LEARNING VERY QUICKLY

There is an interesting quote in the history of education literature concerning the setup of public schools. The quote was, "We will train them to the factory bell."

-Rich

The model was built by industrialists.. The method was designed a hundred years before that. The sytem is basically designed to produce factory workers. IT is also designed to fail about 70 percent of those who go through it. So it produces low skilled cheep factory workers.

Nice reply, me and you are on the same page!!!

This reminds me - I used to do my best studying when walking or driving to school. Yes, while I was the one behind the wheel of the car (sorry other drivers!)

While driving the 15 miles to school, I would read over my notes for the test that day. My memory become almost photographic, in that I read it once and had it down cold. I'd ace the test or come close, but within 24 hours the info was gone.

Not sure why studying while driving worked, unless it was just the last minute do or die stress that had all systems working at optimal level.

But casual studying done while walking was quite effective, too. Maybe it's all the blood flowing, bringing extra oxygen, that helps to form the new connections in the brain?

So your basically claiming that school slows down learning because people aren't as active as they should be. I don't think this is the case. I don't know if what I say is true or not, I'm just going on my common sense here.

I think children younger than 5 years old learn quicker than children older than 5 because of their brains. We humans reach the maximum amount of neurons we will ever have at around this age, and from then on our number of neurons in our brain are slowly decreasing.

Children have a "blank slate" when they enter the world (or so it seems, apart from inherent instincts and subconscious bodily functions), and are naturally curious about the world around them. They have a surplus of these neurons, and it should be easier for them to learn things. They use up unused neurons to weave in different memories at appropriate instances.

Unused or depreciated neurons would be discarded over time as evolution by natural selection would suggest. Our brains are very expensive to maintain, costing 25% of our total energy expenditure while only being 2% of the body's total body mass. We can expect a 1st, 2nd or 3rd grader to have less neurons than the child in pre school, depending where our peak in neuron numbers occurs.

To emphasise this we can observe infants and language. Most English raised children would have trouble pronouncing African or Asian phonetics, yet they have no trouble doing this with the English language when starting out.

As a baby, you will have an easier time pronouncing the language spoken in the environment you were raised because you have heard it frequently. The neurons that control speech and sounds will appreciate or depreciate depending on the being's surroundings. Being able to pronounce Arabic symbols is pretty useless in a predominately English nation, and so on.


As for physical activity, it might be plausible. Again I do not know much about the subject, but I can see how the increase of oxygenated blood reaching the brain from exercise could increase brain efficiency. Being physically active will also increase your overall health, the brain included.

Consuming larger amounts of Omega 3 and avoiding trans-fats is also supposed to be good for the brain in making neural pathways.

Exercising while learning is dumbfounding to me though. Yes, listening to a lecture on an Ipod while while taking a fast paced stroll is easy performed. I do it quite a lot. When it comes to learning through reading or writing, things may be more difficult. Writing/typing is out of the question. Reading could be done but it would take a while to get used to. I think workouts are good for thinking and pondering about the world, but by no extent is it a replacement of school.

"The results are truly noticeable" This may be placebo. You would need a scientific, objective test performed on this claim. Be careful that it is not in fact your perception that exercise is good for learning that motivates you to learn more.

P.S crazy school conspiracy people; I am not from America, so I have no physical experience of an American school, but nether-less your claims are ridiculous. I only skimmed though the responses to this post but from what I saw, you think that school is intentionally trying to make factory workers. There's a plethora of reasons why this is wrong but I won't go into them. But if the schools really wanted factory workers, it makes sense to make smart factory workers. Just sayin'.