Mia Franz, English Teacher, Tampa Preparatory School
In his new work, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens, Benedict Carey, a New York Times science reporter, makes a strong case for reconsidering all of the things we thought we knew about how to study, learn, and retain information most effectively and productively. Striving to make complex scientific and psychological ideas accessible to the casual reader, Carey succeeds in laying out his case and backing it up with specific research and studies. The good news: we don’t all have to sit in perfectly quiet places, studying as hard as we can for as long as we can, repeating words or formulas over and over until we feel they’ve been drilled into our heads. In fact, this traditional model contradicts most of what Carey projects as beneficial to learning: the importance of forgetting, the significant impact of taking breaks and varying one’s environment, the invaluable power of sleep, and the successful method of studying small chunks of material in carefully scheduled intervals.
Carey begins by giving some very basic and simplified information about the brain and how it stores memory. He uses the analogy of “making a film,” suggesting that different parts of the brain are responsible for different jobs on “set.” Analogies like this throughout the book help to make the complex science behind all these theories feel easy to grasp. He explains early foundations for psychological studies and understandings about the brain—even those that often turned out to be false. For example, he notes that one of the reasons that sleep research is just taking off is because psychologists spent so much time chasing Freud’s theories of dreams and the unconscious, neglecting to ask about the effects of sleep on memory or productivity. He suggests that by combining the ideas that sleep benefits both time-management and more subtle aspects of memory and retention, we can view it as a key element to true learning, rather than an enemy to the all-night cram session.
At a time when educators are talking more and more about problem solving and the importance of failure, this book also speaks to that perspective. Carey differentiates between the “incubation” and “percolation” of ideas—one is more short-term, one is more long-term—but both suggest that true creativity and problem solving come when one physically or mentally “walks away” from a problem, temporarily giving up. Now is also a time, however, when educators frequently fall back on the catchword “grit” to define characteristics of their ideal student, but it’s unclear where this inspiration or drive figures into Carey’s world. I suspect he would suggest that we tend to instinctively follow paths to learning for topics and skills about which we are already passionate. His book is, instead, more of a manual for successful studying that can lead to long-term learning, and “studying” is one of the keywords—most of the psychology experiments involve memorization of long lists of words, images, or nonsense syllables.
Carey also seems to be writing directly for adults who want to acquire new skills and reconsider their former thoughts about how to study these subjects. There is little advice directed at adolescents or the teachers of adolescents, though there are certainly some practical applications for those looking to help students (and parents) either redefine what learning looks like or for those seeking new ways to help their students retain material, especially material on which they will be tested in a traditional form. I myself plan to experiment with the ideas of “pre-testing” before I introduce material when we start a new unit on Romantic poetry.
In the end, I come away from Carey’s book feeling like I’ve gotten some valuable advice to not neglect my own instincts. It’s okay, he says, to take breaks when you’re studying, to decide to “sleep on it” sometimes, to vary and mix the concepts you review rather than drilling a single task over and over. He talks little about assessment, so my question is: what are the best forms of assessment to determine true learning? Maybe that will be in the sequel!
Mia Franz is the gcLibrary Editor for the gcLi Quarterly, and teaches Upper School English at Tampa Preparatory School in Florida. She is an experienced educator and accomplished writer who will be contributing to each edition of our new quarterly newsletter. Mia is the wife of gcLi Faculty member Robert Franz, and has a Master’s in Fine Arts from Indiana University.