught. The golden age of the 4.0’s getting first pick of career options are over. The employers no longer give a shit what your GPA was, they are interested in what can you do and how quickly can you grow in the profession.
Home schooling is epidemic, and school-choice vouchers have been legislated in, though the dinosaurs are holding that up right now; it’s in costly litigation, though with no hope it will be overturned.
The thought I am living to see child education and career training taken away from power-drunk bureaucrats, and returned to the families and serving market needs, makes me pretty happy! G
Great post! I completely agree with the second point. It’s not about getting grades anymore. Sure, performance at the workplace matters. But, deriving joy from a job well done is much more important and fulfilling.
I appreciate the spirit of this post: encouragement to discover and live YOUR OWN life rather than going along with the status quo. It’s hard to swim against social tides, and even harder to parent a child who always wants to swim that way.
I have always said, the best thing a test measures is how well you can take the test.
The key to learning is to go out and do whatever it is you want to learn about. That is where real knowledge and power begins.
A great post. It’s no secret that the ‘schooling system’ most communities have in place is f*cked up. This is especially true for the systems that ‘teach the test.’ The test has NOTHING to do with real life. If anything, schools are designed to kill creativity and free thinking. My wife, who just retired from teaching, was often exasperated by the current system that seems to want to turn out ‘proles’ for the machine.
With the internet today, all the knowledge and learning you want & need is available. Forget school!
Great post! Good job done!
very useful information. thanks a lot for this.
Love #4 in particular. Once in middle school I had an essay assignment for a history class. I wrote a paragraph, someone else wrote 4 pages, we both got 100%.
Regarding #3, although education and self-knowledge shouldn’t be mutually exclusive, I do think that informal methods of education are not very valued in American society. As someone said in your essay about “Don’t go to grad school,” we are a society focused on credentials and not accomplishments. I’m very self-educated and respected for my knowledge, intelligence, wisdom, and accomplishments, but that self-education will only go so far to land me a job.
Then again, it seems like most degrees no longer lead to a job…
My son needed to print an article that showed good writing for his honors English class. I gave him a link to your blog. He picked this article to take into his sophomore class tomorrow (glad he didn’t pick the “have regular sex” article). He is triumphant that your post ends with games as the content of learning. Week 3 of tenth grade starts well.
Have you considered that the ones playing World of Warcraft are the nerds of the office? Therefore it’s possible that they are by nature much harder workers and more intelligent/intuitive than others?
You mentioned that, “I’m really happy to tell you that human resource managers understand this so well that it’s been shown that people who play World of Warcraft at work during work hours on the work computer are higher performing employees.”
There are human resource managers that would hire someone that plays video games while working?! I am in the camp that productivity trumps pretending to be busy but I find this hard to believe.
Most education systems go over the same content and concepts over and over and over again, till the child is so desperate for something new it grinds there motivation to a halt. But the one thing that is never really taught or encouraged is socialization skills. If we found better ways to show the benefits of team work. The rest would follow.
That being said video games themselves specifically WOW speaks more to a concept that anything. The only problem there are meany positions that this would not work As for an example if you came into my dental office and the receptionist was playing a game, I would quickly loose patients.