The path to mastering a skill or subject doesn’t follow a straight line. We don’t learn something once and then take it for granted. We make better progress by following a cyclical course, like racing around the track at an auto speedway. With each lap, we learn more about the course, more about the tools that we have at our disposal. We come to understand the weaknesses in our understanding of the subject, and we have the opportunity to formulate an approach to resolving those weaknesses and testing them out in real time.
Each lap gives us an opportunity to learn and improve, and to refine our understanding of things that we already thought that we knew. In order to gain that deeper understanding, we need to go back to the beginning, just as the race cars return to the starting line and effectively start again.
My physics professor, the late John Schaefer, explained the importance of this iterative approach to learning.
“In the first year, the students study all of physics, which can be rather overwhelming. In the following years, they’ll take advanced courses that drill down into a number of subject areas. They’ll work on a senior project that enhances their understanding further.
“In graduate school, they’ll go through the material again. While working on their dissertation, they’ll have the chance to spend time working as a teaching assistant, where they’ll gain insights explaining the basic concepts to undergraduates. After having been through all of that, and after having taught the subject for twenty-odd years, I think I’m finally getting a pretty good handle on it.”
Realize that developing a deep understanding of a subject takes time. You can’t learn it all in one shot; you have to go over the material repeatedly, understanding more with each pass.
Never hesitate to go back to the beginning, to re-evaluate your comprehension of the fundamentals. There is never a danger of understanding something too well. Look at familiar material with a fresh perspective. Discover new ways to combine ideas and solve problems. The effort that you put into this can only help you.
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