So If you couldn't tell, I am a business strategist with roots in Eastern Philosophy. One of my simple hobby sites is http://plurbis.com where I get to chronicle my brain farts. http://twitter.com/yogameditation is generally where I publish those farts. Feels good when people appreciate them:
There was a time when education was the role of clan fathers (or mothers in many cultures). These Educators were not the lowest paid, under-respected, part time community members that today's teachers are. The clan matriarch / patriarch was the social, political, and economic leader of the entire tribe.
When, they taught, it was from experience. Teaching from experience enables one to teach to experience. They taught upon a child's pre-existing experiences. And children learned immediately.
They inspired and challenged the kids. Personally, I learned the entire 9 times table when I was 3. Then, I learned long multiplication, fractions, algebra, geometry, algebra 2, and trigonometry in the first half of my 3rd grade. It was all taught to me over 30minutes per day at lunch recess by a zen master whom most referred to as their 3rd grade teacher. This is how he did it:
Did you notice that we used sticks. Find me a kid who has never piled sticks on top of other. Find me a kid whose never drawn an "X," and I'll show you a kid who needs a different method of teaching multiplication.
Before setting out to teach, there are two primary considerations to always, well, consider. You've heard of Mazlow's Heirchy? Well,
1. There is a heirchy of learnability. From hardest to easiest for memory:
A. a number (like 298477640242976572974)
B. a letter (like within "Apt 4D")
C. alpha numeric mixed combinations (like your license plate)
D. a word (like that super fast talker guy's name)
E. a sentence (Quick, what's the third line of the American pledge of allegiance WITHOUT reciting the whole thing from the start!)
F. musical lyrics (like the ABC song)
2. Teach Nothing By Rote
G. a visual symb
ol (how many line segments in the VolksWagen Logo?)
H. a face (that same fast talker guy from #D)
I. music
J. a smell (like you remember everything when you get the most fleeting whiff of that one scent)
What this means for your children's education is that in order to teach how to learn A, you use B. You use an EASIER modality of comprehension to teach a HARDER one. Ironically, our neurology and senses are understand and remember more complex inputs far more readily than simple ones. (What's your spouse's birthday? vs. Where were you when you last felt intoxicated by their scent?) "You cannot solve a problem at the same level of mind that created it!" - Einstein, then Me.
OK, now with a little practice, you'll be able to memorize credit card, bank account, and social security numbers as if they were today's news paper headlines. Or you can teach this to your children to learn how to memorize the atomic weights of each element in the periodic table of elements in one hour.
Now that we've gotten numbers out of the way, how do you teach seemingly random letters (like FE stands for Iron)? Worse yet, how do you teach absolute flawless memorization of 114 single or double letter combinations (like the entire periodic table of 114 elements above) in 5, five, cinco, cinq, oh, cuig minutes? Easy. You'd use "D" like this:
PS. My 3rd grade teacher, nope. He didn't have a fu-man-chu or mastery of the five-point-heart-stopping-palm-strike-of-death. What he had was a speach impediment from a car accident, a limp from the same, and mastery of the most powerful chi sorcery: love. (Thank you Mr. C!) - Wan Qi Kim. Friend me on FACEBOOK
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