The Philosophy

A brief clip about the philosophy of learning. I'm not a very deep person, but I have some thoughts that I'd like to share with you, because teaching to me is a very intimate thing. Learning is similarly intimate because teaching and learning are the same thing in my book. I always learn even though I'm a teacher. It's a very intimate thing, so I'd like to share with you some things about my philosophy. So for example, if I were to ask you, how does one learn, or how does learning happen? Over the years, I've realized that a teacher can never force you to learn.

Learning happens when you are happy, when you want to listen to somebody talking, if that person is your teacher. Or a colleague or someone you learn from people so much. But you have to be wanting to listen to the person. You have to feel a connection. And I hope even though this is a video that you feel like I care. I do, I get a lot, I feel privileged to that, I can share anything useful to you. I mean I'm, sometimes I feel like, who the heck am I? So learning happens when you want to learn, when you're happy and I hope I make you feel comfortable and at home.

The second question I worry about is where does learning happen? And to be honest with you, especially doing the MOOCs, but even before that, I never understood why classes happen twice a week, for two hours. I think somebody designed it in the cave and we are living with it afterwards. I think it's very odd, for sure. I think it's done largely for efficiency reasons. Economics is everywhere behind how we behave and reasonably so. But I think the point has come where technology can really help learning happen anywhere anytime because that's how you learn. I don't think you learn artificially by sitting very quietly in front of somebody who is talking away.

Not listening to your colleagues, having all your laptops closed, having no phones ring. I don't think that's really life. So learning happens whenever it needs to happen, wherever it needs to happen, and the learner is in charge. What is the role of the faculty and the teacher? Given what I just said, you must realize that really, the role of the teacher and faculty, in my book, is to have content designed very well, but then available to empower you. So what then is the role of the faculty and the teacher? I think my role, given of course face-to-face but even here, is to be more of a coach than a teacher. Then, content delivery.

So that's why I purposely leave some difficult problems for you to do on your own. You never learn unless you struggle. Okay, it's like love. I mean, everybody thinks love is smiling at each other all the time. I mean, people need to get a life if they think that. Love is tough, so is learning. Emphasis on why of things is extremely important to me. Throughout my career, I've had great opportunities to learn from great people. And I'm most thankful for many people pushing me, not on the what of things. Because you can always Google stuff. But why things work the way they do. And I'm gonna push you. I'm going to keep saying why, why, why, and that's my philosophy.

What is your role? I hate the word student, so I'll use the word learner, but if I kinda slip up and say students, don't worry. So what is your role? I think you should've figured it out, that you are ultimately responsible for your learning, because nobody can teach you. I don't think I'm the best person in the world. A genius can teach anybody anything you want to learn. And I think if you want to learn, you can learn anything. You can learn any amount of finance. If I could do it, why couldn't you? You know I generally mean that. I'm not saying it just for the heck of it. Devote about five to ten hours a week.

That's important because I'm coming to everyone but everyone needs to come to me too. And I'm able to come all the way where I'm doing everything for you because as I said that just doesn't fit my philosophy. So if you get frustrated with me hang in there. Do the problems. I want you to get frustrated. I think learning happens after you're confused, you know? It doesn't just happen you know what's going on. If you do, you're not really learning. You already knew it or you are somehow a genius. So devote five to ten hours a week. And that range is for people who don't have a background. And I'll talk a little bit about what really background do you need.

So having said all this, let me ask you this. Is this class really for free? If you think like a real economist, one of the most outstanding economists of our time is Gary Becker, who said, really money is not the issue. It's time. It's the effort. So the time you'll spend on this will be a lot if you really want to learn. So it's really not for free. You're putting a lot of effort, I hope.