What do you think?
Rate this book
The Power of Mindful Learning
Radical in its implications, this original and important work may change forever the views we hold about the nature of learning. In The Power of Mindful Learning, Ellen Langer uses her innovative theory of mindulness, introduced in her influential earlier book, to dramatically enhance the way we learn. In business, sports, laboratories, or at home, our learning is hobbled by certain antiquated and pervasive misconceptions. In this pithy, liberating, and delightful book she gives us a fresh, new view of learning in the broadest sense. Such familiar notions as delayed gratification, ”the basics”, or even ”right answers”, are all incapacitating myths which Langer explodes one by one. She replaces them with her concept of mindful or conditional learning which she demonstrates, with fascinating examples from her research, to be extraordinarily effective. Mindful learning takes place with an awareness of context and of the ever-changing nature of information. Learning without this awareness, as Langer shows convincingly, has severely limited uses and often sets on up for failure.With stunning applications to skills as diverse as paying attention, CPR, investment analysis, psychotherapy, or playing a musical instrument, The Power of Mindful Learning is for all who are curious and intellectually adventurous.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
134 people are currently reading
1448 people want to read
About the author
Ellen J. Langer
43 books301 followersEllen Langer, Yale PhD, Harvard Professor of Psychology, artist. Among other honors, she is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and three Distinguished Scientist Awards, the World Congress Award, the NYU Alumni Achievement Award, and the Staats award for Unifying Psychology, and has authored eleven books and over 200 research articles on the illusion of control, perceived control, successful aging, decision-making, to name a few of the topics. Each of these is examined through the lens of her theory of mindfulness. Her research has demonstrated that by actively noticing new things—the essence of mindfulness—health, well being, and competence follow. Her best selling books include Mindfulness; The Power of Mindful Learning; On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity; and her most recent book, Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility.
In addition to other honors, she has been a guest lecturer in Japan, Malaysia, Germany, Australia, Mexico, Switzerland, and Argentina.
The citation for the APA distinguished contributions award reads, in part, “…her pioneering work revealed the profound effects of increasing mindful behavior…and offers new hope to millions whose problems were previously seen as unalterable and inevitable. Ellen Langer has demonstrated repeatedly how our limits are of our own making.”
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
June 16, 2009
Read this during a grad level theory of learning class.
This book is a very easy read due to its simple language, clear examples, and brevity (less than 150 pp.) The author, Langer, bases her theory on 7 myths in education, including "learning the basics so that they are second nature" "paying attention means staying focused on one thing at a time" "delaying gratification is important" "rote memorization is necessary" "forgetting is a problem" "intelligence is knowing what's out there" "there are right and wrong answers". She devotes a chapter to each "myth" explaining why they are wrong and what a better alternative is.
Some examples she uses to illustrate her points are extreme to the point where it almost loses legitimacy. One example is learning how to drive so that it's second nature, but then what happens if you're driving in England and have to avoid an accident?
The parts I found most interesting and applicable to education centered around changing our thoughts from mindless to mindful. Mindless learning would be memorization without meaning, while mindful learning is understanding information, being able to connect to it, and being able to view it through multiple perspectives. Basically she says that if a person learns something mindfully, then it will be remembered because it will mean something to the individual and won't exist as an obscure fact to be recalled.
From this I realized that there are better ways to frame questions and the purpose of instruction for students.
Underlying the whole concept of mindfulness are three concepts: the continuous creation of new categories, openness to new information, and an implicit awareness of more than one perspective."
This book is a decent read based on a few good points, which are repeated throughout. I feel that the argument could have been more concise if organized around the three main principles and not around the myths. This would help avoid the repetition.
This book is a very easy read due to its simple language, clear examples, and brevity (less than 150 pp.) The author, Langer, bases her theory on 7 myths in education, including "learning the basics so that they are second nature" "paying attention means staying focused on one thing at a time" "delaying gratification is important" "rote memorization is necessary" "forgetting is a problem" "intelligence is knowing what's out there" "there are right and wrong answers". She devotes a chapter to each "myth" explaining why they are wrong and what a better alternative is.
Some examples she uses to illustrate her points are extreme to the point where it almost loses legitimacy. One example is learning how to drive so that it's second nature, but then what happens if you're driving in England and have to avoid an accident?
The parts I found most interesting and applicable to education centered around changing our thoughts from mindless to mindful. Mindless learning would be memorization without meaning, while mindful learning is understanding information, being able to connect to it, and being able to view it through multiple perspectives. Basically she says that if a person learns something mindfully, then it will be remembered because it will mean something to the individual and won't exist as an obscure fact to be recalled.
From this I realized that there are better ways to frame questions and the purpose of instruction for students.
Underlying the whole concept of mindfulness are three concepts: the continuous creation of new categories, openness to new information, and an implicit awareness of more than one perspective."
This book is a decent read based on a few good points, which are repeated throughout. I feel that the argument could have been more concise if organized around the three main principles and not around the myths. This would help avoid the repetition.
December 16, 2023
بعدا شاید بیام کامل تر راجع بهش بنویسم، در حال حاضر بگم راجع به این بود که سیستم عادی و روتین یادگیری رو هی زیر سوال میبرد.
خیلی چیزایی که میگفت تازه نبودن ولی چیزای خوب هم اون وسط میگفت که خب فقط چندتا تیکه شو اینجا هم کپی کردم، باقیشو باید تو تبلتم باشه که اگه شد بیارم اضافه کنم.
▪ Our schools are the problem. They unintentionally teach us to be mindless.
Schools do this in at least two ways. They teach us to evaluate each other and ourselves, and they teach us to seek or accept information as if it were absolute and independent of human creation. Both of these ideas were implicit in Mindfulness but not fully explained.
▪ The consequences of all this grading and labeling are clear all around us. For a child judged harshly, the only way to get any attention or notoriety may seem to be through bullying or major misdeeds. All of us at one time or another seek to be noticed and admired (at least by a few peers).
▪ What about the winners? For them, life should be a smooth ride. But it’s not. Having been taught always to compare ourselves with others, even a winner will occasionally come up short. Why didn’t I win that award, get tenure, get the promotion? Am I now a failure?
▪ We make a move, it works or it doesn’t. We make a face or curse and move on. When it doesn’t, we try something new.
▪ By labeling people according to skills we assume are fixed, we forget that no one is the same in all situations. Our evaluations of people, including ourselves, keep us from noticing this variability in behavior. Paying attention to variability gives us more control
▪ Despite the fact that new findings about almost everything keep calling older findings into question, we still teach absolute facts. And in schools, the mindless keeper of the most (current) facts looks like the winner. But mindless knowing shuts off mindful seeking and all the advantages that result from being uncertain.
▪ Because we assume that learning is difficult and always requires great effort, we keep trying to find ways to encourage students to study.
▪ What makes leisure time fun is mindfully noticing new things—that is learning.
◆ Overlearned Skills
▪ If we learn the basics but do not overlearn them, we can vary them as we change or as the situation changes.
▪ There are clear advantages to forgetting bad experiences.
▪ Is it ever good to forget good things? Forgetting pleasure allows us to re-experience it. We seek out others because of a general memory that company feels good. To be able to re-create the entire experience of a party might mean we needn’t go to another. On first thought, that sounds like a good thing. We wouldn’t need anybody or wouldn’t need to make much effort because all we’d have to do is call up the memory. To do this, though, would mean that we were relying on pleasures enjoyed by younger, less experienced versions of ourselves. At what point would we want to freeze the experience? At twenty? Forty? Sixty? Would the experience be less rich and deep the earlier we froze it?
◆ Staying in the Present
▪ over time, the credibility of the source ceases to matter. People forget where they heard it or from whom, but they retain general aspects of the persuasive message. This effect seems to support the belief that any publicity is good publicity.
◆ The Dangers of Mindless Memory
▪ When remembering is an active process, when we have the general idea but search for details and in a Sherlock Holmes fashion figure out what we need to know, we feel accomplished. When we remember something without any constructive work, when we merely call up information in exactly the same form in which we encoded it, there is less reason for feeling masterful. It is far more satisfying to master something than to have mastered it.
خیلی چیزایی که میگفت تازه نبودن ولی چیزای خوب هم اون وسط میگفت که خب فقط چندتا تیکه شو اینجا هم کپی کردم، باقیشو باید تو تبلتم باشه که اگه شد بیارم اضافه کنم.
▪ Our schools are the problem. They unintentionally teach us to be mindless.
Schools do this in at least two ways. They teach us to evaluate each other and ourselves, and they teach us to seek or accept information as if it were absolute and independent of human creation. Both of these ideas were implicit in Mindfulness but not fully explained.
▪ The consequences of all this grading and labeling are clear all around us. For a child judged harshly, the only way to get any attention or notoriety may seem to be through bullying or major misdeeds. All of us at one time or another seek to be noticed and admired (at least by a few peers).
▪ What about the winners? For them, life should be a smooth ride. But it’s not. Having been taught always to compare ourselves with others, even a winner will occasionally come up short. Why didn’t I win that award, get tenure, get the promotion? Am I now a failure?
▪ We make a move, it works or it doesn’t. We make a face or curse and move on. When it doesn’t, we try something new.
▪ By labeling people according to skills we assume are fixed, we forget that no one is the same in all situations. Our evaluations of people, including ourselves, keep us from noticing this variability in behavior. Paying attention to variability gives us more control
▪ Despite the fact that new findings about almost everything keep calling older findings into question, we still teach absolute facts. And in schools, the mindless keeper of the most (current) facts looks like the winner. But mindless knowing shuts off mindful seeking and all the advantages that result from being uncertain.
▪ Because we assume that learning is difficult and always requires great effort, we keep trying to find ways to encourage students to study.
▪ What makes leisure time fun is mindfully noticing new things—that is learning.
◆ Overlearned Skills
▪ If we learn the basics but do not overlearn them, we can vary them as we change or as the situation changes.
▪ There are clear advantages to forgetting bad experiences.
▪ Is it ever good to forget good things? Forgetting pleasure allows us to re-experience it. We seek out others because of a general memory that company feels good. To be able to re-create the entire experience of a party might mean we needn’t go to another. On first thought, that sounds like a good thing. We wouldn’t need anybody or wouldn’t need to make much effort because all we’d have to do is call up the memory. To do this, though, would mean that we were relying on pleasures enjoyed by younger, less experienced versions of ourselves. At what point would we want to freeze the experience? At twenty? Forty? Sixty? Would the experience be less rich and deep the earlier we froze it?
◆ Staying in the Present
▪ over time, the credibility of the source ceases to matter. People forget where they heard it or from whom, but they retain general aspects of the persuasive message. This effect seems to support the belief that any publicity is good publicity.
◆ The Dangers of Mindless Memory
▪ When remembering is an active process, when we have the general idea but search for details and in a Sherlock Holmes fashion figure out what we need to know, we feel accomplished. When we remember something without any constructive work, when we merely call up information in exactly the same form in which we encoded it, there is less reason for feeling masterful. It is far more satisfying to master something than to have mastered it.
February 12, 2019
This was a frustrating read. While it made some very good points and posed some very interesting findings on the nature of learning and mindfulness, this book was completely bogged down in the details of the studies themselves.
So what you would get is a long, painfully detailed description of a clinical trial or experiment, down to controlled variables and even the specific number of participants in each study, all leading up to a very profoundly insightful conclusion or observation that itself gets only a single sentence. No analysis or further discussion on the implications of the findings themselves, just a pat statement of the results after having to read through excruciating detail that does not add to the impact of the findings at all.
Ironically, I find it hard to recall much of what I read in this book because the salient points were seemingly buried under an avalanche of detailed descriptions of supporting studies. These details aren’t exactly extraneous, but in such excess they border on the superfluous and comprise 90% of the actual written content. This book is a classic example of a piece of writing that is very difficult to read mindfully.
This happens over and over and over again. So even though this book is mercifully short, the points that it makes could be effectively and concisely boiled down to bullet points over a few pages.
So I do not think that it was organized nor presented well, and the bulk of the writing itself could’ve used much more rigorous cutting/editing. Think of it as the anti-Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell persuasively writes convincing, memorable concepts backed by sometimes tenuous facts and not much hard data. This book does the opposite and beats you over the head with detailed descriptions of supporting clinical trials and studies and provides no compelling presentation of the concepts themselves.
So what you would get is a long, painfully detailed description of a clinical trial or experiment, down to controlled variables and even the specific number of participants in each study, all leading up to a very profoundly insightful conclusion or observation that itself gets only a single sentence. No analysis or further discussion on the implications of the findings themselves, just a pat statement of the results after having to read through excruciating detail that does not add to the impact of the findings at all.
Ironically, I find it hard to recall much of what I read in this book because the salient points were seemingly buried under an avalanche of detailed descriptions of supporting studies. These details aren’t exactly extraneous, but in such excess they border on the superfluous and comprise 90% of the actual written content. This book is a classic example of a piece of writing that is very difficult to read mindfully.
This happens over and over and over again. So even though this book is mercifully short, the points that it makes could be effectively and concisely boiled down to bullet points over a few pages.
So I do not think that it was organized nor presented well, and the bulk of the writing itself could’ve used much more rigorous cutting/editing. Think of it as the anti-Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell persuasively writes convincing, memorable concepts backed by sometimes tenuous facts and not much hard data. This book does the opposite and beats you over the head with detailed descriptions of supporting clinical trials and studies and provides no compelling presentation of the concepts themselves.
September 15, 2018
We learn better when information is presented in a conditional format. Being open to alternatives makes us more creative in our problem-solving. Trying to find the novelty in something familiar/boring makes us more likely to remember details about it. Varying the target of our attention (allowing our minds to wander around it) improves our memory of it. Learning is a lot easier if we look at it as the end goal rather than like a requirement to get to the good stuff. Sometimes there's no set right answer. If we are less rigid about already knowing the answers to things, we open ourselves to more mindful learning.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 26, 2022
"Once upon a time there was a mindless little girl named Little Red Riding Hood. One day, when she went to visit her ailing grandmother, she was greeted by a wolf dressed in her grandmother’s
nightclothes. “What big eyes you have, Grandma,” she exclaimed, clueless as ever, although she had seen her grandmother’s eyes countless times before. “What big ears you have, Grandma,” she said, although it was unlikely that they would have changed since her last visit. “What a deep voice you have, Grandma,” she said, still oblivious to the shaggy imposter beneath the familiar lacy nightcap. “What big teeth you have,” she said, too late, alas, to begin paying attention..."
I enjoyed The Power of Mindful Learning. The book is my second from the author, after her famous 2009 book: Counter Clockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, which was excellent.
Author Ellen J. Langer is the author of more than two hundred research articles and eleven books, including the international bestseller Mindfulness, which has been translated into fifteen languages.
A member of the psychology department at Harvard University and a painter, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Ellen J. Langer:
Langer has an incredibly sharp set of analytical tools, and she brings that tool kit to bear here. She is a heterodox thinker, and has been described as the "mother of positive psychology."
She opens the book with a great intro. She talks about questioning the nature of learning, assumptions, and the stories we are told and/or tell ourselves.
The book's thesis and scope are also laid out early on:
As touched on earlier; the book's overarching theme is questioning the very nature of assumptions, knowledge bases, as well as perspectives. Langer takes a deep dive here.
I'll include one final quote, to give the reader a sense of the material she covers here:
***************************
I did enjoy The Power of Mindful Learning, although it was not really what I expected going in.
And although the writing was well done, I did not enjoy it quite as much as Counter Clockwise.
4 stars.
nightclothes. “What big eyes you have, Grandma,” she exclaimed, clueless as ever, although she had seen her grandmother’s eyes countless times before. “What big ears you have, Grandma,” she said, although it was unlikely that they would have changed since her last visit. “What a deep voice you have, Grandma,” she said, still oblivious to the shaggy imposter beneath the familiar lacy nightcap. “What big teeth you have,” she said, too late, alas, to begin paying attention..."
I enjoyed The Power of Mindful Learning. The book is my second from the author, after her famous 2009 book: Counter Clockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, which was excellent.
Author Ellen J. Langer is the author of more than two hundred research articles and eleven books, including the international bestseller Mindfulness, which has been translated into fifteen languages.
A member of the psychology department at Harvard University and a painter, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Ellen J. Langer:
Langer has an incredibly sharp set of analytical tools, and she brings that tool kit to bear here. She is a heterodox thinker, and has been described as the "mother of positive psychology."
She opens the book with a great intro. She talks about questioning the nature of learning, assumptions, and the stories we are told and/or tell ourselves.
The book's thesis and scope are also laid out early on:
Certain myths and fairy tales help advance a culture by passing on a profound and complex wisdom to succeeding generations. Others, however, deserve to be questioned. This book is about seven pervasive myths, or mindsets, that undermine the process of learning and how we can avoid their debilitating effects in a wide variety of settings.
1. The basics must be learned so well that they become second nature.
2. Paying attention means staying focused on one thing at a time.
3. Delaying gratification is important.
4. Rote memorization is necessary in education.
5. Forgetting is a problem.
6. Intelligence is knowing “what’s out there.”
7. There are right and wrong answers.
As touched on earlier; the book's overarching theme is questioning the very nature of assumptions, knowledge bases, as well as perspectives. Langer takes a deep dive here.
I'll include one final quote, to give the reader a sense of the material she covers here:
"Shakespeare warned us against being judgmental when he wrote “Things are neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so.” I would add that behavior makes sense from the actor’s perspective or else s/he wouldn’t have done it. When we evaluate someone negatively—he’s lazy, stubborn, gullible—we’re evaluating the person from our observer’s perspective. It doesn’t even occur to us that the person may instead be insufficiently motivated, steadfast, or trusting..."
***************************
I did enjoy The Power of Mindful Learning, although it was not really what I expected going in.
And although the writing was well done, I did not enjoy it quite as much as Counter Clockwise.
4 stars.
June 16, 2023
Coincidentally, I was assigned this book for a professional development course on mindfulness only weeks after a school year of personal growth and experimentation as a teacher, and man, I feel so validated in all the ways I think about education. I know that we need to find ways to insist students value process over product, that we need to stop giving students so many models and formulas and rubrics to follow, that we need to deemphasize (or totally rid ourselves of) grades, but here comes Langer with all the research and studies to back it up. Watch me cite this book in all my syllabi next year.
April 9, 2020
This was the second of two texts I read as part of a post-graduate continuing education course called, "Creating a Mindful Environment."
I found this text to be slightly more enjoyable, understandable and relatable to my teaching than the first. With a more narrowed focus on mindfulness in an educational setting, I found Langer's points to be more clear and her examples/research more relevant. There were a few studies and experiments which also appeared in the previous text. I found that to be unnecessarily repetitive, but I suppose if you were to read the books independently of one another, the repetition serves a purpose.
If I had to sum up the point of this text, it reinforces what most of us already know: When you approach something mindfully, you're open to different points of view, and unpredictable outcomes. Regardless of whether you end up "right" or "wrong" you've learned something. Failure is an opportunity to grow, and to recognize that there usually isn't just one solution to any particular problem. Additionally, most people are happier and more creative when performing a task that is framed as "play" rather than "work" and even more so if they have some kind of choice or say in the matter.
This text could be useful for teachers who teach traditionally academic courses, where creativity and innovation aren't typically expected or celebrated, although, I feel that it could be condensed even further than the 7 chapters in this book. This would probably make for a great 15-20 minute Ted talk.
I found this text to be slightly more enjoyable, understandable and relatable to my teaching than the first. With a more narrowed focus on mindfulness in an educational setting, I found Langer's points to be more clear and her examples/research more relevant. There were a few studies and experiments which also appeared in the previous text. I found that to be unnecessarily repetitive, but I suppose if you were to read the books independently of one another, the repetition serves a purpose.
If I had to sum up the point of this text, it reinforces what most of us already know: When you approach something mindfully, you're open to different points of view, and unpredictable outcomes. Regardless of whether you end up "right" or "wrong" you've learned something. Failure is an opportunity to grow, and to recognize that there usually isn't just one solution to any particular problem. Additionally, most people are happier and more creative when performing a task that is framed as "play" rather than "work" and even more so if they have some kind of choice or say in the matter.
This text could be useful for teachers who teach traditionally academic courses, where creativity and innovation aren't typically expected or celebrated, although, I feel that it could be condensed even further than the 7 chapters in this book. This would probably make for a great 15-20 minute Ted talk.
April 8, 2021
I’m giggling that reviewers complained about the research studies being described in too much detail, because that’s what I loved! Besides, I think it supports Langer’s approach: give me the information and some things it might mean, and some insightful questions, and let my brain do some work.
As an autistic person I loved the premise that autistic people are hypersensitive to people’s level of consciousness, which is difficult in a largely mindless society. That aligns with my own experience. And she finally said what I’ve been saying for years: kids would pay attention to you if you weren’t so fucking boring! I’ve never had trouble getting kids to pay attention, even if we didn’t speak the same language, because I’m extremely engaged in the present moment.
As a music teacher, I’m already incorporating what she talks about and will strive to do more. For example, I put “mistakes” in quotation marks all the time, speak conditionally, and encourage students to engage mindfully with their practicing always. I just try to be the teacher I wish I had!
As an autistic person I loved the premise that autistic people are hypersensitive to people’s level of consciousness, which is difficult in a largely mindless society. That aligns with my own experience. And she finally said what I’ve been saying for years: kids would pay attention to you if you weren’t so fucking boring! I’ve never had trouble getting kids to pay attention, even if we didn’t speak the same language, because I’m extremely engaged in the present moment.
As a music teacher, I’m already incorporating what she talks about and will strive to do more. For example, I put “mistakes” in quotation marks all the time, speak conditionally, and encourage students to engage mindfully with their practicing always. I just try to be the teacher I wish I had!
March 14, 2010
The Power of Mindful Learning is a bookshelf essential for educators. Dr. Ellen Langer shows - based on over two decades of research on learning at Harvard University, traditional education makes the mistake of serving up “packets of information” and expecting students to digest them. Our real mission as educators, she points out, is to inspire learners to WANT to open those packets. One of the key triggers to do that is to provide context and personal meaning to each potential learning moment. This is what we need to turn out educational system around - not more mindless content deliver, digesting and testing.
December 30, 2022
Meh. Some parts were interesting/thought-provoking, and other parts felt like her getting on her soapbox and pointing out problems without providing concrete solutions. Definitely felt like it was written 25 years ago (which it was, but still). Pretty short and easy read though, so not a huge time investment if it sounds interesting to you.
January 20, 2018
In “The Power of Mindful Learning”, the author Ellen Langer (a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University), duly highlights the fact that meaningful learning results only when it takes place in a mindful manner. She put forth many examples of how mindless learning is directed and takes place inadvertently in many education systems that existed and currently prevailing. For example, guiding and testing learners for rote memorisation in which isolated pieces of information/data are and/or unconditional knowledge is emphasised instead of presenting contextual information that relates to other similar concepts/information in a conditional manner. In other words, in mindful learning, we need to direct learners to view and relate information from multiple perspectives rather than guiding them to get one possible outcome as quickly as possible, most likely to be the one preferred by the facilitator or the expert. In many cases, it is done with a firm belief that only one precise and correct outcome is present, without having an awareness that multiple possibilities/perspectives are present.
Professor Langer quite insightfully argues that directing learners to get to only one possible outcome in an unconditional manner in the quickest possible time is a meaningless effort as the resulting learning has a very limited applicability in other similar but different scenarios, even though these types of outcomes can be tested and assessed in an accurate and precise manner as part of learner evaluation. As a result, recognition tests in which we evaluate whether learners have developed an awareness (conditionally and contextually) rather than whether a piece of information is memorised in an exact format would be a better and more valid assessment. Such assessment would assess individuals’ real transformation (with a lasting impact) that takes place through learning. She further argues that many intelligence tests use a similar assessment concept in which attempts are made to match the individual being tested to one perspective of reality out of many possible perspectives of reality. Further, an interesting distinction is made between approaches to learning based on (single domain) intelligence (or linear problem-solving approach) and mindfulness. In the mindful learning approach, learners are guided to be open-minded, alert and flexible in their learning with an understanding that most of our learning is conditional and subject to change based on our new and/or future learning.
Professor Langer insightfully and highly reflectively describes how learning/assessment can become mindless:
“Schools generally pay little attention to how, when, and by whom the criteria for grading were chosen. If the criteria were questioned and varied, students’ position on the continuum might change. But they are rarely varied. To make matters worse, once we are placed on the tail end of the distribution, social forces work to keep on us there, setting us up for a lifetime of success or failure. Our fate as winners, losers or just average is sealed.”
Further, after forty years of research, she has become courageous and was persuaded to summarise:
“Our schools are the problem. They unintentionally teach us to be mindless. Schools do this in at least two ways. They teach us to evaluate each other and ourselves, and they teach us to see or accept information as if it were absolute and independent of human creation”
Some of the other interesting insights the author put forth are the need to deemphasising overlearning to the extent of reaching mindlessness and losing creativity, minimising the attitudinal differences shown to play and work (and also to play and learning) and rethinking ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) by introducing/highlighting much needed novelty to the process of learning in order to get and maintain attention from the learners. When something is overlearned, it tends to lose cognitive/executive control on the part of the learner and the neuroscience-based phenomenon known as automaticity creeps in making the learner act in an uncreative manner with less attention to detail. It is also not uncommon that individuals view work and learning in a negative/mindless way with some unjustified preconceptions. This contrasts with the mindful attention they pay when playing. Simply by being more mindful while working and/or learning, like the way we pay attention while playing, and thereby being more open to novelty and attention to detail, we have a better chance of overcoming boredom and stress and enjoy the tasks of learning and working. In relation to ADHD, Professor Langer insightfully sees the possibility of lack of novelty in the item of focus and/or being attentive to a different object or matter as the reasons for inattention/distraction. This alternative view of ADHD in itself is a demonstration of how one can be mindful of a concept/phenomenon by viewing from multiple perspectives/dimensions.
Professor Langer quite insightfully argues that directing learners to get to only one possible outcome in an unconditional manner in the quickest possible time is a meaningless effort as the resulting learning has a very limited applicability in other similar but different scenarios, even though these types of outcomes can be tested and assessed in an accurate and precise manner as part of learner evaluation. As a result, recognition tests in which we evaluate whether learners have developed an awareness (conditionally and contextually) rather than whether a piece of information is memorised in an exact format would be a better and more valid assessment. Such assessment would assess individuals’ real transformation (with a lasting impact) that takes place through learning. She further argues that many intelligence tests use a similar assessment concept in which attempts are made to match the individual being tested to one perspective of reality out of many possible perspectives of reality. Further, an interesting distinction is made between approaches to learning based on (single domain) intelligence (or linear problem-solving approach) and mindfulness. In the mindful learning approach, learners are guided to be open-minded, alert and flexible in their learning with an understanding that most of our learning is conditional and subject to change based on our new and/or future learning.
Professor Langer insightfully and highly reflectively describes how learning/assessment can become mindless:
“Schools generally pay little attention to how, when, and by whom the criteria for grading were chosen. If the criteria were questioned and varied, students’ position on the continuum might change. But they are rarely varied. To make matters worse, once we are placed on the tail end of the distribution, social forces work to keep on us there, setting us up for a lifetime of success or failure. Our fate as winners, losers or just average is sealed.”
Further, after forty years of research, she has become courageous and was persuaded to summarise:
“Our schools are the problem. They unintentionally teach us to be mindless. Schools do this in at least two ways. They teach us to evaluate each other and ourselves, and they teach us to see or accept information as if it were absolute and independent of human creation”
Some of the other interesting insights the author put forth are the need to deemphasising overlearning to the extent of reaching mindlessness and losing creativity, minimising the attitudinal differences shown to play and work (and also to play and learning) and rethinking ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) by introducing/highlighting much needed novelty to the process of learning in order to get and maintain attention from the learners. When something is overlearned, it tends to lose cognitive/executive control on the part of the learner and the neuroscience-based phenomenon known as automaticity creeps in making the learner act in an uncreative manner with less attention to detail. It is also not uncommon that individuals view work and learning in a negative/mindless way with some unjustified preconceptions. This contrasts with the mindful attention they pay when playing. Simply by being more mindful while working and/or learning, like the way we pay attention while playing, and thereby being more open to novelty and attention to detail, we have a better chance of overcoming boredom and stress and enjoy the tasks of learning and working. In relation to ADHD, Professor Langer insightfully sees the possibility of lack of novelty in the item of focus and/or being attentive to a different object or matter as the reasons for inattention/distraction. This alternative view of ADHD in itself is a demonstration of how one can be mindful of a concept/phenomenon by viewing from multiple perspectives/dimensions.
January 18, 2023
The Power of Mindful Learning by Ellen J. Langer c. 2016 (135 pages—Da Capo Press)
Langar is a professor of psychology at Harvard University.
Key Quotations
• “Shakespeare warned us against being judgmental when he wrote, ‘Things are neither good nor bad thinking makes it so’” (xv).
• “Teachers are some of the most caring people among us. They are recruited, however, into a system that, in part, is mindless. Tests, grades, and labels are part of the judgmental culture of schools. A child is seen as distracted, for example, rather than as otherwise attracted. From this observer’s point of view, the problem is always the child” (xvi).
• “In Robert Rosenthal’s Pygmalion in the Classroom, teachers were told which children were late bloomers from whom they could expect great things. Unbeknownst to the teachers, the children were actually chosen at random, but the labels became self-fulfilling” (xvii).
• “A mindful approach to any activity has three characteristics: the continuous creation of new categories; openness to new information; and an implicit awareness of more than one perspective. Mindlessness, in contrast, is characterized by an entrapment in old categories; by automatic behavior that precludes attending to new signals; and by action that operates from a single perspective” (4).
• “Learning the basics in a rote, unthinking manner almost ensures mediocrity. At the least, it deprives learners of maximizing their own potential for more effective performance and enjoyment of the activity” (13).
• “We’re all very good at working backward and coming up with reasons to justify any opinion. In doing so, we often box ourselves into a single view” (19).
• “One pilot study suggests that expertise is not dependent on a particular hierarchical assimilation of basic skills, but that greater effectiveness and mastery may be accessible through inventive transformations of the routine” (23).
• “Labeling behavior as ‘distracted’ may be presumptuous. What we call distraction may be a deliberate attending to something other than what we think is important” (34-35).
• “For us to pay attention to something for any amount of time, the image must be varied. Thus, for students who have trouble paying attention the problem may be that they are following the wrong instructions” (37).
• “The fear of negative evaluation colors much of the school experience for most people. Claude Steele showed that black students often distance themselves from academic matters in order to protect their self-esteem. In one study students were told that they would or would not be tested on the material they were given to learn. Black students performed perfectly well except when they believed they were being tested” (55).
• When reading stories, students who were asked to “learn the material” saw less learning than those who were asked to “make material meaningful to themselves . . . by thinking about how certain parts of the information remind you of past, present, or future experiences, how the information could be important to yourself or someone else, or simply finding some significance of the story in relation to anyone or anything” (75).
• “In social psychology there is a well-known phenomenon called the sleeper effect. People hear persuasive arguments by sources that are either credible or not and are later tested to see whether their attitudes have been affected by the communications. Initially, source credibility seems to matter . . . over time [however] the credibility of the source ceases to matter. People forget where they heard it or from whom, but they retain general aspects of the persuasive message. This effect seems to support the belief that any publicity is good publicity (84).
• “Despite the emphasis in current intelligence theory on several kinds of intelligence, there is still an assumption of an absolute, external reality revealed by greater or lesser degrees of these various sorts of intelligence. This assumption is of more than academic interest; it may have detrimental effects on self-perception, perception of others, personal control, and the educational process itself” (98).
Table 1:
Intelligence Mindfulness
Corresponds to reality by identifying the optimum fit between individual and environment.
Controls reality by identifying several possible perspectives from which any situation may be viewed
A linear process moving from problem to resolution as rapidly as possible
A process of stepping back from both perceived problems and perceived solutions to view situations as novel
A means of achieving desired outcomes A profess through which meaning is given to outcomes
Developed from an observing expert’s perspective, which focuses on stable categories
Developed from an actor’s ability to experience personal control by shifting perspectives
Depends on remembered facts and learned skills in contexts that are sometimes perceived as novel Depends on the fluidity of knowledge and skills and recognizes both advantages and disadvantages in each
• “Examples of the tendency of experts to use fixed categories when others might be more revealing can be found in many official educational assessments. Take the landmark Equality of Educational Opportunity report, which found that students’ achievement was highly correlated with students’ socioeconomic background but apparently uncorrelated with school quality” (122).
• “More centralized educational systems that offered a uniform curriculum without tracking reduced the effects of socioeconomic status on students’ achievement” (123).
• “Despite the tendency of uncertainty to enhance creative thinking, students are usually taught to view facts as immutable, unconditional truths” (126).
• “By mindfully considering data not as stable commodities but as sources of ambiguity, we become more observant” (127).
• “Those of us who teach are often tolerant of students’ mistakes . . . but it does not occur to us to view their answers not as mistakes, but as responses to different contexts” (130).
• “The first intelligence test was developed by the French Ministry of Education in identifying students who needed to be placed in remedial schools. We continue to view intelligence testing as a means of sorting students . . . Too often, rather than encouraging students to discover the usefulness of their failures or to identify abilities embedded in disabilities, our educational system seeks to help students by steering them in directions that avoid such challenges” (132).
Langar is a professor of psychology at Harvard University.
Key Quotations
• “Shakespeare warned us against being judgmental when he wrote, ‘Things are neither good nor bad thinking makes it so’” (xv).
• “Teachers are some of the most caring people among us. They are recruited, however, into a system that, in part, is mindless. Tests, grades, and labels are part of the judgmental culture of schools. A child is seen as distracted, for example, rather than as otherwise attracted. From this observer’s point of view, the problem is always the child” (xvi).
• “In Robert Rosenthal’s Pygmalion in the Classroom, teachers were told which children were late bloomers from whom they could expect great things. Unbeknownst to the teachers, the children were actually chosen at random, but the labels became self-fulfilling” (xvii).
• “A mindful approach to any activity has three characteristics: the continuous creation of new categories; openness to new information; and an implicit awareness of more than one perspective. Mindlessness, in contrast, is characterized by an entrapment in old categories; by automatic behavior that precludes attending to new signals; and by action that operates from a single perspective” (4).
• “Learning the basics in a rote, unthinking manner almost ensures mediocrity. At the least, it deprives learners of maximizing their own potential for more effective performance and enjoyment of the activity” (13).
• “We’re all very good at working backward and coming up with reasons to justify any opinion. In doing so, we often box ourselves into a single view” (19).
• “One pilot study suggests that expertise is not dependent on a particular hierarchical assimilation of basic skills, but that greater effectiveness and mastery may be accessible through inventive transformations of the routine” (23).
• “Labeling behavior as ‘distracted’ may be presumptuous. What we call distraction may be a deliberate attending to something other than what we think is important” (34-35).
• “For us to pay attention to something for any amount of time, the image must be varied. Thus, for students who have trouble paying attention the problem may be that they are following the wrong instructions” (37).
• “The fear of negative evaluation colors much of the school experience for most people. Claude Steele showed that black students often distance themselves from academic matters in order to protect their self-esteem. In one study students were told that they would or would not be tested on the material they were given to learn. Black students performed perfectly well except when they believed they were being tested” (55).
• When reading stories, students who were asked to “learn the material” saw less learning than those who were asked to “make material meaningful to themselves . . . by thinking about how certain parts of the information remind you of past, present, or future experiences, how the information could be important to yourself or someone else, or simply finding some significance of the story in relation to anyone or anything” (75).
• “In social psychology there is a well-known phenomenon called the sleeper effect. People hear persuasive arguments by sources that are either credible or not and are later tested to see whether their attitudes have been affected by the communications. Initially, source credibility seems to matter . . . over time [however] the credibility of the source ceases to matter. People forget where they heard it or from whom, but they retain general aspects of the persuasive message. This effect seems to support the belief that any publicity is good publicity (84).
• “Despite the emphasis in current intelligence theory on several kinds of intelligence, there is still an assumption of an absolute, external reality revealed by greater or lesser degrees of these various sorts of intelligence. This assumption is of more than academic interest; it may have detrimental effects on self-perception, perception of others, personal control, and the educational process itself” (98).
Table 1:
Intelligence Mindfulness
Corresponds to reality by identifying the optimum fit between individual and environment.
Controls reality by identifying several possible perspectives from which any situation may be viewed
A linear process moving from problem to resolution as rapidly as possible
A process of stepping back from both perceived problems and perceived solutions to view situations as novel
A means of achieving desired outcomes A profess through which meaning is given to outcomes
Developed from an observing expert’s perspective, which focuses on stable categories
Developed from an actor’s ability to experience personal control by shifting perspectives
Depends on remembered facts and learned skills in contexts that are sometimes perceived as novel Depends on the fluidity of knowledge and skills and recognizes both advantages and disadvantages in each
• “Examples of the tendency of experts to use fixed categories when others might be more revealing can be found in many official educational assessments. Take the landmark Equality of Educational Opportunity report, which found that students’ achievement was highly correlated with students’ socioeconomic background but apparently uncorrelated with school quality” (122).
• “More centralized educational systems that offered a uniform curriculum without tracking reduced the effects of socioeconomic status on students’ achievement” (123).
• “Despite the tendency of uncertainty to enhance creative thinking, students are usually taught to view facts as immutable, unconditional truths” (126).
• “By mindfully considering data not as stable commodities but as sources of ambiguity, we become more observant” (127).
• “Those of us who teach are often tolerant of students’ mistakes . . . but it does not occur to us to view their answers not as mistakes, but as responses to different contexts” (130).
• “The first intelligence test was developed by the French Ministry of Education in identifying students who needed to be placed in remedial schools. We continue to view intelligence testing as a means of sorting students . . . Too often, rather than encouraging students to discover the usefulness of their failures or to identify abilities embedded in disabilities, our educational system seeks to help students by steering them in directions that avoid such challenges” (132).
May 6, 2018
An excellent follow up read to Langer's Mindfulness, a more general take on the topic. Personally, I am surprised more mindfulness "experts" do not reference her work more. Her empirical studies bring much validity to the concept. I found both books to be excellent resources for thinking about how we can create school environments where students are focused more on what they are doing and less on how they are doing.
June 9, 2017
This book opened my eyes to thinking about how we learn in a completely different way. It challenges traditional approaches to learning with research that the author is personally familiar with. This calls everyone who is an educator higher. We should always be open to new discoveries in the field and strive to incorporate new ideas that show promising results.
November 9, 2015
Short, concise, powerful concepts about learning. I'd recommend this to anyone curious about how we learn and develop new skills, or looking to improve how they learn.
November 30, 2020
A helpful read for teachers. Encompasses a broader view of “mindful” to the wider issues of understanding the world and applying value to it. Discusses how a mindful approach to any activity has three characteristics: the continuous creation of new categories, openness to new information, and an implicit awareness of more than one perspective.
Debunks the following myths with interesting explanation about each:
1. Basics must be learned so well that they become second nature. (Overlearning prevents creativity or adjusting to different situations)
2. Paying attention means staying focused on one thing at one time. (Elaboration is important to successful and deep learning. It's ok for the target of our attention to vary as we draw connections.)
3. Delaying gratification is important. (Learning/work doesn't have to be unpleasant)
4. Rote memorization is necessary in education. (The information has to be connected to context in a meaningful way.)
5. Forgetting is a problem. (Prior knowledge/misconceptions can be a barrier)
6. Intelligence is knowing "what's out there." (There is not only one way to perceive or interpret reality.)
7. There are right and wrong answers. (There is value in uncertainty as it relates to learning.)
These myths backed up by scientific studies undermine true learning. They stifle our creativity, silence our questions, and diminish our self-esteem, and by rethinking these we can embrace mindful learning
Debunks the following myths with interesting explanation about each:
1. Basics must be learned so well that they become second nature. (Overlearning prevents creativity or adjusting to different situations)
2. Paying attention means staying focused on one thing at one time. (Elaboration is important to successful and deep learning. It's ok for the target of our attention to vary as we draw connections.)
3. Delaying gratification is important. (Learning/work doesn't have to be unpleasant)
4. Rote memorization is necessary in education. (The information has to be connected to context in a meaningful way.)
5. Forgetting is a problem. (Prior knowledge/misconceptions can be a barrier)
6. Intelligence is knowing "what's out there." (There is not only one way to perceive or interpret reality.)
7. There are right and wrong answers. (There is value in uncertainty as it relates to learning.)
These myths backed up by scientific studies undermine true learning. They stifle our creativity, silence our questions, and diminish our self-esteem, and by rethinking these we can embrace mindful learning
April 4, 2025
If it wasn't Spring Break, I likely would not have read this book. However, it wasn't a long one so I soldiered on. I am very interested in mindfulness and so was curious about her take. The preface started on about the problems with assessment, which is what caused me to not want to continue. However, in the space of mindfulness, I can see what the author was saying. Sometimes it was light and easy reading and sometimes I got quite bogged down in the details of studies she cites and my interest would wane. Overall, I can see that this would be a good topic for an education degree and she had some good things to consider. Many times, however, I disagreed with some of her assertions because of experiences I've had with good teaching....for example: Wrote learning. I have found that my students can learn math facts by repeated practice and a bit of searching for patterns, which is a small leap from wrote memory. If I can get them to do that prior to doing our multiplication unit which focuses a lot on the why's of multiplication and methods for figuring it out, they learn it much quicker. If they have those facts already in their head, suddenly the why makes sense.
There were many other topics in here I had a "Ya but...." comment that would be interesting to discuss with the author. However, time to move on to something that will absorb my interest as a reader!
There were many other topics in here I had a "Ya but...." comment that would be interesting to discuss with the author. However, time to move on to something that will absorb my interest as a reader!
December 21, 2020
If you are in graduate school, a teacher or trainer - I highly recommend this book by Ellen J. Langer. Langer reminds readers of the importance of being mindful in learning and in other aspects of our lives. How do we move from being passive learners or educators to being mindful in our practice? Langer gives you the steps to do just that - I enjoyed having the physical copy of the book and listening to the audio book together.
March 20, 2024
loved this book a lot! I think the abstract concepts were explained in an easily digestible way. I loved the bits about how looking at ideas from multiple perspectives, in different contexts increases our mindful learning processes. Also, love the idea that when something “could be X” and not “this IS X” allows for different perspectives and nuances is amazing. This book has fantastic insights that make you think about learning and intelligence in a new way. highly recommend!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
August 3, 2025“How can we know if do not ask? Why should we ask if we are certain we know? All answers come out of the question. If we pay attention to our questions, we increase the power of mindful learning.”, p. 135
November 8, 2017
Would information to fill an article, not a book
July 4, 2018
Great book
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Professor Langer has written a thought provoking on how we operate with care, mindfulness on how we educate our students.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Professor Langer has written a thought provoking on how we operate with care, mindfulness on how we educate our students.
October 6, 2019
Interesting read about how mindfulness can enhance learning. Quick read but also at times heavy into theory and not so much practicality.
February 16, 2020
There is no right and wrong answer, it’s all about the perspective. The means of measuring Intelligence is merely one dimension of perception. Never thought of education/work/learning this way.
March 9, 2020
Myths about learning and the role of memory in learning are discussed. Learning in context is mindful learning.
March 15, 2020
insightful and eye opening book
March 31, 2020
A well written book that explains psychology of mindful learning. Langer's language is concise and easy to understand. She also has a humorous tone which makes the whole book quite interesting.
June 29, 2020
An excellent work that could have had a lot more exposition and a lot less emphasis on the details of specific experiments. Good food for thought.
July 12, 2020
A thoughtful book that opened my mind to a new perspective on learning.
August 10, 2020
Give me a new Len to view the world !
The writing is kinda boring but it is informative.
The writing is kinda boring but it is informative.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews