{"id":2750,"date":"2014-11-11T08:29:18","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T16:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/?p=2750"},"modified":"2016-02-16T14:15:56","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T22:15:56","slug":"can-learn-faster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/can-learn-faster\/","title":{"rendered":"November 11, 2014 &#8211; Can we learn faster and easier?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fcbkbttn_button\">\n                            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">\n                                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/wp-content\/plugins\/facebook-button-plugin\/images\/standard-facebook-ico.png\" alt=\"Fb-Button\" \/>\n                            <\/a>\n                        <\/div><div class=\"fcbkbttn_like \"><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/can-learn-faster\/\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\" layout=\"standard\"  width=\"225px\" size=\"small\"><\/fb:like><\/div><\/div><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/cara-pont-des-arts-smaller.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2751\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/cara-pont-des-arts-smaller-1024x674.jpg\" alt=\"cara-pont des arts smaller\" width=\"600\" height=\"395\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this post:<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-2750-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/20141111-081139.m4a?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/20141111-081139.m4a\">http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/20141111-081139.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>I wish I could go back to my 13 year old self to ask her why she decided, as a high school freshman, to take French.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember if it was a lark, or if there was something deeper.\u00a0 In any case, my teacher, Monsieur Terando sparked in me a love of languages, especially French. I took French all four years and two more in college. By my last year I had dreams in French. (Isn\u2019t that weird how we know that we are dreaming in another language?)\u00a0 But, I didn\u2019t take it any further because I wasn\u2019t into French literature; I wanted to communicate in French and was not <em>at all<\/em> literary!<\/p>\n<p>As any of you who\u2019ve read what I write about my paintings know, I still have this thing about France, Paris in particular \u2013 where I had a stay in my early 30\u2019s and have visited many times since.\u00a0 There is a glinty vein of Parisian-French that runs through me.\u00a0 I <em>also<\/em> love Italy. There\u2019s something captivating about the energy of Italy, the food, the style, the countryside, the art \u2013 it\u2019s an entrancing place.\u00a0 Since I have a solidly functional command of French, it\u2019s been especially frustrating to me to be unable to communicate like that in Italy. I would love to speak Italian like I do French.\u00a0 Besides being convenient, I <em>feel <\/em>different when I speak French. It\u2019s as if that vein takes me over. I\u2019m not just speaking French, my experience of the place is much more intimate and personal \u2013 it\u2019s as if I <em>am<\/em> French.\u00a0 I\u2019d love to connect in that same way in Italy.<\/p>\n<p>Fast-forward to last week:\u00a0 I happened upon a neighbor and her new doggy on my morning hike with Bo. She had to turn off her Pimsleur Spanish lesson on her iPhone to talk to me.\u00a0 This had me come home to look up language learning programs. Our family has been talking about a trip to Italy next year to celebrate our dad\u2019s new knee and Italian has been calling to me.\u00a0 Which was most effective?\u00a0 Pimsleur has been around forever, I\u2019d seen ads for Rosetta Stone in the airport\u2026 Poking around online, I ended up on a website called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fluentin3months.com\/\">Fluent in 3 Months<\/a> with Benny the Irish Polyglot.\u00a0 He\u2019s written a book by the same title and has taught himself a bunch of languages really quickly.\u00a0 I love it! \u00a0Something outside the box.\u00a0 I\u2019m just a few days into his free email series and I am incredibly inspired by his philosophy.<\/p>\n<p>He talks about learning \u2013 in his world, languages \u2013 in a way that can apply to learning in general. He says you can\u2019t learn to speak a language without <em>speaking<\/em>! And speaking right from the start, even before you learn how!\u00a0 We often (and I have so experienced this) are frozen, unable to say anything, for fear of making mistakes.\u00a0 He suggests you adopt a confidence and just go for it.<\/p>\n<p>The inspiration immediately had me translate his philosophy to what <em>I<\/em> teach \u2013 painting watercolor. Just as you can\u2019t learn to speak a language without speaking, you can\u2019t learn to paint without <em>painting<\/em>!\u00a0 There is a proverb I read on Benny\u2019s site that is telling \u2013 and hilarious \u2013 it goes:\u00a0 \u201cIf skill could be gained by watching, every dog would become a butcher.\u201d We\u2019ve got to get messy!\u00a0 There have been budding artists in my classes and groups who are quite afraid to paint. I often find myself saying \u201cit\u2019s just a piece of paper, it\u2019s not your worthiness!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Just last week, I was hearing one painter in the Friday group express disappointment in how a wash looked to her. I suggested she instead say to herself:\u00a0 \u201chuh?\u201d in sort of a, \u201cisn\u2019t that curious?\u201d tone.<\/p>\n<p>You see, in whatever we do, if we <em>could<\/em> do better we <em>would<\/em>.\u00a0 We could look at missing the mark along the way as simply information, feedback about what that particular way of doing it resulted in.\u00a0 Huh? \u00a0is freedom to swing out and see what happens.\u00a0 Just like speaking to someone in a language I don\u2019t yet know, even before I can come up with the correct words.\u00a0 Benny says it speeds up learning languages, what if it also speeds up learning how to work with watercolor? \u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m going to keep following Benny\u2019s pointers to learn Italian (we\u2019ll see about the 3 months), <em>and<\/em> I\u2019m going to apply this philosophy even more with the artists my groups. I bet that second-guessing ourselves slows us down.\u00a0 As I read in a recent <a href=\"http:\/\/sethgodin.typepad.com\/seths_blog\/2014\/11\/getting-there.html\">Seth Godin post<\/a> \u201cTaking delight in the journey takes confidence. It pushes the envelope of design. And it&#8217;s fun.\u201d \u00a0So where do we get the confidence if we don\u2019t have it?\u00a0 We get it from each other, by risking together, it\u2019s way more safe to make mistakes.\u00a0 I say:\u00a0 Andiamo! \u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s have some fun!<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen to this post: I wish I could go back to my 13 year old self to ask her why she decided, as a high school freshman, to take French.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember if it was a lark, or if there was something deeper.\u00a0 In any case, my teacher, Monsieur Terando sparked in me a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>November 11, 2014 - Can we learn faster and easier? 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