How We Learn (2 page)

• • •

In the past few decades, researchers have uncovered and road-tested a host of techniques that deepen learning—techniques that remain largely unknown outside scientific circles. These approaches aren’t get-smarter schemes that require computer software, gadgets, or medication. Nor are they based on any grand teaching philosophy, intended to lift the performance of entire classrooms (which no one has done, reliably). On the contrary, they are all small alterations, alterations in how we study or practice that we can apply individually, in our own lives, right now. The hardest part in doing so may be trusting that they work. That requires some suspension of disbelief because this research defies everything we’ve been told about how best to learn.

Consider the boilerplate advice to seek out a “quiet place” and make that a dedicated study area. This seems beyond obvious. It’s easier to concentrate without noise, and settling in at the same desk is a signal to the brain that says,
it’s time to work
. Yet we work more effectively, scientists have found, when we continually alter our study routines and abandon any “dedicated space” in favor of varied locations. Sticking to one learning ritual, in other words, slows us down.

Another common assumption is that the best way to master a particular skill—say, long division or playing a musical scale—is by devoting a block of time to repetitively practicing just that. Wrong again. Studies find that the brain picks up patterns more efficiently when presented with a mixed bag of related tasks than when it’s force-fed just one, no matter the age of the student or the subject area, whether Italian phrases or chemical bonds. I can’t help thinking again of my own strained, scattered existence in college, up all hours and down napping many afternoons, in blithe defiance of any kind of schedule. I’m not going to say that such free-form living always leads to mastery. But I will argue that integrating learning into the more random demands of life can improve recall in many circumstances—and that what looks like rank procrastination or distraction often is nothing of the kind.

The science of learning—to take just one implication—casts a different light on the growing alarm over distraction and our addiction to digital media. The fear is that plugged-in Emily and Josh, pulled in ten directions at once by texts, tweets, and Facebook messages, cannot concentrate well enough to consolidate studied information. Even worse, that all this scattered thinking will, over time, somehow weaken their brains’ ability to learn in the future. This is a red herring. Distractions can of course interfere with some kinds of learning, in particular when absorption or continued attention is needed—when reading a story, say, or listening to a lecture—and if gossiping on social media steals from study time. Yet we now know that a brief distraction can help when we’re stuck on a math problem or tied up in a creative knot and need to shake free.

In short, it is not that there is a right way and wrong way to learn. It’s that there are different strategies, each uniquely suited to capturing a particular type of information. A good hunter tailors the trap to the prey.

• • •

I won’t pretend, in these pages, that the science of learning has been worked out. It hasn’t, and the field is producing a swarm of new ideas that continue to complicate the picture. Dyslexia improves pattern recognition. Bilingual kids are better learners. Math anxiety is a brain disorder. Games are the best learning tool. Music training enhances science aptitude. But much of this is background noise, a rustling of the leaves. The aim in this book is to trace the trunk of the tree, the basic theory and findings that have stood up to scrutiny—and upon which learning can be improved.

The book unfolds in four sections, and from the bottom up, so to speak. It will begin with an introduction to what scientists know about how brain cells form and hold on to new information. Having a handle on this basic biology will provide a strong physical analogy for the so-called cognitive basis of learning. Cognitive science is a step up the ladder from biology and, most important for us, it clarifies how remembering, forgetting, and learning are related. These two chapters form the theoretical foundation for all that follows.

The second section will detail techniques that strengthen our hold on facts, whether we’re trying to remember Arabic characters, the elements of the periodic table, or the major players of the Velvet Revolution.
Retention
tools. The third section will focus on
comprehension
techniques, the kind we need to solve problems in math and science, as well as work our way through long, complex assignments, like term papers, work presentations, blueprints, and compositions. Appreciating how these approaches work, or at least how scientists think they do, will help us remember them and, more critically, decide whether they’re of any practical use—today, in our daily lives. And finally, section four will explore two ways to co-opt the subconscious mind to amplify the techniques we’ve just described. I think of this as the “learning without thinking” part of the story, and it’s a reassuring one to hear—and to tell.

The treasure at the end of this rainbow is not necessarily “brilliance.” Brilliance is a fine aspiration, and Godspeed to those who have the genes, drive, luck, and connections to win that lottery. But shooting for a goal so vague puts a person at risk of worshiping an ideal—and missing the target. No, this book is about something that is, at once, more humble and more grand: How to integrate the exotica of new subjects into daily life, in a way that makes them seep under our skin. How to make learning more a part of living and less an isolated chore. We will mine the latest science to unearth the tools necessary to pull this off, and to do so without feeling buried or oppressed. And we will show that some of what we’ve been taught to think of as our worst enemies—laziness, ignorance, distraction—can also work in our favor.

Part One

Basic Theory

Chapter One

The Story Maker

The Biology of Memory

The science of learning is, at bottom, a study of the mental muscle doing the work—the living brain—and how it manages the streaming sights, sounds, and
scents of daily life. That it does so at all is miracle enough. That it does so routinely is beyond extraordinary.

Think of the waves of information rushing in every waking moment, the hiss of the kettle, the flicker of movement in the hall, the twinge of back pain, the tang of smoke. Then add the demands of a typical layer of multitasking—say, preparing a meal while monitoring a preschooler, periodically returning work emails, and picking up the phone to catch up with a friend.

Insane.

The machine that can do all that at once is more than merely complex. It’s a cauldron of activity. It’s churning like a kicked beehive.

Consider several numbers. The average human brain contains 100 billion neurons, the cells that make
up its gray matter. Most of these cells link to thousands of other neurons, forming a universe of
intertwining networks that communicate in a ceaseless, silent electrical storm with a storage capacity, in digital terms, of a million gigabytes. That’s enough to hold three million TV shows. This biological machine hums along even when it’s “at rest,” staring blankly at the bird feeder or some island daydream, using about 90 percent of the energy it burns while doing a crossword puzzle. Parts of the brain are highly active during sleep, too.

The brain is a dark, mostly featureless planet, and it helps to have a map. A simple one will do, to start. The sketch below shows several areas that are central to learning: the entorhinal cortex, which acts as a kind of filter for incoming information; the hippocampus, where memory formation begins; and the neocortex, where conscious memories are stored once they’re flagged as keepers.

This diagram is more than a snapshot. It hints at how the brain operates. The brain has modules, specialized components that divide the labor. The entorhinal cortex does one thing, and the hippocampus does another. The right hemisphere performs different functions from the left one. There are dedicated sensory areas, too, processing
what you see, hear, and feel. Each does its own job and together they generate a coherent whole, a continually updating record of past, present, and possible future.

In a way, the brain’s modules are like specialists in a movie production crew. The cinematographer is framing shots, zooming in tight, dropping back, stockpiling footage. The sound engineer is recording, fiddling with volume, filtering background noise. There are editors and writers, a graphics person, a prop stylist, a composer working to supply tone, feeling—the emotional content—as well as someone keeping the books, tracking invoices, the facts and figures. And there’s a director, deciding which pieces go where, braiding all these elements together to tell a story that holds up. Not just any story, of course, but the one that best explains the “material” pouring through the senses. The brain interprets scenes in the instants after they happen, inserting judgments, meaning, and context on the fly. It also reconstructs them later on
—what exactly did the boss mean by that comment?
—scrutinizing the original footage to see how and where it fits into the larger movie.

It’s a story of a life—our own private documentary—and the film “crew” serves as an animating metaphor for what’s happening behind the scenes. How a memory forms. How it’s retrieved. Why it seems to fade, change, or grow more lucid over time. And how we might manipulate each step, to make the details richer, more vivid, clearer.

Remember, the director of this documentary is not some film school graduate, or a Hollywood prince with an entourage. It’s you.

• • •

Before wading into brain biology, I want to say a word about metaphors. They are imprecise, practically by definition. They obscure as much as they reveal. And they’re often self-serving,
*
crafted to serve
some pet purpose—in the way that the “chemical imbalance” theory of depression supports the use of antidepressant medication. (No one knows what causes depression or why the drugs have the effects they do.)

Fair enough, all around. Our film crew metaphor is a loose one, to be sure—but then so is scientists’ understanding of the biology of memory, to put it mildly. The best we can do is dramatize what matters most to learning, and the film crew does that just fine.

To see how, let’s track down a specific memory in our own brain.

Let’s make it an interesting one, too, not the capital of Ohio or a friend’s phone number or the name of the actor who played Frodo. No, let’s make it the first day of high school. Those tentative steps into the main hallway, the leering presence of the older kids, the gunmetal thump of slamming lockers. Everyone over age fourteen remembers some detail from that day, and usually an entire video clip.

That memory exists in the brain as a network of linked cells. Those cells activate—or “fire”—together, like a net of lights in a department store Christmas display. When the blue lights blink on, the image of a sleigh appears; when the reds come on, it’s a snowflake. In much the same way, our neural networks produce patterns that the brain reads as images, thoughts, and feelings.