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Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - (see all news for this day)
conscious incompetent - 08:28 AM
(filed under 'study')
i had a good time at my course last night. i seem to have had a shift in the way i'm thinking/worrying about it. let me explain.
years & years ago i did part of a business course at TAFE (Technical And Further Education, sort of a step up from school that can lead to other higher education or a trade. btw, that's an acronym, not an initialism. an initialism is said with just the letters, like CIA, but an acronym is pronounceable as a 'word'. see? i'm learning something. lol!) where one of the teachers told us about various stages of learning. he gave learning to drive as an example.
the first stage is unconscious incompetent. so, for the driving a car example, that's where you don't know what you don't know, i.e. you have no idea what's involved with driving a car & possibly no idea even where to start.
the second stage is conscious incompetent. this is where you do know what you don't know: you know that you have to learn how to change gears, how to use the accelerator & brake, that you must learn the road rules, etc, but you don't actually know these things yet.
the third stage, conscious competent, is where you now know what you need to know, but you still have to think about it to do it. you know what you need to know to drive a car & you can do it, but you still have to concentrate on it with some effort.
the fourth & last stage is unconscious competent. you don't think consciously about what you know. you can drive a car without having to think too hard about it. for instance, you can have a conversation with a passenger while you're driving or you can drive on 'autopilot' so to speak.
so with my studies, i'm now at the conscious incompetent stage. i know what i don't know. last week i knew what i didn't know & i was scared about it, but this week, after last night's class, i know what i don't know but i'm excited about it instead. 
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