Teaching an old dog new tricks
Today on my list of tasks was to fix an element on our webpage that wasn’t working. It had actually been on my task list for a while but I kept putting it off as I knew it would be tricky. It was not something I could just easily do – I would need to research the problem, maybe watch a video or two and try and figure it out. I’m ok at computers but as technology develops at the speed of light, I feel I am getting further away from understanding. Dealing with technological problems now stirs feelings of doubt and inability.
That feeling of not knowing, of being out of our depth, can be scary. Where once we were confident in our skills and our abilities, now we doubt, we hesitate. As we age, time races forward and with it the complexity of this information and technological driven world. The education of our youth pales in comparison to what children learn today and we are left wondering if we can keep up. As I get older, I wonder am I getting too old to learn something new?
Unfortunately, society throughout millennia has told us that as we age all we can hope to do is maintain our cognition. “Can’t teach an old dog a new trick” is a saying we all know. However, current research into mental capacity through ageing, is showing that we can learn at any age. One of the main issues in relation to learning from middle age and beyond, is our own self-belief and confidence. It seems that a lack of confidence, a belief that you can’t, inhibits learning and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more we doubt ourselves, the less we can learn.
Another issue is our belief that when we learn something new, it should be easy. As adults, we get used to knowing. We forget what it was like to learn as a child – we forget the trial and error, the building of skills and knowledge through small incremental steps, the struggle to learn concepts. When we get challenged by something new as adults, we immediately see it as a sign of our ageing brain rather than a challenge that stretches our minds out of our comfort zone. Our brain, like any muscle in our body, only increases its strength and capacity by exercising it. We have to face learning new things like that of a child – as a beginner and with an innate confidence that we will get there in the end.
As for my webpage problem, well I did fix it. I added my own roadblocks – some self-doubt and a bit of the “this is too hard”. It took a bit of reading, watching a video or two and some exploring to work it out but I got there. Seems you definitely can teach an old dog new tricks!
Vicki and Nic x
