Taking charge of your own education

This week our photography consultant had the opportunity to watch as two young people developed their first rolls of film. Of course he enjoyed their excitement at actually using this unfamiliar old technology, and was reminded that his own first roll was a long time ago. (It’s still available in the archives, but is—understandably—not brought out for printing very often.) More important, though, are his observations on learning things, which is not the same as being taught.

Our photography consultant writes:

There are two young people in particular in this evening class, where I am refining my printing skills (one can never be too good at it), who had never taken a film picture before. I call it a class but it’s very free-form, and I look on it more as access to a darkroom with help at hand if needed. There are no assignments, quizzes or tests; you learn what you set out to learn.

So it is very different from school as we knew it, which is heavily structured, scheduled and time-constrained. Also, in school the subjects are chosen for us and we are tested at the end. We might, perhaps, choose Spanish instead of French and Band instead of Choir, but we are being taught.

There is an enormous difference—I can’t underline this too heavily—when you take charge yourself and set out to learn something. Sometimes it happens in school, though our consultants all shamefacedly admit that they didn’t get to that point until well into graduate school. (Which implies that most people never get there.)

Everyone has a different style of learning (another blog post will address this), but the following points should cover just about anyone trying to learn a technique, something they intend to apply independently:

Try it!

This is the most important step! My young classmates were nervous at their first attempts, and were reluctant to spend film on something that might not turn out well. But—this is not a judged final performance; it needn’t be perfect. (If you’re already perfect, why are you in the class at all?). Your question should be, at each step, “What can I learn from this?” I’ve seen this idea several times recently on social media, so it’s not original with me.

It’s also not new. Scientists work this way. Our astronomer, for instance, surveyed the entire sky (which is a big place) for a certain kind of galaxy. Theories said he should have found dozens, if not hundreds; he found two. That wasn’t a failure. It meant that the theories needed to be revised.

Remember what you did

Once you’ve tried something, you have a benchmark: one firm datum saying this produced that. But you have to remember what this was. If, shooting around in the dark, you stumble upon something that works, it does you no good unless you can get back to it.

With both these steps, film (instead of digital) photography can be unexpectedly useful. Each picture on film is expensive compared with digital imaging. That means you’re more inclined to think ahead, to apply what you already know—which in turn means anything you learn can be attached to an existing structure, instead of being quickly forgotten. And there is a delay between taking the picture and seeing the result, which means you need at least a medium-term memory (or notes). Checking your digital camera’s screen gives you feedback right away, but keeps your adjustments in short-term memory, from which they quickly disappear.

Try it again

Keep poking the universe to see what it does. Change something and poke again. Keep track of what happens—and you’ll learn something.