Education 2: no limits to learning

"The more you understand, the more you can learn."

While I was recently a teacher, the mantra at the school was don't teach or test for facts, teach skills and understanding.

I'm not certain how to separate the two.

The summer of 1974, between high school and college, I was lucky enough to be tutored by a man on how to improve my study habits and techniques. It opened new worlds to me.

Lesson #1: The human mind thinks 10 times as fast as most people speak or most people read. (I suspect this is part of what allows trained individuals to speed read.)

Lesson #2: The 9/10th of the brain not involved in listening or reading doesn't like to sit quietly and wait for something interesting to come along. It entertains itself. This is called daydreaming.

Lesson #3: The 1/10th of the brain involved in listening or reading gets sidetracked by the daydream and leaves maybe 1/100th of the brain left to listen or read. That's too little for any learning to happen. This is how you can get to the end of a reading assignment and say to yourself, "I'm glad that's done. I wonder what I read."

Lesson #4: Involve the entire brain in the listening and reading. This is not done by shear force of will. Its done by moving past passive listening or passive reading and becoming an active listener or active reader. That means that you are doing much more than just listening. You are actively thinking about what is being said. You are thinking about how what you are learning fits with what you knew in the past. You are anticipating what might come next.

Specifically for science, you aren't just trying to memorize a science fact, (in magnets, opposites attract) you are filling it out by thinking about 1) how it happens 2) why it happens, 3) why it matters, and 4) examples.

A simple fact is like a bit of dandelion fluff, and is easily blown away in the wind. Each related thing you connect to it helps it become more substantial. When you can interconnect the filled out facts, you have built a substantial structure upon which you can build true understanding.

"The more you understand, the more you can learn."