Learning How to Learn

At thirty-nine, I discovered I’d been studying wrong my entire life.

The revelation came while watching Arash do homework. His methods looked chaotic—drawing pictures for math problems, pacing while reciting French vocabulary, acting out historical events with his toys.

My educational conditioning screamed “inefficient.” But when I tested him later, his retention was perfect.

I’d spent twelve years in formal education learning performance, not learning. Mastered the theater of knowledge acquisition—rainbow-highlighted textbooks that looked studied but contained no understanding, comprehensive notes I never reviewed, information crammed for tests then immediately discarded.

The system taught standardized methods as if all brains operated identically. Visual learners forced to absorb lectures. Kinesthetic processors required to sit motionless. Creative minds shoved into analytical frameworks.

We learned to adapt to educational methods instead of adapting methods to ourselves.

“Why do you walk around while studying?” I asked Arash.

“I remember better when I move.”

“Did a teacher tell you that?”

“No. I just noticed.”

He’d figured out at eleven what I hadn’t learned at thirty-nine—that his brain had preferences, patterns, optimal conditions for absorption.

I’d never questioned how I learned. Just assumed the school’s method was the method. If I struggled, I was the problem, not the approach.

Last year I tried learning programming. Read books—failed completely. Watched video tutorials—helped slightly. But actual comprehension arrived only through making mistakes. Writing broken code, debugging errors, building useless programs that gradually became useful.

My hands taught my brain what my eyes couldn’t absorb.

This meta-revelation disturbed me most: if I’d been learning ineffectively for decades, what else had I done wrong? How much knowledge had I failed to acquire because I used the wrong approach?

How many subjects had I dismissed as “too difficult” when they simply required different strategies?

“I think I’ve been doing it wrong,” I told Happy that evening.

“Doing what wrong?”

“Learning. Everything. My entire life.”

She looked skeptical. “You have a degree. A good job. You learned fine.”

“Did I? Or did I just perform well enough to pass tests while retaining nothing?”

True test: I couldn’t recall most of what I’d supposedly learned in university. Passed exams, earned grades, forgot everything within months.

Performance, not learning.

Started experimenting. Tried learning guitar—something I’d “failed” at in my twenties. Back then, I’d taken formal lessons, practiced scales, followed curriculum.

Quit after three months. “Too hard,” I’d decided.

Now I tried differently. Skipped lessons entirely. Just found songs I wanted to play, looked up tabs, fumbled through them badly. Made mistakes constantly. But enjoyed the process.

Three months later, I could play five songs. Badly, but recognizably.

More than I’d learned in formal lessons.

“What’s different this time?” Happy asked.

“I’m learning through doing instead of studying. My brain apparently needs application, not instruction.”

The educational establishment treats learning as uniform process rather than personal discovery. Students spend years memorizing content while never learning how they personally acquire, process, and retain information.

We graduate with degrees but without user manuals for our own minds.

My friend Rahim mentioned learning Korean. “Tried apps, classes, textbooks—nothing stuck. Then started watching K-dramas with subtitles. Picked up the language accidentally while being entertained.”

Different brain, different method.

My colleague Shabnam learned data analysis through building a personal project tracking her expenses. Courses had bored her. Application engaged her.

Adult learning requires unlearning educational conditioning first.

I started discovering my own patterns. Morning person for analytical work, evening for creative. Need silence for reading, background noise for writing. Information sticks better through teaching others than through private review.

These fundamental insights about my cognitive process had never appeared in any curriculum.

“Why didn’t school teach us how to learn?” I asked Abba one evening.

“They taught one way. If it worked for you, good. If not, you struggled.”

“That seems inefficient.”

“Education isn’t about efficiency. It’s about standardization.”

The internet revealed learning’s infinite variety. Some absorb through videos, others through podcasts, still others through practice. Some need structure, others thrive with randomness. Some learn alone, others require community.

Educational institutions offered one-size-fits-all solutions for infinitely diverse mental architectures.

Started noticing this with Arash. His school insisted on particular study methods—silent reading, written notes, seated homework.

But he learned better pacing, speaking aloud, drawing. The system called this “distracted.” I called it “adapted to his brain.”

“The teacher says I need to sit still while studying,” he told me.

“Does sitting still help you learn?”

“No. Makes it harder.”

“Then ignore her. Study however works for you.”

Risky advice. Schools punish deviation from standard methods.

But standardization serves administrative convenience, not learning effectiveness.

The cruelest irony: we spend our most neuroplastic years—childhood through young adulthood—locked into rigid systems instead of exploring cognitive flexibility.

By the time we gain freedom to experiment, our brains have lost much adaptability.

Yet the discovery brings hope. Learning how to learn becomes its own fascinating subject.

Metacognition—thinking about thinking—opens possibilities traditional education never offered.

I started treating learning as personal research project. Experimented with different approaches for different subjects.

History through documentaries. Science through YouTube explainers. Philosophy through conversations. Languages through immersion rather than instruction.

Some experiments failed. Some revealed surprising aptitudes.

Discovered I could learn complex topics if presented as stories rather than systems. My brain organized narrative better than logic.

Never knew that about myself. Thirty-nine years of not knowing how my own mind worked.

“You seem energized lately,” Happy observed.

“I’m learning things. Actually learning, not just performing.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I can still remember it the next day.”

Started applying this to work. Stopped attending training sessions that didn’t match my learning style. Sought out alternative resources—videos, practical projects, peer discussions.

Learned more in three months than in years of mandatory professional development.

The system had trained me wrong. Now I was retraining myself.

Shared this revelation with younger colleagues. “Figure out how you learn before spending years learning ineffectively.”

Some dismissed it. “School’s method worked fine for me.”

Others had epiphanies. “I’ve always struggled with reading technical documentation. Thought I was just bad at it. Maybe I just need different format.”

Liberation in understanding that struggle isn’t failure—it’s mismatch between brain and method.

Last week, Arash asked, “Baba, am I doing homework wrong? Teacher says my method is incorrect.”

“Does your method work?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s correct. For you.”

He looked relieved. Permission to trust his own brain over institutional authority.

That night I wrote down everything I’d discovered about my learning:

• Morning for analysis, evening for creativity
• Silence for input, noise for output
• Learn through doing, not observing
• Narrative organization over logical systems
• Teaching others for retention
• Application before theory
• Movement while processing
• Multiple short sessions over long ones

My personal user manual, thirty-nine years delayed.

Better late than never.

Started experimenting with subjects I’d “failed” before. Philosophy I’d found impenetrable in university became fascinating through podcasts. Advanced math I’d struggled with made sense through practical application.

Not because I’d gotten smarter. Because I’d found compatible learning methods.

The student in me was finally learning how to be a student.

“What would you tell twenty-year-old you?” Happy asked.

“That there’s no correct way to learn. Only your way. Find it early. Ignore anyone who says you’re doing it wrong if it’s working.”

“That would have saved you time.”

“Decades. But at least I know now.”

Tonight I experiment with new approaches to old subjects. Learning treated as personal research project, not institutional requirement.

At thirty-nine, finally understanding my own mind.

Better than never understanding at all.