There is a stubborn, tactile intelligence that lives in the bodies of people born in the 1960s. It is not sentimental to say this. It is simply observable. The people I grew up watching fix cars without manuals, patch roofs by feel, or stitch a suit that fit as if the fabric had whispered instructions. Their knowledge was often acquired before any formal explanation arrived. They learned in sequence of touch then abstraction. That sequence left them with a kind of confidence that textbooks rarely provide.
Hands first not because schools failed but because life demanded it
In the decades when many of the 60s generation entered adulthood there was less of a safety net and more of a problem that needed solving immediately. Workplaces expected you to be useful yesterday. In that environment an apprentice would pick up a tool and learn the language of resistance and tension, the secret grammar of a lathe or a loom. The idea that knowledge must come prepackaged in theory before it can be trusted is a modern luxury. That luxury breeds hesitation. The 60s generation often could not afford hesitation.
What I noticed in garages, kitchens and backyards
Working with people who lived through those years taught me to respect the way experience shapes intuition. You will hear a radiator before you see it if you have spent decades around boilers. You will know the correct angle to file metal because your fingers recall thousands of micro corrections. Some of this is muscle memory, yes. Much of it is pattern recognition stitched into the nervous system by repeated correction in real conditions. Theory arrives later as an explanation not as a precondition.
The pedagogy of immediacy
This is not a nostalgic claim that practical learning is superior for everyone in all circumstances. It is an observation that immediacy creates a different kind of pedagogy. When a system rewards fast functional learning the mind reorganizes itself. You learn to value small messy experiments. You accept failure as public data rather than private shame. That acceptance matters. It produces a loop of rapid improvement that looks graceless but is highly efficient.
David A Kolb who built a lifetime career thinking about experiential learning put the idea succinctly. He writes that experiential learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. He says this in the context of formal study and workplace practice and his words give an academic name to something older than the academy. The claim matters because it connects that lived competence to a recoverable theory rather than leaving it as an anecdote.
“Experiential learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.” David A Kolb, Emeritus Professor of Organizational Behavior, Weatherhead School of Management Case Western Reserve University.
Why theory often follows and not precedes
There are practical reasons. In many trades you get feedback that is immediate and high fidelity. If a weld is poor you see the crack and you feel the stress. That corrective signal is rich. Formal theories sometimes abstract away from the noise you need to learn from. Theory after the fact helps codify, communicate, and refine, but the initial leap is often physical. Theory serves as a map drawn after explorers have already crossed the territory.
Generational wiring that was cultural and structural
There were cultural nudges too. Families passed down habits. Local communities maintained rituals of repair and manufacture. The education systems of the time did not universally privilege credentials the way they do now. Employment often required demonstrable competence more than diplomas. Where institutions pushed vocational pathways and workplaces valued on the job learning the incentive structure favoured doing.
That does not mean the 60s generation were uniformly practical. Many were theoreticians as well. The point is that the common path through which knowledge was accumulated frequently started with an action and later took shape as an explanation. This sequence matters for how we think about training today. We have come to fetishise the promise of early conceptualisation. But early conceptualisation can be a blocker when context is messy and the correct response is to try several small experiments quickly.
Personal observation not often written about
I have seen younger engineers taught to overplan and undertry. The result is a generation who can model perfectly and flinch at a mess of rivets and rust. The older cohort would roll up their sleeves and begin. Their confidence did not come from formal proof but from iterative correction. That confidence also made them more generous with risk. They were willing to let a project be imperfect in public while it matured. This publicness of craft produced a different social environment around learning. You learned in view of others and that made learning social as much as technical.
Implications for modern education and work
If you are designing a curriculum or a workplace training programme there is an obvious takeaway. Integrate doing early. Reserve some theory for after tasks have been attempted. This is not new. But it demands a structural acceptance that students might arrive at the wrong answer as part of an intentional sequence. The problem today is not lack of knowledge about experiential pedagogy. The problem is fear of visible failure. We need institutions that tolerate messy starts and reward progress over perfection.
There are policy angles as well. Apprenticeship programmes that emphasise immediate contribution not only speed skills acquisition but create social capital between learners and mentors. That social capital is partly what the 60s generation carried forward. It allowed skills to be transmitted informally in pubs and on shop floors. We dismiss those channels as quaint but they were powerful learning networks. Reassembling equivalents in contemporary contexts will take patience and a willingness to accept non tidy evaluation metrics.
A non neutral opinion
I think our current over emphasis on early abstraction is harming a kind of practical intelligence that matters when systems break. In crisis there is no time for perfect models. You need hands that know what to do. So yes, I favour reintroducing more hands first learning into our schools and workplaces. That statement will annoy some educators who have built careers on early theoretical grounding. Good. Debate is how curriculum changes. I will admit I do not have a single blueprint. But I am certain the sequence in which learning is presented matters more than we admit.
What we lose when we un-learn this skill
There are consequences when a society loses widespread hands first competence. Maintenance becomes outsourced to specialists in distant firms. Everyday problem solving erodes. People become more fragile in relation to simple disruptions. Dependency increases and the capacity to improvise diminishes. That is not simply inconvenience. It reshapes civic resilience in ways that are both slow and cumulative.
We can still honor formal education while reviving the priority of doing. The two are not enemies. The trick is rhythm. Alternate action with reflection. Let learners do and then offer them theory that explains the pattern they just felt. That ordering respects both the body and the mind.
Closing thoughts
The 60s generation did not invent hands on learning. But the social and economic conditions they lived through made the sequence from doing to thinking common and visible. There is a stubborn wisdom there worth recovering. Not as nostalgia but as a corrective to certain modern blind spots. Practical competence can be taught without rejecting intellectual curiosity. Begin with a small, imperfect attempt and then invite the theory in to make sense of the mess.
| Key Idea | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Sequence matters | Begin with doing then add theory to explain and refine. |
| Immediate feedback accelerates learning | Physical tasks provide rich corrective signals not available in abstract exercises. |
| Social transmission is powerful | Informal apprenticeships and community practice create resilience and shared standards. |
| Tolerate visible failure | Messy starts are part of efficient skill acquisition and should be institutionally supported. |
FAQ
Why did people born in the 1960s often learn by doing before understanding the theory?
Many reasons converged. Economic pressures required immediate competence. Vocational pathways were common. Social spaces handed down tacit knowledge through observation and imitation. These contexts incentivised quick functional learning. Theory often engaged later as a formalisation of what experience had already demonstrated. That sequence produced a confidence that looks different from theory first learning.
Is learning by doing always better than learning theory first?
No. There are domains where early conceptual grounding prevents dangerous mistakes. Aviation and medicine require certain theoretical foundations before hands on practice. The important point is to match sequence to context. Many everyday skills and trades benefit from doing first then reflecting. Education design should be situational rather than absolutist.
Can modern institutions recreate the learning style of the 60s generation?
Yes but it requires structural changes. Employers and schools must allow visible failure. Apprenticeships and workplace placements need to be valued and expanded. Assessment systems must reward incremental learning and not only polished end products. Cultural change takes time but practical pilot programmes can scale up if they show success.
How does this perspective affect younger people entering the workforce today?
It suggests they may benefit from more hands on opportunities early in their training. Internships that involve real responsibility, maker spaces in schools, and community projects can provide the immediate feedback loops that accelerate skill development. The aim is not to reject theory but to weave it in after learners have already touched the problem.
Where can I read authoritative work on experiential learning?
One primary reference is the work of David A Kolb on experiential learning. His model and writing connect lived practice to structured theory and help educators design cycles where experience and reflection cooperate. That literature shows how to transform doing into durable knowledge with reflective tools and structured feedback.
