Unlearning is an important step in learning

Solomon, an operator of successful restaurants for nearly 30 years, has recently stated that the most
critical step of adult education is not to learn but to unlearn. He contends that new behaviours will never
be used until the old ones are unlearned. Many academic scholars agree with him. As a simple
example, let us say you are a restaurant manager and you want your wait staff to provide customers
with a stand-up list of appetizers. You bring in the staff, tell them what you want them to do, and
present a video covering the correct way to use stand-up menus. No doubt, you have provided training.
Why, then, are the staff not using the stand-up appetizer menus a week later? The answer is simple.
The training did not cover what needed to be unlearned— the habit of initially interacting with
customers by asking whether they are ready to order. The workers need to replace the ingrained
behaviour with the new behaviour of providing the stand-up menu. Changing a typical way of doing
something is difficult. Unlearning and replacing with a new behavior works best if there is a motivating
context. For example, the shift to providing stand-up menus might occur most quickly if the wait staff is
made aware of the slim profits in selling entrees versus appetizers. Now the staff is more likely to get on
board with this simple change.
Questions
1. Do you think unlearning is an important step in learning? Why or why not? (10%)
2. How can unlearning be accomplished? If you were responsible for training people in a new way of
doing things, how would you go about the ―unlearning‖ phase? (10%)
3. Unlearning implies that trainees are not blank slates. However, most training programs do not take
this into account. Describe a training program in which you could add the step of unlearning. (5%)