Learning how to learn

In proportion to our body mass, our brain is three times as large as that of our nearest relatives. This huge organ is dangerous and painful to give birth to, expensive to build and, in a resting human, uses about 20 percent of the body's energy even though it is just 2 percent of the body's weight. There must be some reason for this evolutionary expense [1]. Recently, I lost one of my aunts. She was a self-made woman who came from very humble beginnings. She grew up in a village and did not have much in terms of any formal education. Despite these challenges, she managed to make a living by providing tasty food to the multitude of city workers during breakfast and lunch in a small stall in the city. She raised a family and had several grandchildren. When I think of her and compare her with my late father, I see a major difference. Even though my dad was also born in a little rural village, left his family when he was a child, came to another country, had minimal formal education, and did a multitude of different jobs, he learnt to read and write in several languages, he managed to send all his children for tertiary education and was knowledgeable about what was happening in the world. In addition, he was a respected community leader. Both were successes in their own different ways considering the limitations imposed on them as a result of their backgrounds. Why is it that some are able to rise above their backgrounds while others are not able to do so? Are the differences genetic or environmental or a combination of both, the perpetual nature versus nurture question? Why is it some are never happy with where they are, always striving to do better? How can we have better means of communicating and learning? Why is it learning how to learn has never been an important part of our curriculum? Do we know that we have to unlearn what is no longer relevant so that we can learn new things? What measures can we take to reduce our stress levels? How much more each one of us could achieve if we truly knew the extent of our capabilities? Can we " regrow " bits of our brain that we lost? Can we improve our task performance just by thinking about it? How …