A friend was shocked when she went to a French language school for a two-week course in France. “The teacher was old-school,” she said. “She threatened us to not take notes and focus on listening. She’d throw a pen at us otherwise.”
We talked about listening and reading at the same time when learning something new, and about how we commonly watch movies with subtitles just because we’re too lazy to listen properly. “But you can’t read the text when someone’s talking to you at the bakery, can you?” my friend’s teacher said. She had a point.
Real life has no subtitles. Some skills you simply need in the moment. Despite all our technological advancements, you still can’t look up everything in real-time. At least for now. On-demand knowledge is fine in many situations. Know when it’s not, and make sure you bring the tools for the job.
