The Power of Mindful Learning

by Ellen J. Langer

Book Overview

Radical in its implications, this original and important work may change forever the views we hold about the nature of learning. In The Power of Mindful Learning, Ellen Langer uses her innovative... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201339919
• ISBN13: 9780201339918
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 167 Pages
• Weight: 0.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Turned My Head Inside Out

I can't guarantee it will have the same effect on everyone, but this book affected me profoundly. I've heard the same ideas repeated in other contexts before but nothing hit home like this book did. Challenged a lot of very deeply held assumptions about the value of "competence." I don't know whether it's actually that great a book or if it was just exactly what I needed to read at that point in my life.

Mindful learning leads to mindful teaching

I read this book from the perspective of a college teacher, looking for new ways to think about what goes on in the classroom. My eyes were opened! Langer argues that learning need not be boring and students don't have to think of education as "work." She suggests ways to re-frame activities in ways that engage students in what they are doing and give them a reason to care about the outcomes. Langer attacks the myth that rote learning & blind memorization are the foundation for higher-order skills. She makes a strong case that "forgetting" is often a good thing. Teachers should be concerned about students understanding the contextual limitations of what they learn, rather than with "covering the material."Coupled with Bob Boice's several books on mindfulness in teaching, this book changed the way I think about college teaching.

The Nature Of Learning

Ms. Langer effectively conveys her theory of mindful learning and its implications for education wherever it takes place - in school, on the job, in the home - and does so in a clearly expressed nonacademic manner.What is mindful learning? It is learning that involves "openness to novelty; alertness to distinction; sensitivity to different contexts; implicit, if not explicit, awareness of multiple perspectives; and orientation in the present." What might this all mean for us? Perhaps our educational curriculums need to be taught differently, maybe our jobs could be more enjoyable, and self-improvement less onerous.She states the myths of conventional learning:1.The basics must be learned so well that they become second nature.2.Paying attention means being focused on one thing at a time.3.Delaying gratification is important.4.Rote memorization is necessary.5.Forgetting is a problem.6.Intelligence is knowing "what's out there."7.There are right and wrong answers.Each chapter discusses, in a nondogmatic manner, theory and possible reasons why these myths are not always helpful.This is not, as Professor Langer states, a "how-to" book with prescriptions and study programs for the self-help "professional learner" (as one reviewer phrased it.) It doesn't have cute little "mind-maps," and it isn't a De Bono's "Thinking Course"-type book. The reviewer (Adamson, January 22, 1999) might have learned something if he'd been less smug about his naive faith in those "accelerated" learning books which don't deliver half of what they claim.Personally, I found this book extremely helpful in my own personal studies - from learning to play tennis and golf better, becoming more fluent in Spanish, improving my chess - since I try to find alternative methods, perspectives, and just plain fun in learning. I don't try to be perfect. I don't think there's only one way to do something. Try it.

It Re-Invents The Obvious

Take the time to read this short analysis of sideways, mindful learning. Langer calls for us to allow for lateral thinking, to strive to cultivate it in our schools, and to approach each day by being open to life's multifariousness. She writes, "the very notion of intelligence may be clouded by a myth: the belief that being intelligent means knowing what is out there...An alternative view, which is the base of mindfulness research, is that individuals may always define their relations to their environment in several ways, essentially creating the reality that is out there. What is out there is shaped by how we view it" (p. 100). Reading this will help set you on your toes. Mindfulness is viewing the world from several perspectives; seeing the familiar as a novelty; attending to things with the full force of perception; and looking for more options when others say enough (p. 111). She calls for us to mature in our thinking, so that we will have intelligent ignorance in making the best of situations. It is good reading, good learning.

Power of ideas

Langer's style is more popular than academic. She presents plenty of empirical evidence to support her ideas, though there may not be enough data to satisfy some scholars. What she does well is challenge conventional wisdom, for example, that you have to learn to do the basics before acquring a new competence. Or, that we should encourage our children to 'pay more attention'. She dissects these beliefs and exposes the relatively shallow assumptions that underpin them. This has had great power for me, and I have tried to apply these insights mindfully.It is over a year since I first read this book. In that time I have found endless applications for Langer's concept of mindfulness. My training designs have been completely transformed by the idea, backed up by empirical evidence, that teaching people 'steps in a process' is essentially meaningless. I have borrowed constantly in writing and speech from her suggestion that 'conditional' language is more persuassive than 'unconditional'. Most importantly, I have learned to help other people become mindful about solving their problems in my coaching work.