Gordon MacRae Blog

Although I work in education I find a lot of people have misconceptions about why people learn. People don’t want to learn for the sake of learning. Ok, maybe not everyone but I’d hazard a guess that only around 10% of people will take a course for the sake of it. Everyone else is motivated by status, money or power.

The problem is that the 10% of people who like learning are the ones who work in education. They are the people who create products, design courses and talk about education. This group of people loves the craft of learning. And so they design courses for other weirdos who like to learn for the sake of learning.

Sidenote: I’m not using the term weirdo as a pejorative. I agree with Martin Brodsky, being normal is overrated. But learning for the sake of learning is why a lot of courses are so deathly boring.

The way I see it is there are three, much bigger groups, that comprise most learners.

The first group wants to make more money. They learn something because it will get them a bigger pay check. This could be a new skill, a piece of knowledge or a behaviour that is more valued than their current skillset.

The second group wants status. This could be a new job title, a prestigious certificate, or the recommendation of someone with higher status. All three of these are a marker that makes them stand out compared to other people. Sometimes this comes with more money, sometimes the first and second group are tied together.

The third group just wants to make their lives easier. They want to do a task quicker or more efficiently.

These are the real reasons people learn. Not for some joy of learning crap.