XplanaZine

It’s a funny thing. My son and I were talking on the way to see a movie recently, and we were having one of those really delightful conversations that you get to have as your children get older and have the ability to think and talk for themselves. Right before we arrived, he suddenly asked me about the Cold War. You see, he had started reading a new young adult novel series and the protagonist had gained all of his spy training during the 70’s and early 80’s, during the Cold War.

Well, having gone to school when bomb warnings were more about Russian nuclear threats rather than angst-ridden teenagers, I had a lot to say about the Cold War. Before the movie started, we made it all the way to the falling of the Berlin Wall and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union. Right before the movie came on, my son asked me, “Dad, how did you learn so much about the Cold War anyway?” “It’s simple,” I said. I lived it.

A day later I found myself back at the Oklahoma airport walking down the terminal to board my flight bound for Boston. As I passed by the different shops and eating places, I suddenly noticed something I hadn’t ever paid much attention to before. At the front of all the restrooms there was a small sign with the symbol of a tornado that said “Tornado Shelter.”

Now, for those of you who aren’t from central Oklahoma, I should point out that it’s not unusual at all that there were signs indicating a tornado shelter at the airport. That general part of the world has a big tornado bulls eye on it and we get lots of funnel clouds and tornados in the area every year. Heck, you know spring has arrived because you can never finish a prime time television show without the weather man interrupting with the latest news about a wall cloud headed in someone’s general direction.

No, there was nothing unusual about the signs. What was strange is that I had never noticed them before.

But a s I was boarding the plane, it dawned on me that the tornado signs had never registered before because, like the Cold War, they were acutally an embedded and invisible part of my upbringing and life. I had learned them through general osmosis and thought no more about them than I do the early snowfall in Boston. In fact, the only reason I noticed them on this trip is probably because I have been spending more time in another part of the world.

I also realized that such learning, the kind that is just part of your normal environment, is generally the most effective. It’s why language immersions and first-person simulations are so effective. This kind of earning is what I call “deep learning” and happens as part of an everyday experience, with the depth of learning increasing over time.

We can simulate some of this, I suppose. But there is no substitute for being immersed in a reality for a number of years. Of course, that’s why learning is a lifelong proposition. And that’s why living is so darn much fun.

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