The Power of Mindful Learning (11 page)

. . . Wen hen the full moon had risen, Hansel
took his little sister by the hand and followed the
pebbles that glittered like newly minted silver coins
and showed them the way. When they arrived
home their father was delighted because he had been
deeply troubled by the way he had abandoned them
in the forest.

Not long after that the entire country was once
again ravaged by famine, and one night the children heard their mother talking to their father in
bed. "Everything's been eaten up again. We have
only hay a loaf of bread, but after that's gone, that
will be the end of our food. The children must leave.
This time we'll take them even farther into the forest so they won't
find their way back home."

When their parents had fallen asleep, Hansel got up, intending
to go out and gather pebbles as he had done the time before, but their
mother had locked the door, and Hansel could not get out.

Early the next morning the mother came and got the children
out of bed. They each received little pieces of bread, but they were
smaller than the last time. On the way into the forest Hansel
crumbled the bread in his pocket and stopped as often as he could to
throw the crumbs on the ground. Little by little he managed to
scatter all the bread crumbs on the path. The woman led the children even deeper into the forest until they came to a spot they had
never in their lives seen before. `Just keep sitting here, children. If
you get tired, you can sleep a little. We're going into the forest to
chop wood, and in the evening, when we're done, we'll come and
get you."

Then they fell asleep, and evening passed, but no one came
for the poor children. Only when it was pitch black did they
finally wake up, and Hansel comforted his little sister by saying,
Just wait until the moon has risen, Gretel. Then we'll see the
little bread crumbs that I scattered. They'll show us the way back
home. "

When the moon rose, they set out but could not find the crumbs,
because the many thousands of birds that fly about in the forest and
fields had devoured them.

They walked the entire night and all the next day as well, from
morning till night, but they did not get out of the forest. Eventually
they became so tired that their legs would no longer carry them, and
they lay down beneath a tree and fell asleep.

Hansel and Gretel

THE BROTHERS GRIMM

Hansel and Gretel lost sight of the bigger picture. Following bread crumbs on the implicit theory that following pebbles
worked may seem easier than trying to memorize the forest,
but neither strategy offers much control in new circumstances.
Had they actively drawn distinctions and noticed finer points
in their surroundings, as we will see, they might have had an
easier time getting home.

Students who rely on rote learning may find themselves
similarly helpless. Although the student who dutifully recites
the multiplication tables or the Gettysburg Address may
seem to be a figure from the past, most learning, especially
preparation for tests, is still done by rote. "I know that material so well," an A student exclaims, "I could take that exam
in my sleep." Most students still prepare by memorizing as
many facts as they can from required reading and class notes.
And many, if not most, teachers insist that students know
key information as well as they know the backs of their
hands.

Memorizing is a strategy for taking in material that has no personal meaning. Students able to do it succeed in passing most
tests on the material, but when they want to make use of that
material in some new context they have a problem. This disadvantage of rote memory applies to all of us, whether we are memorizing textbook information for school, technical information for work, or any other information.

I remember studying for a test as an undergraduate, memorizing the essential parts of an article by "Rock and Harris," and
getting the question correct on the test. Later that same week
when asked if I had ever read any of Harris's work, I said no.
Had I been asked if I knew the work of "Rock and Harris" I
probably would have replied yes. I learned the names as a package, and that was the way they stayed in my mind. A typical
package, at least for those of my generation, is "Battle of Hastings/1066." I have no idea what to do with that fact, except when
someone at a faculty meeting asks for examples of useless information that we all have at our disposal! If someone else says, "the
Battle of Hastings," I always blurt out, "1066," still expecting to
get my A. Interestingly, there is no one event that constitutes
"The Battle of Hastings." Historians have given one name to a
collection of events, each of which could be seen from a collection of perspectives, as is true for most of what we take as "facts."

We can watch a quiz show and answer many questions correctly (or else the show would not make satisfying televiewing),
yet not have access to that information in any other context. For
many of us, "William the Conquerer" exists only as the answer to
the question, "Who fought the Battle of Hastings?"

Education traditionally has given students packages of
information that are largely context free. Even when context is
provided, the manner in which the information is presented
still encourages mindless processing. Saying, for instance, that
there were three reasons for the Civil War omits both context and perspective. What did a fifty-year-old Southern white man
think the reasons were? A fifty-year-old black? A young
Northern woman? And so on. When omitting points of view,
the text or the teacher treats the information as true irrespective of perspective, that is, as a fact. Even if information is given
from two perspectives, if the possibility of additional views is
not intentionally built in, the tendency of students is to consider these two just as rigidly; there would simply be twice as
much absolute information to memorize.

Most of us see memorizing as effortful and feel that learning too many facts can overload or clutter our minds. One middle-aged woman faced with remembering nine-digit zip codes
and streams of digits in long-distance dialing, was overheard
telling a friend that she was going to "give up state capitals" to
make room.

Closed packages of information are taken as facts. Facts are
taken as absolute truths to be learned as is, to be memorized,
leaving little reason to think about them. Without any reason
to open up the package, there is little chance that the information will lead to any conceptual insights or even be rethought in
a new context. We can think of such encapsulated information
as overlearned.

The disadvantages of rote memory have been pointed out
over the years.' Higher levels of student boredom occur in
schools that emphasize memorization and drills? Some teachers
try to provide opportunities for the development of knowledge
through flexible understanding of course material. In math,
teaching for understanding involves teaching students to think about what a problem means and to look for multiple solutions.3
Studies have confirmed that science is better taught through
hands-on research and discovery than through memorization
alone.' In English, teaching for understanding means emphasizing the process of writing and exploring literature rather than
memorizing grammar rules and doing drills.' Understanding is
encouraged in history by turning students into junior historians.'
These methods, all more effective than having students memorize material, are usually used sparingly and primarily with
higher-level students even though virtually all students seem to
be able to learn without memorizing.' Too many students still
suffer the hidden costs of learning in the more familiar manner.

How often do children, or adults, for that matter, intentionally study the words of a song on the radio? Yet we often sing
along after hearing a song only a few times. The learning took
place without memorizing, without difficulty, and without fear
of evaluation; most important, it was intrinsically motivating
and fun.

How many bones of the body can we name even a week
after our last biology class? Memorization appears to be inefficient for long-term retention of information, and it is usually
undertaken for purposes of evaluation by others. It is difficult
and rarely fun, although some of us may have enjoyed it
because we were rewarded for having done it well.

We need only appeal to our own experience to be persuaded
that material we once memorized is not readily available for
use-either creative use or even use in the form in which we
originally learned it. The same experience tells us that, except for certain individuals, memorizing is difficult. If it weren't,
more students would do better on their exams. As students, we
memorized material because we were instructed to do so.
Memorization remains widespread for various reasons: teachers
can easily grade academic performance based on memorized
material; people believe that certain things (the basics) must be
thoroughly learned before other areas can be tackled; the
notion that there are basic truths in the world that are accepted
by everyone creates a sense of stability; and, teachers are teaching in the same way they were taught-through memorization.