Did you ever feel like you were the only one in the classroom that felt like you were lost inside the topic you were learning and felt sadly alone? 

Did you ever feel like you shouldn’t ask the question because others might realize you are way behind in grasping what you were to be learning? 

Did you often just sit down and say well I am so far behind today, I might was well just blow this class off because there is no hope for recovery at this point?  

Did you decide to just give up and bow out quietly so not to let others know you quit?

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If you answered yes to any of these four questions, it is totally normal and more common than you might think.  After all even though we have developed a vast learning system that others around the world look up to I have news for you. That doesn’t make it the best way for a large population of the planet. After all, who says that learning from reading is the best suited way for our students to learn?  

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Professor Edgar Dale created the Cone of Learning in 1969.  He demonstrated how people learn best.  Ninety percent of people doing the real thing or simulated games, seventy percent participate in a discussion, fifty percent watch a movie, thirty percent looking at pictures, twenty percent listening to a lecture and ten percent reading.

Did you ever feel like you were the only one in the classroom that felt like you were lost inside the topic you were learning and felt sadly alone?  Did you ever feel like you shouldn’t ask the question because others might realize you are way behind in grasping what you were to be learning?  Did you often just sit down and say well I am so far behind today, I might was well just blow this class off because there is no hope for recovery at this point?  Did you decide to just give up and bow out quietly so not to let others know you quit?

If you answered yes to any of these four questions, it is totally normal and more common than you might think.  After all even though we have developed a vast learning system that others around the world look up to I have news for you.  That doesn’t make it the best way for a large population of the planet.  After all, who says that learning from reading is the best suited way for our students to learn?  

Professor Edgar Dale created the Cone of Learning in 1969.  He demonstrated how people learn best.  Ninety percent of people doing the real thing or simulated games, seventy percent participate in a discussion, fifty percent watch a movie, thirty percent looking at pictures, twenty percent listening to a lecture and ten percent reading.

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Simulation is how it works!  In 1986, when I took to the skies to learn how to fly a plane I had a lot of failures to overcome.  You may say if you fail in a plane you might likely die.  Well that is so very true in June of 2010 I lost a friend Danny Carroll in an airplane accident killing himself his wife and grand daughter.  You can very easily die from a mistake in flying an airplane, but that is why my instructor and all instructors will randomly pull out the engine failure as you are inside the landing pattern. Simulating engine failure is how we learn how to respond to engine failure. 

 

I have to practice this maneuver time and time again so that in the event a real crisis occurs, I am well prepared to handle failure…  Hint for the test:  Simulation is a key in learning.

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Look back at the statistics I shared above just for a minute:  Notice that reading is at the bottom of the list. 

 

Now I am not going to tell you reading is not important and quite frankly that’s the furthest thing from my mind. 

 

Reading is essential for us, but not everyone reads the same and enjoys reading the same things when it comes to learning.  After all not all reading is learning and some people read for learning and some for pleasure.  Each reader whether it is for learning or pleasure must hold one thing in common.  They must like, enjoy or have enough curiosity to continue the reading on a subject matter. 

 

Like sales for example:   A person may not like the idea of sales but may be curious enough about sales to want to learn the steps required to begin the sales process and then learn more about the road to success in sales. 

 

Remember, it has been said that if you can become great at something you do not like you will be a great success at which you do not like.

 

I have a confession to make for those reading this and saying to themselves, “Geez I never read one book in school.” Well, I’m that guy!

My first book report was to be completed in fourth grade and didn’t finish reading that book until 2004. 

It was Harry Houdini Boy Magician a story about the life of Harry Houdini who I admired as I watched his performances on television and became fascinated by his ability to free himself from chains with death on the other side of failure. 

Now do you think Harry learned his tricks in a book? 

Do you think he learned in a lecture? 

Do you think he learned looking at pictures? 

Our best forms of learning come from real life experiences or a simulated experience.  

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We all must take steps each day, it is a choice that must be made by each of us. We can choose to see the cup half full or half empty. We can see the four horsemen and turn away.

We can make a decision to see life with optimism or see life as dark and gloomy.

 

When we think of our minds as a garden in which we can allow our thoughts to become like weeds that grow inside our minds and allow these thoughts take over our dreams. awe must remove the thoughts of lack and doubt and see ourselves as part of an infinite universal power within each of us that has the ability to enrich our lives and the lives of others.

 

Life in time will provide us many things we never dreamed. 

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This is not pie in the sky thinking. This is simply a lesson from a high school dropout.

It’s this simple!  

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My father Theodore J. Fitch taught me this:

Sow a thought, reap an action,

sow and action reap a habit,

so a habit reap a character,

sow a character reap a destiny.  

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