An interesting thing has occurred. The words �purple loosestrife� have been permanently attached to the visual image of the flower, so that every time I see it, I think �purple loosestrife.� I used to think �what is that flower?�. But after blogging about it, learning stuck.
Blogging about it was fun, and seeing learning unfold right before my eyes was fun. And since all learning is emotional, and I like fun, learning took place.
It was fun because it was highly active. It required a certain amount of focus, thought, and research (I had to find the picture of the flower, for example). Then, once I posted, on two separate occasions, two different people mentioned the Purple Loosestrife post. This was exactly the type of feedback I needed to make learning happen: purple loosestrife began to have more meaning.
Along the same lines of emotional learning, a couple of months ago, to help my husband learn Spanish, I stuck small yellow stickers on objects all around the house, from the table to the rug to the oven to the toothbrush. And it�s working! The other day we were standing in line at the store and we noticed a man with a bad toupee. G turns to me and says �alfombra� (�rug� in Spanish). We laughed and laughed. He�ll never forget that word, that�s for sure!
So, from purple flowers to the word rug in Spanish, if learning has meaning and you can feel it and it�s reinforced, and it's self-directed, it sticks. I can�t wait to come up with the way to make all that happen at once for all sorts of learning.
Leave a comment