We spend over 10,000 hours in the formal educational system. How much time we spend at school on learning how to learn? on creating and fostering new innovative ideas? Not enough
As for myself, I skipped many classroom lessons during my elementary school days. I was hooked on Science-fiction. I learned a lot about Social Sciences, Biology and Science from watching popular science TV shows and from reading Asimov's books then from my school teachers
Years later, serving as a lecturer at Tel-Aviv University School of Education, I've recall the enjoyment of my informal learning experiences. Hence, I've included in the lessons plan of my academic course "Learning Technologies and innovation" the opportunity to showing my students experts from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey epic science fiction film. Watching the movie was found to be a powerful teaching tool. it afford us with a starting point of in-depth discussions on Human-Machine love-hate interactions and about the future of Artificial Intelligence and Education.
Marvin Minsky the inventor of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the co-founder of the A.I Lab and the M.I.T Media Lab served as a consultant for the design of "HAL 9000" in the 2001: A Space Odyssey movie. He died on the 24th of January 2016. R.I.P
Here's a quote on what we call Super Heroes "talent" from his best-seller book "The Society of Mind" originally published in 1988
“We shouldn't let our envy of distinguished masters of the arts distract us from the wonder of how each of us gets new ideas. Perhaps we hold on to our superstitions about creativity in order to make our own deficiencies seem more excusable. For when we tell ourselves that masterful abilities are simply explainable, we're also comforting ourselves by saying that those superheroes come endowed with all the qualities we don't possess. Our failures are therefore no fault of our own, nor are those heroes' virtues to their credit, either. If it isn't learned, it isn't earned.
When we actually meet the heroes whom our culture views as great, we don't find any singular propensities––only combinations of ingredients quite common in themselves. Most of these heroes are intensely motivated, but so are many other people. They're usually very proficient in some field–but in itself we simply call this craftmanship or expertise. They often have enough self-confidence to stand up to the scorn of peers–but in itself, we might just call that stubbornness. They surely think of things in some novel ways, but so does everyone from time to time. And as for what we call "intelligence", my view is that each person who can speak coherently already has the better part of what our heroes have. Then what makes genius appear to stand apart, if we each have most of what it takes?
I suspect that genius needs one thing more: in order to accumulate outstanding qualities, one needs unusually effective ways to learn. It's not enough to learn a lot; one also has to manage what one learns.
Those masters have, beneath the surface of their mastery, some special knacks of "higher-order" expertise, which help them organize and apply the things they learn. It is those hidden tricks of mental management that produce the systems that create those works of genius. Why do certain people learn so many more and better skills? These all-important differences could begin with early accidents.
One child works out clever ways to arrange some blocks in rows and stacks; a second child plays at rearranging how it thinks. Everyone can praise the first child's castles and towers, but no one can see what the second child has done, and one may even get the false impression of a lack of industry. But if the second child persists in seeking better ways to learn, this can lead to silent growth in which some better ways to learn may lead to better ways to learn to learn. Then, later, we'll observe an awesome, qualitative change, with no apparent cause–and give to it some empty name like talent, aptitude, or gift."
The Society of Mind-
(Marvin Lee Minsky R.I.P (1927 –2016
Here is his famous TED Talk on the Human Mind
How do you foster your "special gift" Long Life Learning? Think about it for a minute