Maybe there are two learning styles—copying and explicit—each of them having their set of advantages and disadvantages. (Perhaps an analogy to System 1 and System 2.)
Learning by copying is faster and it does not require cooperation from the person you copy. On the other hand, copying is imperfect, and you cannot copy what you don’t see. Learning explicitly is slower and requires a good explanation; which requires a good introspection from the person who explains.
So maybe this is an instance of “the last will be first”. -- People who are good at learning by copying, use learning by copying as their favorite learning style. People who are bad at learning by copying can compensate by focusing on explicit learning.
Under these assumptions, the “copying” people have a fast start, because many activities are simple and can be learned by copying. Then when it comes to more complex activities, they usually continue copying, get some mediocre results, and stop there. And even there, they probably get those mediocre results faster than an “explicit” person. -- They really believe that learning by copying is superior, because this is what worked for them. Learning explicitly is just a strange ritual done at school; and I suspect that even there they try to copy the teachers.
On the other hand, “explicit” people learn slowly and are completely dependent on good learning materials. Sometimes the good materials are available, and allow them to reach mastery in complex things. The whole school system is designed for this. Sometimes the materials are unavailable or misleading (e.g. because the topic is mindkilling), and they are lost. These are the “book smart” people. -- They believe in explicit learning, because this is what worked for them.
These are just extreme descriptions, I guess most people use learning by copying in some areas and explicit learning in other areas. They may have an explanation about which style is better in which situation. There are things that give advantage to one of those styles in a given area: how big inferential distances are there, how visible is the information, how good are available teaching materials. But better teaching materials can be made even in areas where learning by copying has the natural advantage. -- It’s just than in a given area, when most people are satisfied with what they learn by copying, developing techniques for explicit learning may seem unnecessary and “wrong”. This can be more complicated if saying that the copying does not work for you means advertising your low status, so the defense of explicit techniques itself becomes a low-status thing to do, and insisting that those techniques are completely unnecessary becomes a signal of good copying skills and high status.
Maybe there are two learning styles—copying and explicit—each of them having their set of advantages and disadvantages. (Perhaps an analogy to System 1 and System 2.)
Learning by copying is faster and it does not require cooperation from the person you copy. On the other hand, copying is imperfect, and you cannot copy what you don’t see. Learning explicitly is slower and requires a good explanation; which requires a good introspection from the person who explains.
So maybe this is an instance of “the last will be first”. -- People who are good at learning by copying, use learning by copying as their favorite learning style. People who are bad at learning by copying can compensate by focusing on explicit learning.
Under these assumptions, the “copying” people have a fast start, because many activities are simple and can be learned by copying. Then when it comes to more complex activities, they usually continue copying, get some mediocre results, and stop there. And even there, they probably get those mediocre results faster than an “explicit” person. -- They really believe that learning by copying is superior, because this is what worked for them. Learning explicitly is just a strange ritual done at school; and I suspect that even there they try to copy the teachers.
On the other hand, “explicit” people learn slowly and are completely dependent on good learning materials. Sometimes the good materials are available, and allow them to reach mastery in complex things. The whole school system is designed for this. Sometimes the materials are unavailable or misleading (e.g. because the topic is mindkilling), and they are lost. These are the “book smart” people. -- They believe in explicit learning, because this is what worked for them.
These are just extreme descriptions, I guess most people use learning by copying in some areas and explicit learning in other areas. They may have an explanation about which style is better in which situation. There are things that give advantage to one of those styles in a given area: how big inferential distances are there, how visible is the information, how good are available teaching materials. But better teaching materials can be made even in areas where learning by copying has the natural advantage. -- It’s just than in a given area, when most people are satisfied with what they learn by copying, developing techniques for explicit learning may seem unnecessary and “wrong”. This can be more complicated if saying that the copying does not work for you means advertising your low status, so the defense of explicit techniques itself becomes a low-status thing to do, and insisting that those techniques are completely unnecessary becomes a signal of good copying skills and high status.