Flatter learning curves

[geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]

 Tracy Boyington  took issue with the phrase "flattening the
 learning curve" because <<if you picture a graph with time
 on one axis and amount learned on the other, you'd see that
 a steep learning curve means you learn a lot in a short
 amount of time.>>

 Not necessarily... the graph usually has "total knowledge"
 rather than "amount learned" on the axis. In that context,
 the steepness of the curve depends on the delta-y (vertical
 difference between the amount of knowledge at the start and
 end of the learning process. So if you hold time constant,
 and decrease delta-y, the curve becomes flatter, but
 learning time remains the same. Here, the important point
 is to note that the amount of knowledge doesn't change
 greatly, so if you accept that it's easier to learn a
 little bit than it is to learn a lot, the metaphor makes
 sense: all that changes is the amount of effort involved,
 and that's the real intention of the metaphor.

 That doesn't mean it's a particularly good metaphor; in
 fact, as Tracy points out and my explanation demonstrates,
 it's something of a mixed metaphor because it confuses the
 amount of knowledge, learning time, and learning
 difficulty. I suspect that the original metaphor was
 something like pushing a load up a hill: the steeper the
 hill (the curve), the more effort you expend. That just
 further confuses the issue.

 <<it sounds to me like he's saying flattening the curve
 means people learn faster. And everybody says this...
 everybody says a program that's hard to learn has a "steep
 learning curve.">>

 The problem with idiom is that it's created and spread by
 the masses and not by some qualified linguistic authority.
 Thus, as Tracy notes, the phrase has acquired two somewhat
 contradictory meanings: faster learning, and easier
 learning. Ideally, both are true, but that's not
 necessarily the case (e.g., something like MSWord is easy
 to learn but takes a long time to master; something like
 _basic_ HTML can be hard to learn, but relatively easy to
 master once you're past that initial learning). In any
 event, "learning curves" are pretty much a useless cliche:
 why not simply (and far more clearly) say "decreases
 learning time" or "makes learning easier" or both?

 --Geoff Hart     @8^{)}     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
 Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.

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