Title: Uscolia: Learning Without Teaching
Author: Gabriel Lanyi
Genre: Nonfiction, Education
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.
Learning without teaching – a journey to the land of native fluency
The human brain is a brilliant self-learning machine, proficient at rule-building and pattern-recognition. What we generally refer to as “teaching” – an instructor conveying knowledge to a student and then testing the amount of information absorbed – is an illusion. We are fooled into thinking that schools can teach us anything, because in the midst of all the wasted instruction, they also provide some necessary exposure, which the brain utilizes for learning. But all learning is in fact internal, beginning and ending inside the brain.
Beyond the illusion of teaching
We all acquire our native languages without fail and without any teaching proper – by exposure, observation and imitation. Understanding this process provides valuable insight into the brain’s method of learning, and reveals how we can achieve effective learning without teaching in other areas as well.
A first-hand account of the legendary Uscolian studios
Uscolia tells of an extraordinary journey to the island of Uscolia, where there are no schools, and generations of creative youths acquire fluency in various disciplines such as music, math, and sciences without teaching, in free-flowing facilities called studios. The author also describes his hands-on experience in applying Uscolian principles within the context of an ordinary family home.
Discover the capacity for native fluency and learning without teaching in Uscolia.
Uscolia is an interesting book. It offers a proposition: that we do not learn through education, or teaching (instructor conveying knowledge to a student), but that learning is, in fact, internal – it beings and ends inside the brain. The theory is based on native fluency, as we have with our own native language, which we do not learn through education but rather through being exposed to it.
This theory is explored through the story at hand – Ben, the protagonist, stumbles upon the island of Uscolia. This island has no schools. Instead, children acquire fluency in various disciplines like music, math and sciences not through education but simply through exposure, and are then allowed to pursue what interests them. There are no curricula people need to follow, and all projects are taught through self-learning, which seems to work rather well.
The book was quite helpful to me, and I imagine it will be equally helpful to others. I’ve always felt our education system is lacking, and simply learning through immersion, self-learning or aided self-learning, might be a better alternative than the regular education system.
Title: The Failure of University Education for Development & What To Teach Instead
