When you want to learn a new skill, get a children’s book about it.
What?
Yes.
If you want to learn something new, get the children’s version first.
How did I learn this?
I was in high school and I was very nervous about my upcoming year in physics.
A librarian (Hi Holly! Thank you for being so cool to me when I was a teen!) told me to get a children’s book about it.
Here’s how following Holly’s advice went:
- What I thought: No way can I use a kid’s version of anything (isn’t that taking a shortcut?).
- What I learned: ANYTHING that helps you learn is valid.
- What I thought: No way that children’s books about physics exist.
- What I learned: There are children’s books about EVERYTHING.
- What I thought: No way could a children’s book about physics help.
- What I learned: That terminal velocity is the fastest that a falling object can go. Objects of different sizes, shapes, and densities will reach terminal velocity at different points in time.
- Bonus connection: I realized something about the ball-drop activity that I loved at the Science Museum of Virginia. My gran took me there all the time as a child. A replica Leaning Tower of Pisa had a clamp holding two plastic balls, one hollow and one filled with pellets. With the squeeze of a joystick, both balls would drop at the same time, but the heavier one would land first. That experiential learning was an example of terminal velocity.
Now, whenever I want to learn how to do something new or I am stumped, I try to remember to look for a children’s version.
Currently, I am obsessed with Artificial Intelligence. Since AI is built of off programming, I have checked out two children’s books about computer programming.
What are you interested in? Where are you stuck? What’s intimidating you?
Find the children’s version!
Go to your local library (bring I.D. like Driver’s License or Passport to get a library card if you don’t already have one). Use their computer system or ask a librarian to look up your interest in the children’s section. If you’d like to navigate alone, look for books with “J” on the spine for “juvenile”.
Or open a web browser and search “[your interest]+children’s book/children’s version.”
Try One Thing:
Find the Children’s Version of Something That Interests You
BONUS POINTS IF you go to A LIBRARY OR INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE!
Post below about what you want to learn!
