Why would anyone eat something that looks like this? It’s ugly, it has spines on the tips of the leaves, and each leaf is fibrous and not very tasty.
This morning I was thinking about this very question. Who was the first person that braved the defenses nature threw up around this thistle-like plant and why did this person do this?
Hunger, do’h. But I think there must be more to it than that. Certainly hunger was a catalyst for exploration; however, it takes patience and persistence to get to the heart of the matter (pun intended) and obtain the reward. What drove this person to this?
The answer to this question lies at the heart of what I was really thinking about this morning: why do people learn. There must be some fundamental answer. And there is–the same answer for why someone would persist in seeing if the ugly plant was edible: curiosity. If hunger is the motivation, then curiosity is the catalyst.
People are curious. It seems programmed into us. What can we as learning professionals whose business it is to help people learn do to capitalize on this?
First and foremost, we can recognize that everyone (or most) for whom we create learning opportunities wants to learn, needs to learn. It’s fundamental to their constitution. People are curious; they want to know more. Our job is to help provide opportunities then stay out of their way.
Second, our job is to build upon this natural desire to learn and to facilitate curiosity. “You like this? Come on, I’ll show you something else you’ll really like.” Sounds seedy, but we are leading people on into a deeper understanding of things.
Third, we need to provide people with the tools and information they can use to continue learning after the course. Hardly anyone I know takes a course with the attitude of “I’ll complete this one course then never learn anything else about this subject again.” People want to dig deeper. We are pretentious if we believe that we can offer the definitive answer to everything in one course. So we need to offer more opportunities and point people in a direction.
Finally, we need to keep people interested. If you have a cat, watch it. If you throw a fuzzy ball, it will chase it and play with it for a bit. But then it loses interest. You need to throw the ball again and again and again. We need to design courses that capture people’s interest and continue to “throw the fuzzy ball” so they maintain a level of interest.
Gotta run. I’m boiling artichokes for lunch.
