The Learning Organization

2 How people really learn

Learning isn’t magic

My four-year-old grandson is learning magic tricks, though he clearly hasn’t mastered them yet. He’s got all the confidence of a four-year-old and some simple instructions, but he hasn’t practiced enough, the feedback is inadequate because we tell him he’s great, and he doesn’t have the self-awareness yet to understand he’s got a long way to go. So how do you learn to do a magic trick successfully?

For most people there’s a trigger; you see a friend make a coin vanish and for a split second, you’re a child again, wondering how the world works. That tiny spark of curiosity is enough to start you off. A quick search on YouTube and you’ve found the secret. It looks almost disappointingly simple ...