The Book "Make it Stick" Shows that School is Against Neuroscience

This post is going to be about a must-read for adult autodidacts called "Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel. This book is about how most learners are actually going about studying the wrong way. Furthermore, the public education system seems to be designed around vibes and myths about learning techniques that are unsupported by neuroscience. The authors of this book call these myths "education folklore." This book also provides techniques that you can use to actually learn instead of falling into illusions of competency.

Learning is supposed to be hard 

One of the most important points in this book is that learning is supposed to be hard. If you don't make mistakes, you're not learning. Many learners fall into the trap of repeating easy tasks they are comfortable with. But "no pain no gain" applies to brain gains, don't forget! The authors are actually in favour of quizzes and tests, even though "education folklore" by woke snowflakes says that tests only lead to rote memorization and increased anxiety. However, the solution is actually to have several predictable low-sakes tests. Not pop quizzes, because those are universally hated. But not huge midterms or finals either as those are indeed anxiety-inducing and lead to cramming. Frequent, low-stakes quizzing is the way to go as this leads to effortful recall and makes things stick in your brain better. Without memory, there can actually be no progressing to more creative uses of knowledge. This means that while studying, you shouldn't be just re-reading passages but actually asking yourself questions and quizzing yourself. 

Also, stop being scared of mistakes and failure. They are necessary for growth. Take your ego out of it. 

Personally, I use Anki for memorizing vocabulary in Anishinaabemowin and I recommend it for all language learners out there (or even medical students, since y'all gotta memorize insane amounts of stuff). It follows the principles of this book because it doesn't show you flashcards you already know. It's going to be over a year before Anki shows me "miigwech," (the Anishinaabemowin word for "thank you," which I will never forget because it is literally seared into my brain, the first word I learned in the language and one that is familiar to many non-Indigenous people in southern Ontario). But it will show me "mshkiigimin" like every day, which means "low bush cranberry" and which I find way harder to recall. 

IQ isn't fixed 

Some of the most beautiful passages in this book are basically like poetry about human potential that show that IQ isn't fixed. Children who are taught that IQ isn't fixed don't back away from a challenge. They welcome the chance to stretch their brains. In a study, children who were called "smart," picked easier puzzles. Children who were called "hardworking" picked harder puzzles to solve! Have as scroll through some of these based excerpts. I took pictures of them while reading because they were just too good.

"Learning styles" are like astrology, basically 

So I'm a former "gifted kid." This means that they put me in special classes because I had autistic special interests and liked books and I passed some kind of "gifted test" (it was lowkey kinda dumb, idk). One of the things that the teachers made us do every year for some reason in gifted classes from grades 4-8 was the "multiple intelligences test" by Howard Gardner. However, even Gardner himself admitted the concept of multiple intelligences is an art not a science. So we were forced to do this thing every year and take the results extremely seriously even though it has no scientific basis. School is against neuroscience. Unsurprising to many people, I scored very high in "verbal and linguistic intelligence" and pretty low in other categories. I was not logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, interpersonal, musical, or bodily/kinesthetic. I was a clumsy person who couldn't do math, couldn't draw, couldn't socialize and couldn't play music. I just read books. The multiple intelligences test asked me about stuff like my hobbies, so of course I picked options related to how I liked writing stories in my spare time. What that test really shows is simply what a child is interested in. That's it. It's basically just a hobbies quiz. It showed that I was very interested in reading and writing and not really in any other subject, which was true at that age. As I got older, I became interested in art, music, fitness, friendships, and even in math. But books have just been a first love (and true love) for me throughout my life. The test just showed what was obvious to everyone: I was just passionate about something. It didn't show anything about my intelligence. 

Also, stuff like "visual learner" or "auditory learner" is actually unsupported by neuroscience. Those also indicate preferences or interests, not what the most effective way you actually learn it. Learning styles or multiple intelligences are basically astrology. The teachers might as well have given us a Buzzfeed quiz about what icecream flavour you are and it would've been equally scientific. Make it Stick made me understand how cringe that was, and honestly it doesn't encourage a growth mindset because then you refuse to learn things that don't match up with your preferences. 

I actually think it did a lot of damage to me that the school system led me to believe that I wasn't a logical or mathematical person. I think I'd always have loved fiction or poetry more than math, but God I really could've used some encouragement for powering through with the math. It would've been better for me. I'm 25 now and I go to the library to read shit like "Statistics Essentials for Dummies" to figure out basic math now. 

If Wisdom is a goddess, school is desecrating Her altar 

Wisdom is personified as woman in the Bible, and many ancient cultures had goddesses of wisdom. But Wisdom lowkey woulda hated school. It is going against what she stands for. Become an adult autodidact, regardless of how shitty your school experience was. Do mathematical proofs on napkins at a restaurant. Read books while waiting in queues in public. Wisdom will come to you faster than it comes to your local director of the Board of Education. Books like Make it Stick can help you fix your brain after the damage that has been done to it by school. 

If you want to read more anti-school posts, check out this anti-school poem I wrote back in high school and this recent poem I wrote that personifies Wisdom. 

That's all for today. Good luck with learnmaxxing. 

When you want to acquire more knowledge

This is really random but I find it interesting how attitudes toward knowledge acquisition vary across cultures. You have scientists from Renaissance Europe saying things like "poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master" (Leonardo da Vinci) and "science had to torture nature's secrets out of her" (Francis Bacon). The first one sounds pretty based and epic and motivated me throughout my masters degree if I'm going to be honest. The second one sounds very extractive, like it is making the earth submit to your will and curiosity. 

"Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master" is very different from something that my mom would always quote to me in Hindi. This was गुरु गोविन्द दोऊ खड़े काको लागूं पायं। बलिहारी गुरु आपने जिन गोविन्द दियो बताय | The speaker of this line is wondering if he should touch the feet of Govind first (a name of the god Krishna) or his guru's (his teacher). Touching someone's feet is a sign of respect in Indian culture. He touches his teacher's feet because he was the one who told him about the god. The teacher is above the god here.

Also I have been reading about Anishinaabe culture and they believe learning can not happen without humility. There is no such thing as an "expert" on anything because we all have so much to learn, and this rejects the European concept that we can have mastery over something. We also can not learn without experiencing the world, interacting with nature and maintaining our holistic well-being. This is different from the European idea of a scholar who stays inside and reads all day and never touches grass. Native people touch more grass than Europeans do. There is also a retelling of a traditional story by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson where she says that the Anishinaabe learned about maple syrup (ninaatigo-ziiwaamigide in Anishinaabemowin I think, idk I am still learning it and I will never master it) from a child and that child learned it from observing a chipmunk. It really shows humility if you believe you can learn something from a child and from nature!! 

Anyway I think someone smarter than me should write about pedagogical approaches in different cultures. Also, the British patterned education is probably terrible for learning outcomes and the well-being of students.