hello you've at this point heard lots of great stories and you've undoubtedly learned a lot of good things but I want to talk to you about unlearning and I'll cover the what why and how that is what is unlearning why is it important and how do we unlearn but I think that we need to understand the where first and the where is where have we been but the time that you turn 18 you will have consumed thirty thousand hours of media five hundred thousand unique advertisements fifteen thousand hours of formal education maybe another two to three thousand hours of religious service you've listened to thousands and thousands of hours of your friends family discuss a variety of opinions ideas and beliefs and at some point in this journey you've likely had an encounter with someone who shared a similar experiences you but experienced completely different outcomes and thus have completely different beliefs and this can be something as simple as seeing the same movie attending the same school or working in the same company it's very likely the case that the two of you will have had different experiences with that same experience and you will have developed different beliefs and so if I ask you about your beliefs and experience in that school or with that company I'll get two completely different answers and I may not know who or what to believe so how do we go about learning and knowing I think that we tend to gravitate toward that which is the most convenient to us and most in line with what it is that we already believe rather than trying to understand diverge perspectives and we're bringing it with us all of our own beliefs and experiences and so we have just this giant clutter and chaos in our brains and I liken it to a storage unit and if you think about a storage unit that is just completely packed --fill I'm sure you've seen one the thing that you want and need is somewhere in the back of it how do you typically go get that thing my guess is you apply google logic that is you grab the first thing that you can find or instead you make do with something else and decide you didn't really need it to begin with this is how we do learning we grab what's most convenient we memorize it we regurgitate it and then we toss it somewhere into this giant storage pile and we won't revisit it until we need to make another move and here's the thing you're going to move a lot the annual survey attached to the US census reports that Americans will move eleven point four times in their life so you should probably tell your friends and family to start writing down your address and pencil and you take with this the Bureau of Labor data which tells us that you're gonna have ten different jobs in two completely different careers Millennials work for a company for 4.4 years so by the time that you're my age you will have already had seven different jobs so you better get really comfortable with packing and unpacking whether it's your home your office a storage unit or your brain and believe me even now you have plenty of unpacking to do my goal is a professor of sociology is to help students learn how to unpack that clutter specifically I want them to know I want them to learn all the things that they think they know and to unlearn all the things that they think that they know we must unlearn everything that we have consumed up to this point I used to teach this class called ways of knowing and I had a former student in the class try to explain it to his grandmother and he said I didn't really know what this class is about but my professor is a sociologist and she stopped him and said sociology and philosophy are the works of the devil because they teach you to think differently and they teach you to question and so she told him not to spend much time or effort learning what was being taught in those classes and this is a problem that we often encounter in education in the workplace and society at large we gravitate towards ideas that reify our current beliefs but the problem is that doesn't foster growth or creativity I told that student that if his foundation was rocked by a question perhaps the problem isn't in the question perhaps the problem is in his foundation unlearning helps us tear down those walls to get to our foundation and for many of us is the first time that we will start to see where our thoughts and ideas come from my job is not to tell students what to think is to teach them how to think I want them to learn how to unlearn how to learn and I want them to learn that unlearning is part of this process it's not as simple as just throwing stuff into a storage unit learning is dynamic we need to learn and unlearn you are the product of several structures and these structures shape your experiences and this can be family education government media your socio-economic position in society all of these will shape the experiences that you have the knowledge that you think you know what you bring to the table in conversations but here's the thing it does the same thing for other people but does it in a completely different way so how do we unlearn I see six steps in this process of unlearning and the first step is to take inventory this is where have we been what we've accumulated along the way I encourage you to put it all out on a table examine it see if it still fits do you believe it or not is this something that defines you does it fit you we think about the clothing that we have and you hold onto old clothes and it fits you it's just part of who you are we similarly hold on to old ideas because they fit who we are but you also go through your closets at some point in time and if you haven't done it yet you will some time in the future and you'll say what was I thinking like that was my favorite shirt and I wore it all the time and you have lots of pictures in it and every time you see that picture you're like we similarly have to go through our brains and our ideas and take inventory of those thoughts this is an ongoing process in order to do that you need to ask questions despite what your grandmother says to you I encourage you to ask questions ask important questions difficult questions the types of questions that we tend to avoid at family gatherings or in workplace conversations do so with open ears and an open mind and open hearts and just as you ask these difficult questions of others you need to look inward and ask those same questions of yourself David Brooks a writer for the New York Times wrote a article called the moral bucket list and in the moral bucket list he talks about resume virtues and eulogy virtues and resume virtues are all those lines that we add to our resumes the titles we receive the promotion's certificates and these really equate to a great thesis statement in our book of life but if all you have are resume virtues then all you have is a great thesis statement you don't have a great book and you won't have a complete life every good book has colorful characters that are descriptively detailed that draw you in and make you want to know more and keep on reading these are the eulogy virtues that Brooks discusses whether we're kind a good person whether we were loved or capable of loving Brooks took inventory asked questions and saw that resume virtues no longer fit his life and he wanted to understand those people who were seeking out eulogy virtues and the next step is to seek understanding try to understand the logic that runs counter to yours listen I want you to approach these difficult questions with open ears rather than trying to prove yourself right listen with the potential that you might prove yourself wrong but it's not about being right or wrong too often we get focused on that of trying to fight to be right sorry Beastie Boys if you focus on understanding you're not going to go wrong and if you try to treat if you try to seek understanding to difficult questions your foundation won't be rocked but it doesn't stop with just tearing down walls we also have to rebuild and so in the same way that you have structures they'll need updating at some point in your 11.4 homes you're going to have to replace a roof you're going to repaint a room you might turn a office into a nursery or you may simply outgrow that home once you start unlearning you will consistently need to build and update and rebuild by asking questions and seeking understanding to difficult answers the art of unlearning is a shift in perspective and this is something that you can apply to your education to work and to life in general when you truly make this shift you shift to living an authentic life and I'd say one with purpose and this is why it's important the active and learning enables you to live a life authentically you get to look in the mirror each and every day and know this is who you are that's truly transformative to be clear your education is yours you need to own it you also need to be flexible with it and adaptable there have been plenty of times in our life where our knowledge on a topic has changed or evolved you think about how many of you carry roadie rotary phones with you none of us right we all have our iPhones we no longer hop on a horse and buggy to travel across country we hop on a plane the Supreme Court frequently revisits the Constitution as we face new challenges and changes in our world Common Core tells us there's a better way to do mathematics the point is you can't be statin stagnant we need to be flexible and at that point the knowledge is yours at this point the knowledge is yours it's perfectly reasonable for you to come back to your original idea unlearning doesn't require that you change your perspective unlearning requires that you engage in the reflexivity of the process the great thing is is that this becomes easier over time once you start doing this you can put it in all facets of your life and checking the information reading an article before you click share on that meme will become second nature and the last bit is to share you're the product of the labor of all of those who came before you your education comes with both privilege and responsibility it's your privilege to learn it is your responsibility to share so share this information that you're receiving the stuff that you've lured here today share it share it with your grandmother share it with your family your roommates your coworkers we live in a world that privileges creativity creativity doesn't happen in a vacuum it happens through dialogue and discourse it happens when we learn and unlearn it happens when we refuse to participate in good choosing instead to participate in great and just as I will not apologize to the grandmothers of my students for teaching them to question you should not apologize for questioning and seeking understanding to difficult answers and I will end by sharing a quote by the late Alvin Toffler from his 1990 book powershift where he states the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn unlearn and relearn thank you [Applause]