> what were the most rewarding high-growth periods of your life?
Every single one was an extremely life-threatening moment in which I very likely would (and should) have died, but for my very rapid learning. The growth came in not being a corpse.
I realize I am not the target audience of this article.
"Target audience" or not, there's a ton of truth in what you say.
Necessity and lack of control in a novel and frightening situation
transforms our minds. It isn't sustainable, but it's not meant to be,
because the goal is to get through it and get out, by becoming a
different, better person.
To pick some slightly less dramatic examples than combat or wilderness
survival;
A person who learned a new language in 14 days because they fell in
love with someone who spoke almost no English, but simply had to be
with them and make things work.
Someone who became an expert bricklayer when stuck in a remote
village where that was the only skill they could contribute.
A fella named John Taylor Gatto [0,1] became the New York State
Teacher of the Year (winning it more than once IIRC) before being
fired for reckless unconventionality. He once drove a bus of school
kids upstate into the wild, gave each $10 and a bottle of water, told
them their assignment was to "find your way home", and drove off. Of
course all the kids made it and recounted the "best ever learning
experience of their lives". Today they'd sue for trauma... if they
survived.
The article I just read sadly describes more scaffolding, more
mollycoddling, more "learning on rails", but "Now with added AI!"
I really enjoyed Gatto's "The Underground History of American Education," it's a refreshing and entertaining rebuke of the authoritarian/scientific management consensus on schooling, which has not changed much over the past century and is not equipped to educate children for the modern era.
Just because we all get to the goal doesn’t mean it’s not the goal… if the people are merely players then the last part of the part is to exit off stage.
Every single one was an extremely life-threatening moment in which I very likely would (and should) have died, but for my very rapid learning. The growth came in not being a corpse.
I realize I am not the target audience of this article.