Rethinking How We Learn Text Is killing learning

In my work on Conversational Leadership, I keep coming back to a simple idea: real learning happens through interaction, not isolation. That’s why Rod J. Naquin’s article Text is not Dialogue resonated with me. He points out how education has become overly dependent on text—worksheets, textbooks, written assessments—while neglecting the deeper ways humans naturally learn: through imitation, embodied practice, and dialogue.

We didn’t evolve to learn primarily by reading and writing. We evolved to learn by observing others, participating in communities, and engaging in open-ended conversation. Naquin draws on research by Merlin Donald and Dmitri Nikulin to show that text-based education often bypasses these fundamental learning processes.

In Conversational Leadership, conversation is not just a tool but a way of thinking and learning together—an ongoing, unfinalized exchange that builds understanding over time. Classrooms and organizations that rely too heavily on text risk losing this living dimension of learning.

Naquin’s article reminds us that if we want to nurture real learning—whether in schools, workplaces, or communities—we need to balance text with dialogue, demonstration, collaboration, and shared inquiry. It’s not about abandoning text but about restoring a fuller ecology of human learning.

Read the full article.

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