The 7 Laws of the Learner

Tom Friedman, author of the best selling book The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century says the most important skill you can have as you tackle the challenges of the 21st century is the ability to "learn how to learn." Sometimes referred to as "being a lifelong learner."

Dr. Bruce Wilkinson gives principles we can apply to help us be lifelong learners in his book, The Seven Laws of the Learner: How to Teach Almost Anything to Practically Anyone. While this book is intended to help educators become better teachers, the principles , or laws, he presents can be slightly modified and applied to our own learning.

For instance, Law One: The Law of the Learner's first maxim is "Teachers are responsible to cause students to learn." If I apply that to myself it means I am responsible for my own learning. I can't expect someone else to learn for me and then just give me the cliff notes. I have to want to learn about something.

Or Law Four: The Law of Retention's second maxim is "Retention of facts is effective only after they are understood." If I apply this to myself it means I am responsible to understand the relevance of what I am learning to my life. This one seems to be much easier now that I no longer sit in a classroom "learning" what someone else thinks is important. Now I am learning what I think is important. I should believe the subject is relevant before I begin to study it.

The Seven Laws of the Learner: How to Teach Almost Anything to Practically Anyone contains seven laws of the learner. Mindsets, models, maxims, methods and maximizers are suggested for each law. Each law includes 7 maxims to help understand the mindsets and models and 7 maximizers to help understand the methods.

Wilkinson is the creator of the popular "Walk Thru the Bible" series. Using the principles in this book, he has created a program where you can learn the major events of the Old Testament in a one day session. Or if you like, you can learn the major events of the New Testament in a one day session. I attend both sessions over 25 years ago and was able to see these principles in action.

I've even had the opportunity to apply some of these principles when leading workshops or teaching classes. I've had success using them to teach others and I've had success applying them to my own learning process.

Wilkenson's 7 laws are:

Law One: The Law of the Learner
Law Two: The Law of Expectation
Law Three: The Law of Application
Law Four: The Law of Retention
Law Five: The Law of Need
Law Six: The Law of Equipping
Law Seven: The Law of Revival

Should you find yourself in the position where you need to teach others, or

Should you find yourself in the position where you need to keep learning (which is all of us)

I highly recommend you read this book!