An introduction
What happens when someone spends decades trying to answer a deceptively simple question: how do people learn?
With only a couple of weeks to go until the launch of the Third Edition of How People Learn, I wanted to share a bit of the backstory.
Where it began
I studied Philosophy & Psychology at grad and postgrad level at Warwick University – and at Madison, Wisconsin in the US. In the UK I danced to continental philosophers, in the US I ground to the analytic tradition. One of my tutors was a weirdo called Nick Land whose thinking went on to influence technologists such as Peter Thiel and Marc Andressen. He was heavily medicated for most of our time together.
My first job was as a psychology lecturer; I went on to publish a couple of psychology study guides with Hodder & Stoughton, but my real passion remained philosophy.
Searching for a theory of learning
During my time at the BBC – mostly on the train to work – I wrote a book called The Bridge, and sent some copies around, but couldn’t find a publisher. Some years later I approached Kogan Page with an idea for an L&D book and got accepted.
The working title was The First Book About Learning – because I wanted to impress on people that this was not merely a summary of research & thinking within the current (pre-scientific) paradigm, but the introduction of the first general theory of learning. A starting point. We eventually agreed on How People Learn.
I wanted to write a philosophical treatise, the publishers thought they could sell advice on course design – so it ended up being a bit of both.
From philosophy to practice
The popularity of the first edition gave me more bargaining power for the second; by now I had realised that the Affective Context Model was not merely a general theory of learning but of learning & cognition. A theory of human nature. We argued over the cover image, and I decided it was better to publish without.
Once more, the book was a balance of the philosophical and the pragmatic. In the end I grew to like that: what use is a philosophy if it doesn’t translate into a way of life? The affective context model was expressed in the 5Di process, and around the world organisations began to use the tools and techniques it provided. In an important sense, it was the first time they were being offered a coherent approach to learning. One with a foundation.
Whilst the practical guidance within the book was being adopted widely, the underpinning ideas still seemed beyond comprehension no matter how I explained them. It took me a while to accept the inevitability of this. I still struggle with it sometimes.
Why AI changes the conversation
The third edition spends more time explaining the scientific method, how the ‘wild ideas’ it proposes help make sense of contemporary neuroscience, and what understanding human cognition means for understanding AI. What to do with AI; and what AI will do with us in the future.
It remains an irreverent misfit of a book and I rather like that. These days everything ‘popular’ seems like a black hole.
I hope it will change you.
An invitation
These are some of the ideas that will also shape the opening keynote at this year’s SDF Festival. I look forward to exploring with colleagues what learning, human cognition and AI might mean for the future of professional practice—and continuing the conversation together.
The Third Edition of How People Learn will be available shortly.
About the author: Nick Shackleton-Jones is the author of How People Learn, a book which introduces the first general theory of learning & describes how to apply it.
An industry revolutionary, he introduced the ‘courses to resources’ mantra & pioneered human-centred learning design (5Di). A track record of shaping future learning approaches for public & private organisations, he is the winner of several awards for people development, strategy, innovation, & learning content (including the Learning & Performance Institute’s Award for Services to the Learning Industry, 2017).
He is the former CLO at Deloitte UK & now CEO at Shackleton Consulting.
Nick’s book is available for purchase here.