Pair programming is the best way to learn so that's unfortunate.
Source: Childhood education degree + years of researching the topic.
Pair programming may have originated in the 70's (depending on source), but there are hundreds of years of research on learning, please don't make the mistake of taking something as gospel.
(and in case you would like to point to apprenticeships in the past, they look nothing like pair programming, as it was mostly a subordinate relationship between master and student)