“初学者”的心态如何帮助你学习?

By David Robson

作者: 大卫.罗伯森

Although our ability to easily pick up a new skill declines with age, harnessing a specific type of mindset can help you learn effectively as an adult.

尽管随着年龄的增长，我们学习新技能的能力会下降，但作为成年人，掌握一种特定的心态可以帮助你有效地学习。

Tom Vanderbilt’s fascination with the process of life-long learning began with his daughter’s hobbies: piano, soccer, Tae Kwon Do. He wanted to encourage her new pursuits, and accompanied her to the lessons or tournaments. As she exercised her mind, he would answer emails, play with his phone or stare into space until his daughter had finished.

汤姆·范德比尔特对终身学习过程的痴迷始于他女儿的爱好:钢琴、足球、跆拳道。他想鼓励她去拥有新的追求，想陪她去上课或参加比赛。他想着当他女儿在锻炼自己的思维时，他会回复电子邮件，玩手机，或者盯着天空看，直到女儿做完。

He soon recognised the hypocrisy of the situation. “I was impressing upon her the importance of having a broad education in all these different skills,” he says. “But she might have easily asked me, ‘Well, why don't you do all these things then?’”

但是他很快就认识到了这种做法的虚伪。他表示:“我给她留下了深刻的印象，让她意识到在所有这些不同技能方面接受广泛教育的重要性。”“但她可能很容易就问倒了我，她问：‘那么，你为什么不做所有这些事情呢?’”

Starting with chess lessons, he decided to spend a year pursuing a range of new skills himself. He learnt to sing, draw, juggle and surf. At no point did he hope to fully master the abilities or to show off his prowess with an extraordinary feat, such as winning American Idol.

所以他从学习国际象棋课开始，决定花一年时间让自己学习一系列新技能。他学习唱歌、画画、玩杂耍和冲浪。不过他从来没有想过要完全掌握这种能力，也没有想过要用赢得美国偶像之类的非凡壮举来炫耀自己的非凡才能。

“As adults, we instantly put pressure on ourselves with goals,” he says. “We feel like we don't have the luxury to engage in learning for learning’s sake.” Instead, he wanted to revel in the pleasure of the process.

他说:“作为成年人，我们会立即给自己设定目标，但是这会产生压力。这是因为成年人往往觉得我们没有奢侈地为了学习而学习的想法。” 相反，他只想陶醉在这个过程的乐趣中。

Vanderbilt details his journey in his January 2021 book Beginners, which combines his own personal revelations with the cutting-edge science of skill acquisition. Keen to find out more, we discussed the myths of adult learning, and the substantial benefits that the “beginner’s mindset” can bring to our lives.

范德比尔特在他2021年1月出版的《初学者》一书中详细描述了他的旅程，这本书结合了他自己的个人启示和最前沿的技能习得科学。为了了解更多，我们讨论了成人学习的谬见，以及“初学者心态”能给我们的生活带来的实质性好处。

How to learn well

如何学得好？
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Beginning the project in his late 40s, Vanderbilt knew that he would struggle to match the learning abilities of children like his daughter. Children are especially good at picking up patterns implicitly – understanding that certain actions will lead to certain kinds of events, without any explanation or descxtion of what they are doing. After the age of 12, however, we lose some of that capacity to absorb new information.

范德比尔特在40多岁的时候开始了这个项目，他知道自己很难达到像他女儿这样的孩子的学习能力。孩子们特别擅长潜移默化的接受模式，即他们善于理解某些行为会导致某些类型的事件，不需要任何关于他们正在做什么的解释或描述。然而，12岁以后，我们就失去了一些吸收新信息的能力。

We shouldn’t be too pessimistic about our own abilities, though. While adults may not absorb new skills as readily as a child, we still have “neuroplasticity” – the ability for the brain to rewire itself in response to new challenges. In his year of learning, Vanderbilt met many people, long past middle age, who were still exercising that “superpower”.

不过，我们不应该对自己的能力过于悲观。虽然成年人可能不像孩子那样容易吸收新技能，但我们仍然具有“神经可塑性”，即大脑为应对新挑战而自我重组的能力。在范德比尔特学习的这一年里，他遇到了许多年过中年的人，但是他们仍然在锻炼那种“超能力”。

What’s more, Vanderbilt’s research revealed some basic principles of good learning that anyone can use to make our learning more effective. The first may seem obvious but is easily forgotten: we need to learn from our mistakes. So, rather than just mindlessly repeating the same actions over and over, we need to be more focused and analytical, thinking about what we did right and what we did wrong. (Psychologists call this “deliberate practice”.) Vanderbilt noted this with chess playing. You could put in the hours with hundreds of online games, but that was not going to be as effective as studying the strategies of professionals or discussing the reasons for your losses with a chess teacher.

此外，范德比尔特的研究还揭示了一些良好学习的基本原则，这些原则可以帮助人们提高学习效率。第一个原则:我们需要从错误中学习。这个原则似乎很明显，但在生活中却很容易被遗忘。所以，与其只是一遍又一遍地无意识地重复同样的行为，我们还不如更专注，同时要分析和思考我们做对了什么，做错了什么。(心理学家称之为“故意练习”。) 范德比尔特在下棋时注意到了这一点。你可以花数小时玩上百个在线游戏，但这种练习与学习专业人士的策略或与象棋老师讨论失败的原因相比，并没有那么有效。

A second principle is more counter-intuitive: we need to make sure that our practice is varied. When juggling, for example, it helped to switch the obxts, or to change how high you throw them; he tried it sitting down, and while walking. As one scientist told Vanderbilt, this is “repetition without repetition” and it forces the brain’s learned patterns to become more flexible, allowing you to cope with the unpredictable difficulties – such as a mistake in one of your earlier movements that could lead you to lose control.

第二条原则：我们需要确保我们的实践是多样化的。这条原则更加反直觉。例如，在玩杂耍时，该原则有助于转换物体，或改变投掷物体的高度; 他在练习坐下和走路的时候都会实践这一原则。正如一位科学家告诉范德比尔特的那样，这个原则就是“没有重复的重复”，它迫使大脑的学习模式变得更灵活，让你能够应对不可预测的困难。比如在早期动作中的一个错误可能会导致你失去控制，而这种灵活性可以帮助你应对这种突发状况。

Even more intriguingly, Vanderbilt discovered that we often learn best when we know that we will have to teach others the same skill. It’s not clear why this is, but that expectation seems to increase people’s interest and curiosity, which primes the brain’s attention and helps ensure that it lays down stronger memory traces. (Vanderbilt had lots of opportunities to teach what he had learnt, since he often included his daughter in his projects.) So, whatever you are personally trying to master, consider sharing that skill with someone you know. And while you may find it helpful to observe true experts executing a skill, Vanderbilt found that it can also be useful to watch other novices, since you can more easily analyse what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.

更有趣的是，范德比尔特发现，当我们知道自己必须教别人同样的技能时，我们往往学得最好。目前还不清楚为什么会这样，但这种期望似乎会增加人们的兴趣和好奇心，从而启动大脑的注意力，帮助确保它留下更强的记忆痕迹。(范德比尔特有很多机会传授他所学到的东西，因为他经常把女儿也带进自己的项目中。) 所以，无论你个人想要掌握什么技能，都可以考虑与你认识的人分享这个技能。虽然你可能会发现观察真正的专家在展示某一技能时很有帮助，但范德比尔特发现观察其他新手也很有用，因为你可以更容易地分析他们做对了什么，做错了什么。

With this knowledge, Vanderbilt made good progress with each of the skills that he set out to learn. Singing, he says, offered one of the biggest hurdles, emotionally. “It was this process of opening oneself up to a stranger in the most raw way,” he says. When he had overcome those nerves, however, it also proved to be the most rewarding. “It is the thing I probably took to the most, because it has such an inherent pleasure and makes you feel so good.” He eventually became a member of New York’s Britpop Choir.

有了这些知识，范德比尔特在他开始学习的每一项技能上都取得了长足的进步。他说，在情感上，唱歌是他最大的障碍之一。 “这是一个向陌生人敞开心扉的过程。” 然而，当他克服了这些紧张神经时，结果证明是最值得的。“这可能是我最喜欢的东西了，因为它有一种内在的快乐，这会让你感觉很好。”最终他还成为了纽约英伦流行合唱团的一员。

If you are inspired to take up a new pastime yourself, Vanderbilt advises starting out with something that is easy to integrate into your existing lifestyle. You may be surprised by the speed of your progress, he says. “A lot of people get hung up on the idea that this is just a massive time investment – that there's no end of the road – and that's very daunting to them.” He found that his drawing, for example, had improved significantly in the time that it would normally take to binge-watch a TV boxset.

范德比尔特建议，如果你受到了鼓舞想从事一项新的消遣活动的话，那就从一项容易融入你现有生活方式的活动开始。你可能会对自己的进步速度感到惊讶的。“但是很多人认为这只是一项巨大的时间投资，没有尽头，所以这会让他们望而却步。” 例如，他发现他把原本通常用来看电视的时间投资到绘画之后，他的绘画水平有了显著的提高。
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The why factor

为什么因素

You may still wonder why you should make the effort, when you could be vegging out on your sofa.

你可能还在想，明明你可以躺在沙发上放松的时候，为什么要努力呢。

But Vanderbilt points out that there are many general benefits to embracing any new skill – including some long-term brain changes that could offset some of the mental decline that often comes with ageing. Vanderbilt points to one study of adults – aged 58 to 86 – who pursed a handful of courses in subjects like Spanish, music, composition and painting. After a few months, they had not only made good progress in the individual skills, but also showed a pronounced improvement on more general cognitive tests – matching the performance of adults who were 30 years younger.

但范德比尔特指出，学习任何新技能都有许多普遍的好处，这些好处就包括可以抵消一些长期通常因年龄增长而导致的智力下降的大脑变化。范德比尔特提到了一项针对年龄在58岁至86岁之间的成年人的研究，这些被研究者都修过西班牙语、音乐、作曲和绘画等几门课程。几个月后，他们不仅在个人技能方面取得了良好的进步，在更普遍的认知测试中也表现出明显的改善，甚至是与年轻30岁的成年人的表现相当。

Intriguingly, the benefits here seemed to come from trying out multiple skills, rather than focusing exclusively on one particular expertise. As Vanderbilt writes in his book: “Rather than grinding out a marathon, you are putting your brain through a variety of high-intensity interval workouts. Each time you begin to learn that new skill, you’re reshaping. You’re training your brain again to be more efficient.” We tend to see the ‘dilettante’ as someone who is superficial and lacks dedication. But it seems that the jack of all trades – the perpetual beginner – may have a sharper brain than the master of one single ability.

有趣的是，这些好处似乎得益于尝试多种技能，而不是只专注于一种特定的技能。正如范德比尔特在他的书中所写的那样:“你不是在辛苦地跑马拉松，而是在让你的大脑进行各种高强度的间歇性锻炼。” 每次你开始学习新技能时，你都在重塑。你同时也在训练你的大脑，从而让它变得更有效率。” 我们倾向于把“业余爱好者”看作是肤浅、缺乏奉献精神的人。但似乎永远的初学者，这些所谓的“万事通”可能比只掌握一种能力的人拥有更敏锐的大脑。

The lifelong pursuit of many different interests may even increase your creativity. As David Epstein also noted in his book Range, Nobel laureates were many times more likely to have enjoyed artistic pursuits such as music, dance, visual art or creative writing than other scientists.

终身追求不同的兴趣爱好甚至可以增加你的创造力。正如大卫·爱泼斯坦在他的书中提到的那样，诺贝尔奖得主比其他科学家更有可能享受音乐、舞蹈、视觉艺术或创造性写作等艺术追求。

As you set about learning a new skill, there will be frustrations and moments of failure – but these may in fact be the most important experiences of the whole process. After years of experience in journalism, Vanderbilt says that the new challenges were a welcome change to his “professional complacency”. “It sort of opened my mind and brought me back to this sense of not knowing,” he says. This was especially true for the skills – such as drawing – that already felt somewhat familiar. “The learning of the thing itself was often different from what I imagined. My expectations were constantly being upset.”

当你开始学习一项新技能时，你会面临挫折和失败的时刻。但事实上，这些经历可能是整个过程中最重要的经历。在经历了多年的新闻工作后，范德比尔特说，新的挑战对他的“职业满足感”来说是一个可喜的改变。“这在某种程度上打开了我的思维，让我重新回到了那种未知的感觉，”对于那些已经让人感觉有些熟悉的技能来说尤其如此，比如画画。“学习事物本身往往与我想象的就不同。我的期望总是被打乱。”
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Abundant research has shown that intellectual humility – the capacity to recognise the limits of our knowledge – can powerfully improve our thinking and decision making. And that capacity to reconsider our preconceptions and open our minds to new ways of thinking may be increasingly important in today’s rapidly changing world. Whether we are learning for pleasure or attempting to boost our professional skills, we could all do well to cultivate that “beginners’ mindset”, where nothing is certain, and there is everything to learn.

大量的研究表明，认识到我们知识的局限性的能力是一种理智上的谦逊，这种能力能够有力地提高我们的思考和决策能力。而这种重新考虑我们的先入之见并向新思维方式开放我们的思维的能力，在当今快速变化的世界中可能变得越来越重要。无论我们是为了乐趣而学习，还是试图提高我们的专业技能而学习，我们都可以很好地培养“初学者的心态”，没有什么是确定的，一切都需要学习。