By: Miriam Mendez on May 18, 2014
When I first learned of this assignment my mind was flooded with so many possibilities. Perhaps I can learn to build a website or some other technological skill. Or I can learn how to knit and gift family and friends with scarfs or socks for Christmas! Or I can re-learn Greek so that I can…
By: Mitch Arbelaez on May 18, 2014
The first struggle I had was to chose only one thing to learn. I, like Haufman have that “Renaissance man temperament.” Call it what you like, I have one. You know, “the dream list,” “the wish list,” “the what-would-you-do-with-a-million-dollars list” or “the bucket list.” So many things to do with so little time to accomplish…
By: Michael Badriaki on May 18, 2014
From childhood, I was encouraged to always be willing to learn as much as I can. For some, learning new things is an option, but for most people in Africa, learning is a necessary skill for survival, connectivity and earned success. Learning and education are themes I grew up around. The opportunity to learn different…
By: Richard Volzke on May 17, 2014
Kaufman, in The First 20 hours: How to Learn Anything…Fast!, provides a checklist of things that we can do to help ourselves learn a new skill more effectively. If we follow his recommendations, Kaufman suggests that we may be able to learn a new skill in approximately twenty hours. Research the skill and related topics. Jump…
By: Sharenda Roam on May 17, 2014
Josh Kaufman, in his book “The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything Fast,” he determines that, well, anyone can learn pretty much anything fast. There were several thing I considered learning: how to draw, a new language, advanced piano ear-training. However, ultimately I chose “a lovable project” and something out of necessity. I recently…
By: Garrick Roegner on May 17, 2014
This week in our D.Min program we were tasked with reading Josh Kaufman’s book The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything… Fast! Kaufman’s book is basically a guide on how to break down skills into component parts and tackle the learning process in an organized and logical series of steps. Kaufman greater and more…
By: Fred Fay on May 17, 2014
Can you learn anything in just 20 hours? This week I took on the challenge of working on my touch-typing. I have been reading the book The First 20 hours: How to Learn Anything Fast by Josh Kaufman. So can I improve my touch typing this week? I must admit I am not trying to expect…
By: Carol McLaughlin on May 17, 2014
I confess the Josh Kaufman’s book was a fun read last weekend while sitting in the car on my way to Pullman, WA to see my daughter receive her Master’s Degree from Washington State University (Go Cougs!). I knew a few things straightaway. I have no desire to learn to touch type even if it…
By: Liz Linssen on May 17, 2014
Going through The First 20 Hours, I wrestled with deciding what to learn. The Ukulele had completely different finger chords to the guitar, so that would just confuse me. Windsurfing is not exactly a popular sport in South Wales (although we certainly do have the wind for it!). And I figured ‘Go’ might just frazzle…
By: Richard Rhoads on May 17, 2014
In May of 2008 I was able to take my first tour of Israel, I was hooked. From the biblical sites to the modern culture, I loved everything about traveling and experiencing the Middle East. Not long into the trip I realized there was much to learn. Culture, contexts, foods and most of all the…
By: Chris Ellis on May 17, 2014
I had every intention of taking this week’s D.Min assignment (to learn something new) and learning something ‘exotic.’ Something that I had never done but that always intrigued me, something that would make me more of a renaissance man. I wanted to learn how to fly fish. Sadly though, a more necessary skill that needed…
By: David Toth on May 17, 2014
When my cohort was tasked to read the book The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman, I figured we would read the book and then blog about it; this has been the customary approach to the reading assignments. However, Dr. Clark pulled a “switcheroo” and the assignment was changed to actually follow the book’s directions,…
By: John Woodward on May 17, 2014
Reading Josh Kaufman’s The First 20 Hours, I discovered why learning to use my Nikon D-90 was so frustrating. My first problem was that I would take the camera out only when I went on mission trips or on personal travel, which meant that sometimes it would sit idol for upwards of six months or…
By: Deve Persad on May 17, 2014
This little project was intriguing to me: using the principles of Josh Kaufman’s book, The First 20 Hours, How to Learn Anything…Fast. Admittedly I probably spent close to twenty hours trying to figure out what to do. I likely should have settled on learning how not to avoid the task at hand. It did cross…
By: Ashley Goad on May 16, 2014
Twenty Hours? Seriously? I have heard of taking 21 days to form a habit, but 20 hours seemed impossible! How can I possibly learn something new, something from scratch in just 20 hours? Where do I even begin? Indeed, Josh Kaufman, in his book The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything…Fast, summarizes three key things…
By: rhbaker275 on May 16, 2014
Following a ten minute brainstorm session I decided I wanted to learn: Lithography… Dancing – aside from slow dancing… Power Point presentations – more than basics… Art and design… Sound system fundamentals and operation… Rose gardening (in a Northern climate)… Shrub and tree trimming… Spiritual formation… Spanish, more than greetings… Website design… Writing or designing…
By: Clint Baldwin on May 16, 2014
Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel – for which Diamond won the Pulitzer prize in 1998 – is a book that literally takes into broad-ranging account the development of the whole world. Diamond is most concerned with initial societal development as relates to environmental factors and subsequent intersocietal repercussions based on such early development. Diamond…
By: Phil Smart on May 15, 2014
Naturally I first accessed my bucket list to accomplish something that has eluded me in the past. I play guitar and have always wanted to learn to play banjo (aka: Cliff Berger method)but after sending out requests via Facebook, I was unable to acquire a borrowed banjo and It would stretch me to buy one…
By: Stefania Tarasut on May 15, 2014
Reading through Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond this week was refreshing and humbling. The book can be described in one sentence: “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.” (25) All though this is a common sense way of thinking,…
By: Garrick Roegner on May 10, 2014
They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway 5 Judge says to the High Sheriff, “I want them dead or alive” Either one, I don’t care, high water everywhere -Bob Dylan, High Water History is fascinating stuff. Often it gets short shrift from poor high school teachers more focused on the memorization of facts…