> better word for learning through trial and evaluation than calibration

How about training. Implies practicality. You can be trained or do your own training. Avoids the bad academic/factual associations of "teaching".

Calibration makes some sense to people that work with tools, but the word is a poor metaphor for honing our intuitions.

It is quite amazing how little of what we do or know is actually explicitly taught. I learnt the most in the sandpit.