Learn To Be Ignorant

“The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.”

Alvin Toffler

I’ve Been Thinking . . . about learning to become more ignorant.

Learn to be ignorant? I’m serious. Sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it. Wouldn’t it be better to say, “Learn to be an expert”? Not really. Siegfried and Therese Engelmann said, “The human animal is the only one on earth so intelligent that it can actually learn to be stupid.” Ignorance and intelligence are actually interdependent.

I convinced myself very early in life that it was not much fun to appear stupid. I had an excellent seventh grade teacher with a passion for American History. Unfortunately, I didn’t share her enthusiasm, which affected my listening skills during her lectures. Every lecture concluded with an interactive discussion about the materials we had just covered. Whenever she asked a question, I would hesitate until another student raised their hand and then I would cautiously raise mine, hoping she would not call on me.

I didn’t want to appear stupid so I disguised my lack of eagerness to get involved by raising my hand only when I was relatively sure I wouldn’t get called on. I rarely knew the answers to her questions and feared appearing stupid.

It is almost anti-social to use the words, “I don’t know.” Only uninformed people admit to not having the answers. Right?

The world is full of people convinced they possess bountiful wisdom to share with the rest of us. They’ve read it all, done it all, succeeded at it, and are now ready to tell you about it. These are the people moving up the success ladder. Right? Not necessarily.

William James insisted, “If I see myself today as I was in the past, my past must resurrect itself and become my future.” In other words, today will be a repeat of the things I learned yesterday, and tomorrow will be the result of the things I think about day after day and year after year. That’s no way to move up the ladder unless it’s lying flat on the ground.

The unending road to becoming and remaining a cutting-edge expert is to become a relentless continual learner. Cultivate your innocent spirit of ignorance. It’s not what you don't know that can destroy you. You’ll learn it. It’s what you don’t know you don’t know that’s frightening. Discover it.

Columnist Sydney Harris remarked, “A winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others; a loser wants to be considered an expert by others before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.”

I figure this puts us all in the same boat. Whether we think we know a lot or don’t, we all need to continually build on what we learned yesterday so we don’t fall into the trap of being comfortable with our present level of knowledge.

Here’s the irony. When you accelerate your desire to learn and reduce your ignorance, you’ll often discover how much more there is to learn. Interestingly enough, those with an insatiable desire to learn more develop an unlimited repertoire of possibilities.

Learning to be ignorant involves more than casual effort. It requires a fundamental change in mind-set and skill-set, our habits. Psychologist William James said that to change our habits, first we make a deep commitment to pay whatever price is necessary to change the habit; second, we grasp the first opportunity to use the new practice or skill; and third, we allow no exceptions until the new habit is firmly imbedded into our nature.

What new information have you discovered in the last week? How have you used that information? In what ways will this information afford you new opportunities?

“Unless you are willing to admit your ignorance, you will never be able to acquire knowledge.”

E.C. McKenzie

“Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”

Will Durant

“To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.”

Benjamin Disraeli