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The Surprising Truth About When, Where, And Why It Happens
Random House
September 2014
On Sale: September 9, 2014
272 pages ISBN: 0812993888 EAN: 9780812993882 Kindle: B00IWTTNZE Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
In the tradition of The Power of Habit and
Thinking, Fast and Slow comes a practical, playful, and
endlessly fascinating guide to what we really know about
learning and memory today—and how we can apply it to our own
lives. From an early age, it is
drilled into our heads: Restlessness, distraction, and
ignorance are the enemies of success. We’re told that
learning is all self-discipline, that we must confine
ourselves to designated study areas, turn off the music, and
maintain a strict ritual if we want to ace that test,
memorize that presentation, or nail that piano recital.
But what if almost everything we were told about
learning is wrong? And what if there was a way to
achieve more with less effort? In How We
Learn, award-winning science reporter Benedict Carey
sifts through decades of education research and landmark
studies to uncover the truth about how our brains absorb and
retain information. What he discovers is that, from the
moment we are born, we are all learning quickly,
efficiently, and automatically; but in our zeal to
systematize the process we have ignored valuable, naturally
enjoyable learning tools like forgetting, sleeping, and
daydreaming. Is a dedicated desk in a quiet room really the
best way to study? Can altering your routine improve your
recall? Are there times when distraction is good? Is
repetition necessary? Carey’s search for answers to these
questions yields a wealth of strategies that make learning
more a part of our everyday lives—and less of a chore.
By road testing many of the counterintuitive
techniques described in this book, Carey shows how we can
flex the neural muscles that make deep learning possible.
Along the way he reveals why teachers should give final
exams on the first day of class, why it’s wise to interleave
subjects and concepts when learning any new skill, and when
it’s smarter to stay up late prepping for that presentation
than to rise early for one last cram session. And if this
requires some suspension of disbelief, that’s because the
research defies what we’ve been told, throughout our lives,
about how best to learn. The brain is not
like a muscle, at least not in any straightforward sense. It
is something else altogether, sensitive to mood, to timing,
to circadian rhythms, as well as to location and
environment. It doesn’t take orders well, to put it mildly.
If the brain is a learning machine, then it is an eccentric
one. In How We Learn, Benedict Carey shows us
how to exploit its quirks to our advantage.
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