The 3 Levels of Learning — How to Go Beyond the Theory

Level up your ROI and make your learning efforts count.

“The human mind is our fundamental resource.”

— John F. Kennedy

But we’re not fully capitalizing on this precious resource. The human brain is not designed for plain memorization and repetition, yet we often don’t go beyond that in our learning.

Have you wondered why most of what we learn in school comes in one ear and goes out the other? That’s because our learning stagnated at the entry level — we’re selling ourselves short by stopping ourselves so early.

To help you discover your full capability to level up your return on investment in learning, let’s look at how learning progresses in three levels.

Level 1: Learning from the past — recite the theory

No matter what subject, we start by learning from the past. Learning from the past is based on experience — the accumulation of knowledge other people gathered leading up to today.

It’s based on what worked in the past, taken directly and passed down from existing experience.

In fact, this constitutes most of our learning from Kindergarten to University and beyond. We solve problems from 100 years ago that have been solved countless times and try to understand models and theorems from 10-year-old textbooks.

What we’re learning is entirely theory — we don’t even think about applying it to the real world, not to mention the future. We’re satisfied with merely understanding what happened in the past — and we feel good when we’ve got the facts memorized enough to pass the test.

Level 2: Learning from the present — apply

When you turn to the real world from the ideal world, you’ll have entered level 2.

This is when you start applying theory to the problems at hand.

“Knowing is not enough; We must apply. Willing is not enough; We must do.” — Bruce Lee

You’ll realize that the real world is imperfect, and these imperfections can often deem your entire model invalid, and you understand the extent to which theory and reality overlap in your field — and that the value lies within it.

We created theories and models to simplify and understand reality — but they are not reality. And just because a theory works in one situation, it doesn’t mean it will work in another.

Only by applying theory to reality will the learner gain an effective understanding of it, and then learn how to adapt it in useful ways.

Level 3: Learning from the future — predict & extend

If you were able to get this far to level 3, you come to the most exciting and unpredictable part of learning — solving tomorrow’s problems.

Now, you’ve mastered yesterday’s problems and today’s problems, and you’re ready to tackle the future. I rarely see people getting to this point.

This is the highest level of learning because it requires you to master the first two levels — the theory developed from the past and today’s applications, in order to extend your problem-solving to what’s coming perhaps 10 years down the road.

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” — Stephen Hawking

In the future, change is the only constant. In this stage, you’ll find yourself extending what works now to understand the future — this means making good assumptions, developing sound logic, and making your system robust against uncertainty.

There’s a reason why predicting and forecasting is an art (and a complex one) — the past doesn’t always extend into the future, and you never know how well your decisions will hold against the vast number of unpredictable things that can happen.

What This Means to You

I hope what you take away, among other things, is to not be satisfied with a surface-level recitation of theory in whatever you’re learning.

When we stop too early in our learning journey, we don’t get to the good stuff.

Why is education ineffective? I think it’s largely because we’re too focused on the theory, on the overly simplified problems on paper. I’m not saying theory’s not important, it’s certainly fundamental to the later stages, but we shouldn’t be satisfied with just that.

The theory is just the tip of the iceberg, and I encourage you to explore all that the subject has to offer underneath by applying and extending what you know — it will be uncertain, but certainly rewarding.

Which level are you at right now, and what have you been learning recently?

I’ve been analyzing military training systems and how they’re relevant to us — excited to share my takeaways with you soon.

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