Learning has always been a strange thing to me. Going through school a lot of it seemed to flow easily, that changed slightly in university. However, a big part of how learning worked best for me remained hidden. That hasn’t changed. It somehow just happens.

What this doesn’t mean, is that I would understand things easily and even less, that I remember all of it.

Reading an article on chicken-sexing I learned that such a task exists and also that it is much more complex than it sounds. What I found interesting is that there is no real method to describe how this task is handled. Those who want to learn it need to put it into practice and do so with others who are experts at it.

Much of their learning then happens through perceptual learning. They just try. The expert then helps the learner by sharing quick feedback when a choice was well made and especially when it had to be changed. It’s an intriguing way of learning, but it matches much of the immersive learning I’ve had the opportunity to experience in my life. This is for sure true with the languages I learned, in addition there always was also observing and trying.

I wouldn’t call it a recommendable approach for everything nor one, one should seek to change one’s performance. What I do find interesting though, is how much it tells us about learning that we build through exchange with others and by observing and trying. Those around us often can share quick feedback, just because they “know”.

What the idea of perceptual learning also does, is show how practice can generate knowledge that can’t be described. People know how to do it, but find it hard to put it into words. It actually requires hard work to reverse engineer even some of it, which is especially true for those who have become artists at executing their task.

In everyday life, perceptual learning also accounts for the togetherness people develop over time as they know one another.

All of which then become skills people are unaware of. And skills that are never built if there is no experience. The art of togetherness is so ancient, that people expect to know how to do it. That is despite all the soft skills training available nowadays.

Three are many such skills people only become aware of when others ask about them or share what they come to that person for.