THE PROBLEM WITH HOW WE LEARN
A NotClass Reflection
Learning is messy. That's not a bug—it's the mechanism.
We've been sold a clean story: follow the curriculum, get the credential, become competent. But competence doesn't work that way. Understanding comes from the friction between theory and practice, between what you read and what you build, between what you think you know and what actually happens when you try it.
Traditional education often separates knowing from doing. You study algorithms for a semester, then maybe write code. You learn physics formulas, then maybe touch a circuit. This separation creates a dangerous illusion: that you understand something because you can name it.
There's a difference between knowing the name of something and knowing the thing itself. You can memorize Maxwell's equations without understanding electromagnetism. You can ace a test on startups without being able to build one. The credential becomes a proxy for competence—and proxies can be gamed.
But here's what's often missed: pure 'learning by doing' without understanding is equally broken. Build the same thing ten times because you don't know why it broke. You can't debug what you don't understand. You can't innovate in a field you haven't bothered to learn.
The best builders I know read deeply. They understand theory. They can do the math. But their building is informed by understanding, and their understanding is tested by building. These aren't opposites—they're a feedback loop.
NotClass is an experiment in tightening that loop.
Not theory or practice. Theory through practice.
We think learning works best when you: Build something. Hit a wall. Go learn what you need. Build again.
You don't learn programming by only reading a book. But you also don't learn by randomly typing code. You learn by building, getting stuck, then reading the book with a specific question in mind.
You don't develop taste by making 100 ugly things and hoping one clicks. You develop taste by making things, studying what works, understanding why, then making more things with that understanding.
Reps matter. But so does reflection. Velocity without direction is just spinning.
What we actually believe:
Building reveals what you don't know. That's the point.
Theory without practice is speculation. Practice without theory is guessing.
The goal isn't to ship fast. It's to learn fast. Shipping is how you test your learning.
There's no shortcut to understanding. But there are faster feedback loops.
This isn't about credentials vs. no credentials.
It's about closing the gap between what you think you know and what you actually know.
The only way to close that gap is to build things where reality can push back.
We don't have all the answers.
We're not sure this works for everyone.
But we're building it anyway.
That's kind of the point.