
I like puzzles.” She said, “OK, have you used oil paints? Have you done Mind Benders?” Soon I looked forward to that hour more than I did to spending the night at my friend’s house. I walked up to Miss Rouselle’s desk, and she asked, “What do you like to do?” I was like, I’m seven years old-shouldn’t you be telling me what to do? But I said, “I like to draw. The first time I went, I thought it was the biggest racket. In an interview for the Harvard Business Review, he cites one transformative example:Įvery day, starting in second grade, they took me out of class for an hour, and I would go to another room, with a mixed age group. Sal Khan also believes that having blocks of time to pursue individual interests can ignite one's desire to learn. However, the best ideas often arise when you shift between intense focus and creative mind-wandering. We've learned-both through experience and education-that working on a problem requires a constant barrage of effort until it is completed. Barbara Oakley, creator of the massively popular Learning How to Learn course, refers to this process as diffuse mode thinking. By carving out time to engage in tasks that are seemingly unrelated to your line of work, you can free up your mind to think divergently and approach problems from new angles.
