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What the “Experts” say:
According to Dr. Vernon A.
Magnesen in 1983:
“We Learn:
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we say
90% of what we say and do
How are we taught?
Most traditional methods involve
one person talking to a group. According to Dr. Magnesen, this
group will only retain 10% of the information delivered .
Even if you were to attend a lecture because you loved the
information, most lectures are still less than exciting.
I was a terrible student and
found school to be extremely painful, boring and irrelevant. I
was told I was stupid because I didn’t understand Pi or that
imaginary line that ran all the way to infinity. I graduated
at or near the bottom of my class. I disliked school and vowed
never to return (much to the joy of my teachers, I’m sure).
If only my teachers could see me
now. My education company is the largest one is the state with
a 70%-plus market share four years in a row. I found that I
actually have a knack for numbers and arrive at solutions that
require mathematical, logistical and probability analysis
quite quickly.
Our Philosophy
We believe that every child was
born a genius and designed to be an incredible success. The
best way to get rich is to quit your job and take your kids
out of school. Why?
The school system today is a
factory and its product is employees.
The Six Greatest Lies
The six greatest lies taught in
school are
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Be good,
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Do as you are told
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Make good grades
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Get a good job
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Work hard
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Work for money
Memorization is not Learning
Whoever memorizes these answers
and can regurgitate them the fastest is labeled “Smart” and
moved on to the next grade. Those who struggle with the mantra
are required to stay behind for more recitals.
The Long Term Result
Because of this mis-information,
approximately 90% of Americans who reach age 65 cannot put
their hands on $10,000 cash. How successful was your
education?
Has it made you rich and happy?
 What I Discovered
I was fortunate enough to make a
decision to attend a three and a half day seminar in 1987. I
dreaded going and when I got there I wished I was somewhere
else, so once again I was being a terrible student. Although I
disliked the course I did like the teaching methods the
instructor used. I found that I was attentive, engaged and
enrolled the whole three and a half days! It renewed my
interest for learning and rekindled a spark that became a
burning passion for knowledge and further education.
I was invited to become an
instructor for that organization and traveled for years
throughout the Pacific Rim teaching business, investing and
personal growth seminars. In addition to learning the material
I was to present, I also had to learn how to present it.
After Lynn and I bought The Austin Institute of Real Estate in
1989 I decided to continue studying the learning process of
humans. How do people learn? How do they take in, store and
retrieve data? How can I make the process fun, or at least
less painful? How can I tap into that natural curiosity humans
have about their world and re-kindle
the joy and passion for learning? This subject consumed me for
the next several years. Fortunately, I was able to practice as
I studied, transferring what I learned in the books to
the classroom.
Real estate licensing classes are
mandatory in Texas. Since I owned a real estate school and
people had to go to school, this provided an ideal place for
me to practice. I was reluctant at first to experiment on my
customers, so I sat in on a few classes and watched the
instructors teach them. Sure enough, it was the same old
teaching style: one person talking to a group. The group was a
typical group who were being lectured to: slumped down in
their chairs, daydreaming or fighting to stay awake, gazing
around the room, wishing they were somewhere else and that the
pain of sitting still and listening to the droning would end
soon.
I knew that I couldn’t do worse,
so I began teaching to the hardest class of all:
 The
Principles of Real Estate.
By using what I read in the books (some are listed under the
Education section on the
recommended reading list of our web site). I
learned many things about how to teach more information in
less time with greater retention. After much practice I was
able to teach our four-day Principles class in one day with a
98% average grade. And the students had fun learning!
Knowing VS Having Knowledge
As
I studied and learned, I taught. I learned many valuable
things about education, the three main ones being:
1. There is a difference between “Having knowledge of a
subject” and “Knowing a subject”.
Reading, studying and memorization of facts give a person
“knowledge of” a subject. Being able to use or apply the
information for a positive result tells whether or not a
person “Knows” the subject. For example, suppose you decided
to become a top listing agent. You could take classes, buy
books, tapes, DVD’s and memorize scripts, learn how to do a
market analysis of a property and prepare a very convincing
Power Point listing presentation. You would now “have
knowledge of” the subject called Listing Real Estate.
But that’s all you have.
Once you use, or apply, that
information, ie: you list several properties that sell and
close and made the sellers happy and you got paid and received
referrals from the sellers, then you can say you know it. Then
you can teach others how to do it.
2. The second thing I learned is
that applying what is read or studied quickly results in going
from “knowing of” to
“knowing” more rapidly. Putting the information to use makes
it real,
3. The third most important thing
I learned about learning is that we are designed to make
mistakes and that
the
more mistakes I made the more I discovered. In applying what I
studied I did not always do
it the “right way’ the
first few times. It was only until I made a few, or in some
cases several, mistakes
that I was able to correct and get the intended result. I also
discovered that ego can sometimes be the biggest obstacle to
learning. Either one thinks
they already “know” the subject and therefore cannot learn
anything new about it, or the fear of not “looking good”
or “being cool’ makes them not want to make any mistakes less
they look foolish.
As the old story goes, a guy gets
lost in New York so he walks up to a native New Yorker and
asks “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” and the New Yorker
says “Simple. Practice, Practice, Practice.”
Accelerated Learning
Accelerated Learning involves
creating an environment for learning, ie: how the room
looks, feels, sounds, smells, and specifically includes
the following:
how the room is arranged
the aromas in the room
the messages on the walls
how to use flip charts
the use of color
the use of music:
light strings,
flutes, piano for reflection, create mode
baroque for study
mode
rock & roll for
games, breaks and action mode
culture—we
never call on people or put them “on the spot”
make the environment safe & fun
and people will volunteer
understand the 3 basic
modalities-Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic—and teach to each
style
use less lecture and more
activities to create the lesson
lots of positive reinforcement
(NEVER say “No” or “Wrong”) ALWAYS “Good answer!” or “Keep
thinking!” , “You’re doing great!”, “You’re close!”
review, review, review, (Review
adds approximately 70% to retention)
use of voice: speed, tone, tempo,
pitch, volume, timbre
Experiential Learning
 Humans learn by doing, making
mistakes and correcting them. They learn through their
experiences. I don’t know what my students know. I have
absolutely no idea what subjects they like and how much
knowledge of those subjects they possess.
What did you Learn?
Therefore, not only is it painful
and boring, it is a waste of time for me to lecture to them.
They may
already know it! It is up to me to find out what they don’t
know and it is up to them to discover it. So rather than
lecture on a subject we give them
 an experience of the
subject. The experience is often in the form of a game,
activity or exercise. Rather than tell them what to learn
we put them into a game, look at their result at the end of
the game and based on their result, we ask them what they
learned.
As you can see by the pictures,
students are engaged in the games. Our games simulate real
world situations. They are getting an experience of the
subject right in the classroom. They are making mistakes at
high speed and correcting them
 even
faster right in the classroom. This is cheaper than making
them in real life outside the classroom!
They are successfully discovering
what they don’t know and need to learn. They are discovering
why they have been unable to achieve their intended result in
the past and they are learning what they need to do and how
they need to do it to get their intended result in the future.
The whole time they are
 doing
all that they are having fun!
Once you remove the ego, become
curious again and go discover what you don’t know via nature’s prescribed
trail and error process, learning can begin.
This is the environment at The
Business School for Real Estate Pros seminars.
Context AND Content
We teach our business and
investing seminars using these methodologies. By combining the
methodologies, strategies and techniques of Accelerated
Learning (designing the
ideal learning environment, or context) and Experiential
Learning (actually giving the student an experience of the
subject, or content), we are able to appeal to both left and
right sides of the brain as well as both the conscious and
sub-conscious mind. Students learn more information in less
time with greater retention, they have fun learning, their
passion for learning increases and they become life-long
learners. They know via their own process of discovery what
they know and what they still need to learn.
The value of that is that once
the seminar ends and they return to life, they have an action
plan, a series of steps to follow, things to do as they now
know what to do next. This action plan lasts long after the
excitement and exhilaration of the seminar dissipate.
To see more
photos of our courses, just click on the thumbnail
pictures below
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