How to learn

„Pay attention“. I think we all have heard this shout by the teacher in a classroom.

And while it is his good right to try to get people focus on his lecture, he is actually competing with the biological systems of his audience.
Because it is not that the audience is not paying attention, but it is a neuroscientific fact, that attention goes to the most interesting subject.
An accident outside, a dropping of an item or an unusual outfit has often more potential to catch our brain’s attention.
And it is not an act of negligence of the students. Our spirit wanders to the most interesting situation around us. And if there is none, even past memories or imagination might serve better than current boring lectures.
Probably this was a helpful survival tool for the past ages, where it was just more important to be always aware of any potential danger coming from other directions. For example a mammoth.

Focus goes to the most interesting current incidents. Period.

And that can only be changed by willpower to a certain degree.
Therefore, anyone who wants to teach has to take responsibility for being entertaining, too.

We once had a nice art of street jugglers and magicians. They know how to capture audience’s attention. And teachers need to do that, too. Then learning can become fun and magic.
Of course it is common sense already that involving your audience is a first step. However, even that has to be done diligently. Involving people in boring procedures will not do any good either. So how can the learning material be turned into something interesting and be delivered playfully.

 

As a learner, we should not accept to be a victim of boring teachers. If the teacher cannot make the material entertaining enough, there are still measures how we can make it entertaining ourselves.
Using some mnemonic techniques or for example mind mapping makes sure your right brain is involved. And the right brain is the natural enemy of boredom as it carries us out of time dimensions. Feeling here and now. Learning at its best.
So each learner should enter learning environments with some learning tool arrows in his quiver, so he can make sure the time spent is used effectively. Independent from the teacher’s skills to make the lecture entertaining.

But with learning tools, which he can control himself.
This blog will give you just that.

What you need to know about how to learn effectively.

Futureandminds