Books on learning how to learn

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• Ultralearning · Make It Stick is the science behind two principles of Ultralearning, retrieval and retention.
• Learning How to Learn · The same ideas about how we learn, one version for adults and another for children and teenagers.

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• Deep Work · Two ways of focusing. Short 25-minute blocks with breaks (Oakley) or long blocks without distractions (Newport).

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• Limitless · The memory palace. Kwik teaches it as a technique; Foer tells how he learned it and how far it goes.

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• Outliers · The 10,000-hour rule. Gladwell popularized it with Ericsson's study, and Ericsson replies that this is not what he found.
• Moonwalking with Einstein · Foer uses Ericsson's deliberate practice to get out of the plateau where his memory had stopped improving.

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• Limitless · Both say beliefs about ourselves limit what we learn. Dweck has more studies behind her, and even so her effect is small.
• Outliers · Dweck looks at what happens inside the person (their mindset); Gladwell, at what happens outside (their opportunities).

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• The Odyssey · Designing your surroundings so you do not give in to temptation is the modern version of tying yourself to the mast.

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• Ultralearning · Focus is one of the nine principles of Ultralearning; Newport devotes a whole book to it.

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• Limitless · Two promises of faster learning. Comparing them is a good exercise in separating what has evidence from what is merely said.
• The Art of Thinking Clearly · Ultralearning relies on stories of people who succeeded; Dobelli explains why that can be survivorship bias.
• Robinson Crusoe · Learning alone and by doing. Robinson learns to bake bread and make pots through failed attempts.

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• The Art of Thinking Clearly · Dobelli teaches you to distrust good stories and authority, useful for reading with a cool head any book that promises to change your life, this one included.

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• Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds · Dobelli explains social proof in a chapter; Mackay shows whole countries falling for it.
• The Odyssey · Hyperbolic discounting (preferring today's reward) is the problem; tying yourself to the mast is a solution.
• Make It Stick · Overconfidence, student version. Rereading gives the illusion of knowing, and Make It Stick shows how to check it.
• Atomic Habits · Dobelli says willpower runs out; Clear proposes not depending on it and changing your surroundings instead.

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• The Ignorant Schoolmaster · Two critiques of the teacher who only deposits or explains. Freire proposes dialogue; Rancière, the equality of intelligences.

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• Ultralearning · Learning without anyone explaining. Jacotot in 1818, and Scott Young with MIT's open courses.

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• Robinson Crusoe · It is the first book Rousseau lets Emile read, the model of someone who learns from things and not from speeches.
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed · Two roots of active education, two centuries apart. Learning from experience (Rousseau) and from dialogue about one's own reality (Freire).

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• Emile, or On Education · Both start from the idea that children are good by nature and learn best in freedom. Neill took it to a real school.
• The Ignorant Schoolmaster · Trusting that students can learn by themselves. Jacotot without explaining, Neill without compulsory classes.
• El abordaje de la educación experiencial (in Spanish only) · Challenge by choice and Summerhill's optional classes share one idea, that nobody learns by force.

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• Emile, or On Education · Rousseau is among the philosophical foundations of experiential education, learning from things and not from speeches.
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed · Both start from John Dewey. Freire takes him to adult literacy and social justice; Builes, to group adventure workshops.
• Make It Stick · They agree that living through something is not enough to learn it. You need to reflect (Builes) or retrieve from memory (Make It Stick).