Do you feel people learn or understand better when told something versus discovering it on their own?

I was always excited when I happened to discover something.

How receptive I am to the suggestions of others is based on what taste they have whether I agree. If I am distracted. The enthusiasm they transmit. Whether or not it will cause me more work.

Say I now have to buy or find this book read it and hopefully like it. So I can tell this person I did. Every now and again it is a great bonding moment. Other times not so much.

What works out great is when I stumble upon something that rings a bell pick it up and discover is. Like it and later discover it has been what my friend was raving about.

@rosehips Hm interesting yes, not sure why it didn’t cross my mind. If it is not convenient for the person, why bother doing it. Does make sense.

@gailcalled Maybe, I would like to know the difference though. Which I did google. I think it would have to do with my need for it. Music is more of an enjoyment thing, for myself although would lead me to want to learn or expand on that particular thing in music. Where as the needing to know this word feels more like a demand on whether or not I will be using it or beneficial to me.

Not sure if that makes complete sense. That is just how I look at it.

The thing i want to know is much different to the thing you want me to know…
it is a relevance issue.
Learning is easy, schooling is hard.

I don’t think there’s any substitute for personal experience. I can be learn the basics of swimming, say, by reading or classroom instruction, but until I get into a pool and find out for myself what water feels like, how to hold my hands, how to kick my feet, how to avoid breathing in water, etc., I’m not a swimmer.

As @rosehips said, the ‘thrill’ of discovery may add an extra layer of feeling, which could cement the experience further in our minds. It’s not so much that we’re uninterested in others’ suggestions, but that we’re extra interested in what we discover on our own.

Knowledge that you receive from others comes with a price. It locks you into their way of looking at things. Once you’ve adopted a certain perspective, it can be very hard to break out of it to see the matter differently.

I think of how Aristotle’s version of the way the world works basically held the human mind captive for many centuries. He was brilliant, and so his vision went unquestioned for generation after generation. Finally we discovered the value of not accepting ideas as fact without making sure they actually accord with experiment. Now, from the vantage point of the knowledge we’ve gained that way, we can see how wrong we were to just accept Aristotle’s vision.

Depends on when they are told. If they are told in their discovery phase of the subject, they will be amenable to hearing what you are saying. If they are told before or after their discovery phase of the subject, then how much they express an interest is dependent on how close they are to their discovery phase of the subject. It also depends on how positive or negative their experience was during their discovery phase.

No one has the time to discover everything him- or herself. It would be inefficient and slow down humanity’s cultural evolution. Sometimes it’s also problematic to discover something on your own. A good example is an unwanted pregnancy. An explorer might say, let’s see if she becomes pregnant, if I don’t wear a condom. I wanna see for myself, and not rely on what my parents or teachers are telling me. It’ll be a great learning experience.

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”—Confucius

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
-Benjamin Franklin

Also, everyone learns differently. There are visual learners, tactile learners, those that need to hear it and repeat it, etc. And finally, how receptive is the student? I personally don’t listen fully to everything my husband tells me..I admit I’ve developed a sort of filter and don’t fully “take in” every said to me.

Depends on one’s learning style, but in general, perhaps instruction combined with experience are the best.

A lot of what we say in conversation is smalltalk, filler meant to maintain the flow. It is not that people are not paying attention to your music recommendations. It is just that, unless you really make a point of it, they quickly evaporate into the background. It would be different if you gave your recommendations in response to a question. Then the person would be more likely to be paying attention, though there is still no guarantee of it.

It depends solely on the individual. I always did well with a good lecturer like Alan Watts and certain concepts presented at these lectures have stayed with me for almost 40 years now. Or lectures on subjects I am interested in, like Art History and Forgery. On the other hand, out of school, the things I learned in a natural evolution of concepts over time, have sunk in real good. The older I get, I don’t do well with arbitrary assignments, like those I find uninteresting and disconnected to a subject, but required to master in order to meet a passing grade for a class. These things I retain hardly at all and if they become important later, I only have enough knowledge of them to research them properly to get up to speed.

Then there is serendipity, like surfing Wikipedia and getting hung up on the obscure but interesting graphics artist Pamela Coleman Smith or famous diamonds, their provenance, especially when they seem to be cursed. Fun stuff and, probably because this serendipity is mine, the ideas tend to remain quite accurate for years.

But real life, physical, experience has been quite a good teacher. Like learning in just a few hours the precise limitations of a sports car on mountain roads at high speed. Then coming off that mountain road and experiencing a proprioception in the same car as if you were wearing it. Or having the same feeling in a sailboat that has become a part of you during high stormy seas and black night, but you know exactly where you are and at which attitude at all times, and suddenly you realize that all that training as become hardwired and you can really sail, and the boat and you are one. I don’t understand this type of learning process, but it’s the type I find most enjoyable.

@geeky_mama – “There are visual learners, tactile learners, those that need to hear it and repeat it”

Actually, this is one of those dogmas for which no evidence has ever been found. That doesn’t stop it being repeated: it has too much appeal.

Much in the same way, the “learner-centred” model of education actually has rather strong evidence counting against it, but this evidence conflicts with Western dogma regarding the individual, their role in society, human nature and learning. You have Rousseau to thank for that.

Involvement is key, though.

@the100thmonkey, I don’t want to sidetrack this discussion, though it is somewhat related, but there is evidence to support learner centered education. I would give more credit to Dewey than Rousseau.

This is a very old educational philosophy. When people teach themselves, they learn the most and retain the most. It’s because we’re involved and self-directed. When people tell us stuff, we are under their direction. We only hear what they think we should hear, which may or may not be relevant to what we are interested in or the way we learn.

You have learned this principle much better because you discovered it on your own. If I had told you it, or if someone else here has written it, it didn’t sink in. But now you know it.

We tend to believe ourselves more than others. We believe what we figure out more than what we’re told. If we do it ourselves, we “own” it. When we own something, we take much better care of it. If other people lecture us, it’s not our knowledge. We don’t own it. We didn’t discover it on our own. We don’t pay attention to it the same way.

This is why schools like Summerhill work. Students only do what they want to do. But when they want to do something, they pursue it doggedly.

I find it often helps to substitute words in a question to allow greater understanding of what’s being asked to facilitate a more useful answer. You asked:

“Do you feel people learn or understand better when told something versus discovering it on their own?”

I would slightly rephrase your questions:

“Do you feel people learn or understand better when told something versus experiencing it themselves?”

Let’s refine it a bit…

“Do you feel a person would understand better if I told him what an orange tastes like or if he tasted it himself?”

“Do people learn how to drive through classroom study or through actually getting behind the wheel?”

I’m oversimplifying a bit, but I think the point is valid:

True knowledge is experiential. I think people often believe that acquiring information from various sources means they know about a particular subject. You can’t truly know or understand something until you experience it. Telling someone something familiarizes that person with the subject. “Doing it” translates the intellectual understanding into knowledge.

A counter argument to this is the person who says, “I don’t have to get hit by a car to know or understand not to walk in front of a moving vehicle”, which seems to be a legitimate stance. It’s easy to overlook that that person obviously has some kind of experience concerning the weight of a car and the fragility of the human body to arrive at the conclusion that it might not be a good idea to step into traffic.

This too, is an extreme example. The real answer to your question is probably dependent on the subject and how interested the listener is concerning what’s being taught. My opinion (meaning I don’t really know) is that in most cases people probably learn or understand better through discovering it themselves.

I have a bad habit of posting responses without reading the previous posts first. After going back over the previous responses, I like the response @burntbonez gave a whole lot better than mine. Through reading it, I’m thinking that rephrasing your question actually changed what was being asked.

I think that a person who discovers something for themselves is more inclined to learn or understand it better because they’re more likely to be interested in it.

Hard to learn or understand something you’re not interested in.

That’s my answer and I’m sticking to it!