Dr. Schmidt explains the world: The key to learning is curiosity

Apparently you’re no longer in a good position to learn something completely new after you’re over 40.

Yes, learning as you get older is one thing, as long as you see being over 40 as old. You would first have to clarify what you want to understand by learning. Learning isn’t just what we do at school. So memorize any year numbers, poems or vocabulary. Essentially, it is any activity where you change your behavior based on experience or new information. And of course this also happens with people over 40. Some even start studying and successfully complete it.

Exemplary! Lifelong learning has been very important in the education debate for several years.

Lifelong learning has always been there. It just wasn’t that noticeable in the past because in some historical periods there were relatively few significant changes in professional life, so that many people could basically spend their entire lives without having to learn anything new for their job. However, a situation with major technical and knowledge changes existed earlier, for example in the Renaissance.

Did you learn anything when you were older?

In principle, I think the biggest change is that a lot of things that used to be done by filling out paper forms are now done on cell phones or computers. Of course, this is much more difficult for people who are much older. But the fact that you can still learn a lot of new things later in life is shown, for example, by the generations of East Germans who have retired in recent years. After 1990 they had to go through considerable learning processes. Starting with the fact that in a different social system you obviously have to observe different norms and have to deal with a different official German. And in our profession, editors had to switch to computer typesetting within a year. We had a colleague who was already retired in the 1990s, but still worked on the guide on an hourly basis. And during his last years at “nd” he adapted quite successfully to three different systems for computer typesetting. With computer typesetting, editors suddenly had to take over the work of typesetters, and sometimes also layout designers and meticians.

Apart from the professional aspect: Some people only start learning an instrument as adults. You won’t become a master anymore, will you?

Whether it should necessarily be a new musical instrument is another question. If someone starts learning a musical instrument in their 40s or 50s, they will certainly be able to do it with enough practice. But hardly good enough for a professional career. But that also depends on the musical instrument in question. When it comes to violin and piano, most people who go on to have a professional career start playing as young children. For most wind instruments it starts much later. Those in my circle of acquaintances who started playing a musical instrument after the age of 40 had already learned another instrument before. From a report I know of the case of a father who started learning drums at the age of 50 because his son was doing the same thing at the time.

So it’s never too late to have fun.

The biggest problem with music is excessive ambition and excessive self-criticism. You shouldn’t put yourself under pressure with any professional demands. This is probably where making music in the 20th and 21st centuries differs from centuries past. When someone started learning an instrument or singing in the 18th and 19th centuries, the measure of ability was their circle of friends. Today there are several excellent recordings of practically every piece. But such role models are hardly achievable. And that might put the brakes on many people who might have the idea of ​​starting to play a musical instrument.

What is actually the challenge when learning a musical instrument? The grades, the technology?

There are always fine motor processes involved that are challenging. There are studies of people who have practiced violin since childhood. Many individual movements no longer run consciously through the brain. Because it would take too long for complicated things if they first read the notes, which then go through the brain to the muscles that hold the bow and grip the strings. That would take longer than the play. That’s why certain motor processes are already very much automated through lots of practice. This also applies to many simpler things. Cycling or swimming, for example. These are motor processes, and once you’ve learned them, they’re pretty solid. If you haven’t done it for a while, they’re still there. On the other hand, if you haven’t used a foreign language for a long time, it takes a lot of effort to reactivate it.

New foreign languages ​​are said to give a particular boost to the brain.

Allegedly. But a reasonable measure of what one wants and can achieve is also necessary with languages. Otherwise you won’t even dare to try it. There are now more and more foreign language courses available for seniors. And of course, if the participants already had French at school and are now just brushing up on their knowledge, it will be easier for them. A completely new foreign language can still be learned even after the age of 40. A friend of ours emigrated to Norway with his family. Of course, his children became more proficient in the local language, but he also mastered it – alongside his work. However, this is a real challenge. I see this in the German courses for refugees that my wife talks about. When people are already over 60, it’s very difficult. It is easier if they have already learned how to learn themselves. Anyone who has been to school longer has a significant advantage. This is always difficult for us to imagine, but in many countries around the world it is still the case that people who come from the countryside and are not among the wealthy often do not receive any major formal education and therefore have very little learning techniques are familiar.

Apart from the previous education. What makes learning more difficult as you get older? Are the gray cells failing, is the brain already full?

There are certainly many reasons for that. From the neurological point of view, I don’t think this has yet been examined in detail. At least we know that learning and all memory functions are closely linked to the reward system in the brain. And that the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a pretty important role. If dopamine production in the brain decreases with age – which is often the case – this may be a reason why the brain learns less well. Maybe you can reverse this trend of dopamine deficits by learning new things. It’s not just about crossword puzzles and Sudoku. The brain needs to be put under a little more stress so that dopamine production can get some momentum again. But as far as I could see, this isn’t supported very well by studies.

Which is probably true: If you don’t challenge your brain any more, you age faster. What about advice like “Brush your teeth today with the opposite hand than usual”?

In general, many people who study learning processes say that being too attached to routines is very bad for your ability to learn. So always approach things in a new way. But the most important thing in all learning processes at school is curiosity. If you stay curious and motivated, you can achieve many things even at an advanced age that were difficult for younger people because they weren’t motivated at all. A good example of this is Russian or English lessons in the GDR. For most people, Russian was difficult and rather uninteresting. What they wanted to hear and read was unlikely to be in Russian. Conversely, for most people, English provided at best a better understanding of pop lyrics. But for practical use it was also of secondary importance, because for a long time it was hardly foreseeable for most people that they would ever need English in practical life.

I know. You are so right.

In this respect, the exciting question is always whether you have the confidence to do something and whether you have the feeling that it would be good and nice to learn something new. If that’s not the case, then nothing will happen anyway.