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Some study is easy, others have to stay up at night to pass the exam at least for the top three. Blogger Jessica Stillman talks about Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman’s method to make learning easier. It is effective in any field of knowledge, both in learning to play musical instruments and in mastering the laws of quantum physics.
Richard Feynman never stopped learning throughout his life. The range of his interests was extremely wide. His biographer James Gleich wrote: “He did not prioritize any particular skill, he learned to play the drum, give massages, tell stories, meet women in bars and was sure that everything could be learned.”
Was the ability to master such different skills the result of genius? Undoubtedly, the brain of the Nobel laureate was incredibly fast and inventive. However, Feynman himself believed that it was not a natural gift, but a competent approach to mastering the material. He used a special technique for teaching. Luckily, he didn’t make a secret of her. It consists of only three steps.
1. Tell your child about what you are learning
Feynman could explain the most complex phenomena in simple terms in a way that was understandable to children and unprepared listeners. He believed that a teacher who uses difficult words, terms and florid phrases is himself poorly versed in the subject.
If you write down an idea in a simple language that a child can understand, you absorb information more deeply.
When you start to learn something new, take a sheet of paper and try to explain the first lesson to yourself as simply as possible, as if you were teaching an eight-year-old child with average abilities.
If you write down an idea in simple, child-friendly language, you absorb the information more deeply, and the connections between ideas become obvious to you. If you cannot explain some things in a simple and accessible way, it means that you did not understand the topic or part of it and you need to return to the material covered once again.
2. Repeat material you can’t explain in simple terms
At the beginning of a new subject, you will have difficulty with simple explanations. Like any new skill, storytelling takes practice.
Every time you experience difficulties with the assimilation of the material – that is, you cannot explain what you studied in simple words – carefully read the text of the textbook again. Imagine you have a biology test tomorrow. You cannot explain in a simple and accessible way what evolution is. So, you need to open the textbook on the topic “Evolution” and reread it.
Read and retell until you feel that this material is accessible even to a child.
Now close the book, take a piece of paper and tell the topic or part that you could not explain before.
3. Repeat and simplify as much as possible
Now you no longer need a textbook. At this stage, you have simple and clear notes written in your own words. They reflect the material that you have carefully studied. All you need is to repeat and consolidate the acquired knowledge. Read what is written aloud.
If the explanations are still not simple enough or sound incomprehensible and strange, it is worth continuing to work on the topic, that is, returning to the second stage. Read and retell until you feel that this material is accessible even to a child and you can explain it at any time, clearly and clearly.
About the Developer
Jessica Stillman – blogger, wrote for Inc.com, Business Insider and Forbes, career specialist.