I have begun to unpack for you three vitally important keys to strong study and learning skills. These key areas, which will be unfolded in this series, can be broken down and elaborated on, as I began to do in lesson one and continue here. But my main aim is to put these three keys clearly into your mind and to get you started in using them.
Pay Attention
The first key involves your ability to pay attention. If you can be attentive to what is going on around you, what people are saying, and even to what is distracting you, you will gain control of yourself and your mental faculties. With that attentive approach you will be able to focus, absorb, investigate and explore the things you are studying or need to learn.
However, most people operate with their brain out of gear. Being inattentive becomes a habit and a lifestyle. So, this may not be as easy a lesson to learn as you think.
Test Your Attention
I asked my son to close his eyes and tell me what he had seen in our yard when he looked out the window that morning. I had seen him gazing into the yard, particularly watching our cat. My son described the yard, but from memory of the yard, not from having paid attention. Even though he was looking into the yard he was not seeing it.
He described some things which were not visible through the window he had been looking from, but he knew they were in the yard. However, he failed to mention a piece of furniture which is moved around our yard and which happened to be clearly in view where he had been looking. When I told him to check what he had missed he was surprised that he could not recall it when it had been very clearly visible.
That showed that he was not paying attention, but just mindlessly scanning the yard. A spy or policeman would be trained to be very attentive to certain things, even if just scanning a yard.
This also shows what I said earlier, that we don’t really use our brains, we have then in neutral much of the time.
So, test yourself. Think of some room in your house or office where you have recently been. Then see how well you can describe its current state. Then go and see how well you did. You may be surprised.
Recognition
I call this Key “Recognition”. It is the process of recognising what is there, as part of your normal routine, as you turn your brain back on, remove the clutter and get on with attending to the matters of life and learning which are around you.
Pay attention. If you don’t understand something then you don’t ‘recognise’ it, so ask questions. If you are looking mindlessly, or half-listening, then you won’t fully ‘recognise’ what is being said. If you have distracting thoughts and emotions then they will abduct your attention, so you cannot ‘recognise’ the face of what you are supposed to attend to.
Be There
Other expressions I have heard from people who promote this kind of attentiveness includes the saying, “Where ever you are, Be There!”
Another person called this process, “Practicing Presence”. It is the process of being attentive to your self, your surroundings, the things people are saying, the intent behind their words, the thoughts, feelings and reactions within you, the facts and information you need to note, and so on.
Explore the Turf
Since the key is Recognition, and foreign places, names, language and experiences are harder to pin down, you are wise to explore the turf, learn the lingo, become familiar with the surroundings, get used to the funny sounds, tastes and sensations, until you can ‘recognise’ what is going on and better lock in your attention to the key issues at hand.
Multi-Sensory Engagement
Educators know that we have multiple sensory doorways. Employing more of them enhances the learning process. So make a habit of Recognising things in multiple ways.
For example, when you come across a new name, of a person or place, say the name out loud, write it in upper case, then in lower case, listen to someone else say it, repeat it with a fake foreign accent, and so on. These diverse experiences with the piece of knowledge open a variety of sensory gateways into your consciousness, subconscious and memory.
Cranial Engagement
Along with the multi-sensory engagement, I like to use Cranial Engagement for key information. This involves you applying your mental capacities to the piece of information.
One way to do this is to create a slogan about the topic. Alternatively you could create a mnemonic code or acronym. I like to create my own definitions, instead of using the ones given me by others. I also like to listen to someone and then summarise what they have told me in one or two succinct sentences which package what they have told me better than they could have packaged it themself.
The process of applying mental energy to the topic deepens the brain’s ‘recognition’ of the information at hand.
Apply the Brain
Let me play with some facts with you to show how cranial engagement might work. I have summarised here some excerpts from my many Church History posts. The story of Robert Moffat is most stirring.
One of the famous missionaries to Africa was Dr David Livingstone, who, as a young English medical student, was prompted to give up his potential wealth and fame in London, by hearing missionary pioneer Robert Moffat make a famous statement, “I have seen in the morning sun the smoke of 1000 villages where no missionary has ever been”. Livingstone went to South Africa, married Moffat’s daughter, Mary, and became so devoted to reaching Africa that he became lost to the outside world. American reporter Henry Morton Stanley found Livingstone and followed in his footsteps. It is to Stanley that we owe the well-known line, “Dr Livingstone, I presume”.
We could summarise that by saying: “Moffat moved Morton with a Living Stone”. Or: RM drew DL to SA to marry M and meet HMS. Or: Moffat’s smoke drew England’s doctor who drew America’s reporter.
Recognition is the Foundation
This kind of mental activity accentuates ‘Recognition’ of the material at hand. It doesn’t guarantee we will remember or learn the content. That is for the next two keys. But it provides the solid foundation upon which sound learning can be established.
If you cannot pay attention then you are lost from the start. If you are skilled at being attentive your ability to study and learn is already on track for success.
To see the first post in this series click the link below….
