Why can children remember the details of cartoons, but not what I taught them?

Although I have been out of the campus for more than ten years, I can still recite the "golden sentence" from primary school to university, and even perfectly restore the scene at that time.

However, no matter how wonderful these teachers are in class, it seems that most of them are only these "jokes".

This is just like when we assign homework to our children, the same problem appears repeatedly. No matter how many times we say it, we should not understand it, do it or do it.

Sometimes I even wonder if children have poor memory.

But this is obviously not the case.

Because although he can't remember anything I taught him, he can clearly remember the plot in the cartoon. I watched cartoons with him, but I don't remember anything.

As far as memory is concerned, he is actually much better than a middle-aged man like me.

Looking back on my student days, I often have such problems.

In other words, there has always been such a problem.

Although we can generalize these problems as memory problems, some children can remember them clearly after listening to them once, and some children still can't remember what to do next time no matter how many times the teacher says it.

The result is that "learning efficiency" varies widely.

There is obviously no problem with the memory "memory" of the brain, so what affects the memory "efficiency" of children when they study?

What are the characteristics of the things that we remember the most for decades?

For example, being severely reprimanded by parents for the first time will make people remember it many years later.

It's like we have been away from animation for 20 years, but we will never mix the robot cat with Snow White.

You don't have to chase the meteor garden, and you don't know what F4 is. But as long as you see these four people, you can quickly associate the characters with their attribute tags.

Although the things and reasons that impress us may be different, there is one thing in common: they have all been deeply thought over by us.

And those things that we have tried to remember are likely to be forgotten in the blink of an eye, or gradually discarded in a corner of memory after a short memory.

As I said at the beginning, I can still recall the "golden sentences" or jokes left by many teachers today. But after that, I forgot all the textbook knowledge they told me.

Objectively speaking, what I should remember more is the content of the lessons they told later, not these jokes.

Although I have always known this truth, unfortunately, it was those jokes, not the classroom, that triggered my thinking and aroused my interest.

Scientists have done many related experiments for this.

In the experiment, the organizer told everyone that they had to remember a certain number of words. But only half of them were told that if they remembered, they would get a reward, while the other half didn't.

Several groups of experimental results show that those who know the reward in advance do not remember more than the other half.

The conclusion is that "willing to remember" has little effect on improving memory.

Therefore, what we can remember is not what we want to remember or try to remember, but what is really stored in our brains after deep thinking.

Although every detail of what we think has not been input into our brains, "thinking", the process of extracting information from the broad to the core, has reserved all the elements for us to restore something or a truth.

Once needed, these elements can be extracted and restored, so that the human brain can complete the whole process of identifying, retaining, reproducing or repeating the experienced facts.

In children's learning, this process is explained by a common and popular sentence: study hard or not.

We have all heard that the memory of fish is only 7 seconds, so in that small fish tank, you never have to worry that they will be bored.

Of course, this beautiful lie has long been refuted, but there is a theory about memory that is very similar to it: working memory and long-term memory.

The so-called working memory refers to this part of the memory when the brain consciously processes the information it is processing.

Long-term memory is the part of working memory that is stored in the brain after processing and can be retrieved when needed.

In coursera, an online course founded by two professors at Stanford University, working memory and long-term memory are vividly compared:

Therefore, when we give guidance to children, only when what we say enters their working memory and stays for a period of time can we enter their long-term memory.

For example, I am sitting in front of the computer typing and receiving all kinds of information at the same time.

But apart from writing, the sound of rain outside the window can't attract my attention.

I will never remember that it was raining outside when I did it today, but I will remember the details I am thinking now.

This is what we often say, "If you don't concentrate, the learning effect will not be ideal".

To sum up, knowledge stays in children's working memory through thinking, extracts the core elements of information through staying, and enters long-term memory.

This is the main working mechanism of memory.

When we face children who make repeated mistakes, we always hope that they will grow up with brains and snacks. In the final analysis, we all attribute the problem to "memory".

That sounds right, but people's memory ability is actually similar.

We obviously need some other auxiliary means to help them "send" their working memory into long-term memory.

After talking about the working mechanism of memory in the last section, one solution that we can easily think of is "repetition".

School-age children will go through a stage of poor understanding but strong memory.

At this stage, I have a strong memory for repetitive things.

Repetition is boring, but it has certain applicability.

For example, memorizing English words, writing words, memorizing ancient poems, etc., which lack logical rules to follow, are the advanced foundation of knowledge.

The emphasis here is on reciting ancient poems.

Ancient Chinese is obscure, not to mention that children can't understand it, and even adults may not even recognize the words inside. But why are they required to recite these?

There is also an interesting answer on the Internet:

It sounds like a joke, but it makes sense.

At the stage of strong memory and poor understanding, their understanding is gradually revealed and deepened on the basis of memory.

This process of repeated learning is always accompanied by deepening understanding. After a deep understanding of its connotation and extension, we can really apply what we have learned.

If you reach adulthood, your understanding is strong, but you can't remember it at all. When you see beautiful scenery, you may just feel empty.

It should be emphasized that the effect of interval repetition is better than that of repeated times in a short time.

From Ebbinghaus curve, we can clearly see that the content with low frequency and long time span will be better.

In other words, the effect of repeating it ten times a day may not be as good as repeating it once a day for ten days.

For example, children can remember the details in cartoons, but they may not remember what I said when I helped him with his homework.

Some people may attribute this to interest in learning, but I don't think it is accurate enough.

Cognitive psychology believes that content is not the decisive factor to keep interest.

The most intuitive embodiment is that children like to watch an cartoon again, and it is impossible to watch it all the time. There is always something he wants to play outdoors or something that can attract his attention for a long time.

Moreover, the essence of the human brain is to refuse to think. It is hard to imagine that a normal child will take learning difficulties as an interest.

Instead of deliberately emphasizing the false proposition of cultivating interest in learning, it is better to introduce questions into a good story when explaining.

Because the essence of the story is a plot deduction with moderate difficulty, it will make the child's brain in the learning area, not the comfort zone or the panic zone.

For example, history, geography and biology can help them understand knowledge and consolidate their memory with an appropriate historical story, humanistic customs or physiological phenomena.

Let them encounter similar problems in the future, and their first reaction will take your story as the starting point and sort out the logic to get the result.

As mentioned above, thinking with moderate difficulty will be beneficial to the transformation from working memory to long-term memory. Therefore, the whole logical thinking process is deeply processed and children will remember it easily.

But I still want to emphasize that it is necessary to tell a "good" story.

If the story is too strong, it is likely to ignore the final guiding direction. Just like I can remember the teacher's jokes, but I can't remember the rest.

Causality, conflict, different perspectives and individualization (also called 4C principle) in the story should all point to the ultimate core of the problem, instead of over-quoting to arouse interest and dilute the core elements of the problem.

In addition to attracting attention and improving interest, it is an effective way to help children remember, but in the face of highly logical problems, such as physics and geometry, it may be aimless.

Compared with other subjects, physics is an abstract course, and the content of learning is either invisible (such as electronic circuits) or intangible (gravity), which requires very strong abstract understanding and logical reasoning ability.

At this time, it is obviously difficult to solve the problem by rote formula. Although those seemingly complicated propaganda can only be regarded as "superficial knowledge."

So we need to simplify the abstract things and make them scene-oriented.

Such as ohm's law.

I can say that I=V/R, R (resistance) is too large to be a conductor, and R is too small to be directly connected to the power supply for short circuit.

Although everything I said is correct, it is still not easy to understand. After all, you can't see the current flowing in the conductor.

We can't see the current, but it can often be seen.

If you tell your child that I (current) is regarded as water flow, and R represents the part where the thickness of the water pipe changes, then when R is infinite (the water pipe is closed), the water will not flow. When r tends to a reasonable value (the water pipe becomes thinner), it will affect the water flow speed.

If you explain it this way, will the problem be easy to understand?

Of course, we can make other more intuitive or abstract analogies for them, but obviously only intuitive examples can help.

Therefore, when we give them examples or analogies, the selected reference objects must be common. In this way, this knowledge can be put into working memory, reassembled and classified into long-term memory through screening.

On the basis of understanding the principle and practicing the test questions skillfully, those abstract physical formulas will change from "why is this" to "should be like this" in children's minds.

This is to visualize (simplify) abstract concepts through simple analogy, and then fix them through visualization, so that knowledge can enter the deep structure from the surface structure.

Obtaining knowledge from working memory to long-term memory is the key problem to be solved when we give guidance to children.

However, although long-term memory is relatively stronger, it does not mean that long-term memory will not be forgotten.

In order to consolidate this memory, doing more questions is a simple and effective method.

Although the "sea of people tactics" has been criticized for many years, it is impossible for us to master any mental activities without enough practice.

Just like a football player on the court, it is impossible to consider the angle and speed of passing the ball while holding it, but to subconsciously complete the next decision and action.

The purpose of the exercise is to make the problem-solving process of low difficulty become unthinking, so as to make full use of time and energy in opening the gap.

A lot of scientific research shows that there is no obvious difference in memory between peers. The gap between children in the same class also reflects the gap of parents' after-school counseling ability to some extent.

So, instead of complaining about children's poor memory, maybe we should go back and think about it. Did we use the right method in the process of family counseling?