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“Neil finish your homework
and put that video game away”, Neil’s mother yelled out . This was the
fifth time she had told her 10th grader to finish his assignment and she felt
she might as well have been talking to a wall.
Neil was a good boy, she told
herself, as she laid the table for dinner. He had seemed more distracted and
distant lately, but she put it down to “growing up” and her inability to spend
time with him. Being a single mom was not easy.
Neil shuffled in and sat down
to eat. “Did you finish your assignment”? his mom asked in that half
exasperated way she talked, when she was stressed.
“Workin on it “ he mumbled as
he dug into his soup. Truth is he told himself, “I’ve been working on it for
over 3 weeks and have not made any progress”.
He had not imagined high school
would be so academically challenging. He had always been a good student in
elementary school. Not brilliant, but definitely not dumb. He enjoyed his
teachers and everything had been easy.
In fact he had been looking
forward to high school, with its cool swag, lots of interesting girls and great
sport facilities.
That, he mused, had been the
start of the downslide.
He, in a fit of impulsiveness,
and mainly to impress that new girl in class, had signed up for the basket-ball
tryouts. In hind sight, he thought, that was the worst mistake ever. He was not
athletically inclined and given a choice would like to read a good book any day
over sweating and grunting at the court. But nerds were uncool. Girls always
digged the sweaty strutting athletes.
And so he had gone to the first
tryouts …and had failed miserably. He thought it would be easy, I mean how hard
could it be to bounce a ball doge a few bozos and dunk it through a hoop. But
it had been hard. A lot harder then he thought and the ball seemed to have a
life of its own. To make matters worse, he was sliding in his studies too.
He had tried, tried really hard
in fact, to study. But the textbooks were huge, the data was so confusing and
no matter how much he read or underlined, he could remember nothing.
He was seriously thinking of
quitting high school and joining work as an apprentice.
His dark thoughts were
interrupted by the doorbell and he looked up in surprise as he heard his
uncle’s booming voice in the hall.
Uncle Mac or big Mac as his
family liked to call him, was a riot. He was a Major General in the Indian
army, spoke 7 different languages, cooked the meanest butter chicken and played
the violin like a virtuoso. His mother always grumbled at family dinners saying
her brother had an unfair share of smarts in the family.
Neil loved hanging out
with Big mac and looked forward to games of chess or discussing the latest
bollywood movies with him. Right now though, his super achiever uncle was the
last person Neil felt like talking to.
He winced with a half smile as
Mac came in and gave him a bear hug.”Whassup champ” he boomed.
“Nothin” he mumbled. Mac looked
at his sister with an arched eyebrow. She shrugged and said “don’t ask” and
busied herself cleaning the table.
“Hmmmm, man troubles?” he asked
winking at Neil with a wicked glint in his eyes. “Maybe we need a little game
to cheer us up.”
Neil looked up in surprise to
see his uncle effortlessly spinning a basket ball on his pinkie.
“Wha…what”..was all he could
manage as Mac hustled him out of the door into the evening gloom.
“Uncle Mac” I suck at this he
said…and looked away.
“Yes you do and will continue
to do so…unless you fix it” Mac replied.
Surprised by the steel in his
uncle’s usually friendly voice, Neil just stood there.
In a kinder tone Mac said,
“have you ever wondered how a poor boy like me, with no access to fine schools
and tuition classes, managed to earn a rank as a major in the army?”. “How I do
all the things I do, and still manage to learn a new skill every month?”
Neil was dumbfounded and just
looked at his uncle.
“It’s a technique that was
gifted to me and I am going to share it with you…”
I will throw in a few technical
terms or nomenclature, but the most important thing is to understand and apply
a few basic things that can allow you to learn anything you want.
Focussed and Diffuse State :
Mac looked at Neil and asked”
Ok buddy, what’s the real issue that’s bugging you. Can you try and be
specific”. All of a sudden his uncle’s kind words hit a trigger and Neil was
embarrassed to feel the tears well up. “ I don’t know Uncle Mac, ever since I
have come to High school, it seems like I am a failure. No matter how hard I
try I don’t seem to get it. I find myself staying up all night, and its like
someone erased my mind in the morning. I blank out. And to top it all I can’t
even play this dumb game… I don’t know why I bother.”
Mac asked Neil to take a deep
breath and gave him a comforting hug. “Neil” he said, “If you want to learn
anything you will have to relax. Your brain works best when it alternates from
a focussed intense mode to a more relaxed diffused state.(2)
“All the work you do in the
focussed state is good, but it’s when you sleep or exercise or do a different
activity that’s relaxing, that your brain truly makes the neural connections
that help you remember things
Long and short term memory
“When you learn anything new
Niel, it takes a tremendous amount of energy” There is an area in your brain
that takes care of short term memory. This kind of memory is the one you
need for conscious tasks like reading a grocery list or dialling your cell
phone. Research shows that humans typically can only handle upto 4 tasks at the
same time using this memory (1). This memory is also very unreliable like a
poor quality chalk board. Stuff that you write on it gets erased pretty
quickly and is not very sharp or clear.
True learning happens when
knowledge is transferred from this short term memory to the area of the brain
that houses long term memory.
Think of long term memory as a
large warehouse where bits of information are stored. Repeatedly going to
the warehouse and retrieving the item makes one remember the path better and
that road is well marked inside the warehouse.
But in order for you to enter
the warehouse and find your path, your active or fore brain or conscious
memory needs to shut down and go into diffuse mode
This allows you to go into a
diffuse mode where you are not actively thinking of the problem but your hind
brain is making important connections and correlations in the background.
This is best achieved by sleep
of exercise. When we sleep toxins that have accumulated during the day are
actually cleared off. We also allow the subconscious brain to efficiently
organize our thoughts.
“Ok so whats that got to do
with basketball” Neil asked impatiently.
Mac smiled and said” great
question”. “let’s say we want to learn basket ball”.
“What are the key concepts we
need to master to play the game”..
“ Uh..dribbling, passing,
shooting, blocking ..I guess” Neil stammered.
‘Excellent” – “this is called
getting a broad concept” It’s an effort to get a 10,000 foot overview on
what you want to learn and how it will help you.
“Now let’s focus on
dribbling..the way to learn it is intently focus on the technique for 25 or so
minutes. Block out all distractions. Do not focus on the purpose which is to
dribble well, but instead on the process of dribbling. This is called
focusing on the process not the product. Feel the tangible leather of
the ball as it bounces up. Focus on the tapping rhythm you create as you bounce
the ball closer and closer to the opponent’s hoop. This will engage the
powerful visual centers in your brain and help you to learn beter.
“Wow” Neil exclaimed,
breathless as he dribbled the ball. “I have never felt so alive before.”
Soon he was dribbling well.
A week later Mac suddenly asked
Neil to shoot and watched as the ball completely missed the hoop.
“Have you been only practicing
dribbling?” he asked. “Wellll yeah” Nick replied defensively.
Mac grinned and said “here’s a
new lesson and concept…it’s called Deliberate Practice” In this
technique you deliberately skip ahead and mix tougher things you have not tried
before into your daily practice routine. This actually encourages the brain to
think innovatively and spurs creativity.
“How do I know when to stop”
Niel asked. Mac replied” you don’t”
This brings me to the third and
very important practice, called interleaving.
This basically means mixing up
different parts of the game at random in your 25 minute routine. Think of it
like intertwined twigs or leaves.
For instance one session could
be some dribbling, some practice throws, a few passes and some stretching to
change it up.
“Yeah uncle Mac ….I dunno…”
Neil sighed. I have so much to do in the day and schools really heating up too.
“I hear you Neil”, Mac said. “
This is why you need to write up a list of things you want to get done. You
also need to do your basketball practice for a short time each day repeated and
practiced over weeks rather than all at once.
This concept is called “spaced
repetition”. We learn better when we learn in small bits practiced over time.
In an online MOOC by Dr Barbara
Oakley she compares this to a brick wall set in strong mortar, vs a wall set In
loose mortar.
If you cram all you need to do
in a short period of time, you may be able to retain some of it short term, but
will lose most of it over time.
On the other hand, repeating
something after a interval of time actually forms better neuronic pathways and
allows you to draw on those memory patterns later on.
“Uncle Mac why do you keep
referring to 25 minutes” Neil asked with exasperation.
“Great question” mac replied
with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s all got to do with a tomato timer and
Zombies”.
“Huh” Neil replied.
“Niel do you find yourself
thinking you want to do a task, and then finding it unpleasant, boring or just
to routine and then putting it of for later?”
“Err..sometimes” Neil replied,
thinking it was more like all the time now a days.
“Don’t worry its
perfectly normal and is called procrastination”. “It is also one of the biggest
hurdles to learning.”
Uncle Mac sat down cross legged
on the warm tarmac and continued with a far away look in his eyes…
“ The human brain is
fascinating. When we get bored or don’t feel like doing a task, research shows
it actually causes a flare up of pain centers in the brain. This causes the
brain to divert or funnel our attention to a more pleasing or short term
rewarding task like…for instance playing video games.” “We do this as we are
attuned to the sense of immediate reward that the release of a specific
neurotransmitter called dopamine gives us” It’s like we have zombies in the
brain that don’t like to do new tasks and that like repetitive familiar tasks.
Neil listened with rapt
attention, as this was uncomfortably close to home.
“How do we break this you may
ask” Mac said. “To defeat an enemy..know the enemy…as we say in the Army” It
all boils down to habits we have and what we need to do to break those habits.
Habits can be drummed down into
4 parts. Cues can be further broken down into 4 parts as highlighted below
Cue- Time,
Place , how you feel, reaction to people ß need to use will power.
Routine- Allow
Zombies to take over, focus on the process not the product
Reward-
Reward frequently
Belief-
Believe in the system.
The best part is you don’t need
ton’s of will power to overcome habits. That is a waste of all the work neurons
need to do to exercise will power.
You only need to focus your
will power on the cues …like an accurate laser
Mac then described the Pomodoro
Technique
“ When learning something new,
put away all distractions. Focus intently for 25-30 minutes though some people
like to do an hour of work. This is called one pomodoro (after the tomato
timer)
Take a 5 minute break and
reward yourself.
After 3-4 pomodoros take a
longer break.”
“Wow Uncle Mac” This is helping
me a lot.
Mac smiled broadly and proudly.
He then ruffled Neil’s hair and said
“ and now Neil let me tell you
a very powerful technique that will allow you to connect all the dots.” “Lets
CHUNK” (3)
“Whats a chunk”?? Neil exclaimed.
“A chunk is a combination of a
set of complex motions the brain does automatically. For instance, when you
think you want breakfast, you don’t need effort to think you need to get up
from bed, go to the bathroom, brush, walk down the stairs pull up a chair..etc.
you do all this automatically with the simple thought of eating breakfast…
Chunking allows the short term
memory to free up its resources as a single command maps a well defined and
marked part into the deep warehouse to retrieve a set of actions.
True magic happens though, when
various chunks interact and form a series of complex chunks.
For instance Neil, you are
dribbling the ball, all of a sudden you execute a flawless pass, twist and then
shoot from the midline plum into the basket. This seems like poetry in motion
to the crowd and that pretty girl you are trying to impress, but it really is
one smooth well defined action in your brain.
“Focus, recall, practice
and repetition is what forms great chunks”
Niel started using the Pomodoro
technique . he focussed on his game for 30 minutes and took breaks which he
enjoyed. He started doing this in her studies as well and shut off his phone
and laptop in the period of activity.
He also created flash cards to
help him with interleaving.
He also started creating
a list of activities to be done the evening before. He empowered his zombies to
work.
Using memory palace techniques
and Acronyms he started remembering more.
Using recall and a brief
synopsis of key points on paragraph margins, he did not feel overwhelmed with
his studies and felt he was making progress.
Neil went on to higher studies
and finished with a degree in veterinary medicine. He also learnt how to play
the sarangi, took on bollywood dancing and learnt to make the best butter chicken
ever!
References:
(1) Behav Brain Sci. 2001 Feb;24(1):87-114;
discussion 114-85.
The magical number 4 in
short-term memory: a reconsideration of mental storage capacity.
(2) Immordino Yang : Rest is
not idleness
(3) Gobet F Lane: Chunking
mechanisms in human learning
by Vikrant Nimbkar
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