Memory & Learning

We have at least two different systems of memory that we use to learn.

One is called taxon memory, and we use it to memorize stuff with. This is what most of us learned in education classes as "short term/long term memory." It is inefficient but necessary for the way we operate as humans.

The other is called locale memory, and it is more all-encompassing than taxon memory. It is spatially, environmentally oriented, and it is unlimited in every human being.

To demonstrate the existence (and the power) of locale memory, recall what you had for supper last night. After a few milliseconds, you can do it with no difficulty at all. How long did it take you to memorize that information? The answer of course is that you didn't try to memorize it at all. You just soaked it all in.

Taxon memory

Memorizing is more difficult than learning. Here's why:

• It requires practice and rehearsal. It is as if we have to engrave an item into our memory, like scratching a message onto a boulder with a stick: over and over and over until the faint outline takes shape.

• It is not initially meaningful. Unlike with the context-oriented locale memory, stuff we have to memorize seems to have no use or relevance to our brain. Our brain resists having to work that hard on something that it perceives as useless. Does the prospect of having to memorize all 37 of Shakespeare's plays fill you with unmixed delight? Of course not. Everything we ask children to learn via taxon memory has the same effect on them.

• It requires extrinsic motivation. Because the brain doesn't want to memorize all that stuff, we have to rely on rewards to tempt it to do so: grades, smiley faces, doctorates, and so forth. Reward systems in fact invoke this memorization over other kinds of learning. This is evident when children memorize for tests instead of seeking to understand ideas.

• It is resistant to change. There's good news and bad news about this. The good news is that once you've engrained something in your memory, it rarely leaves. The bad news is that if it was wrong to begin with, you're up the creek. The math fact "8 x 7 = 56" still sets off alarms in my head because in 4th grade one day, every single person in the class missed it and we had to do a forced march as a class to learn it correctly. My brain still hiccups when it gets to the "=," knowing that its first impulse is to say "54."

• It is relatively isolated. What matters is that the information can be recalled, or skills used, on demand, irrespective of meaning or context. You can say the ABCs while you're hanging upside down over flaming vats of crude oil, and in the middle of a discussion on the ethics of compassionate conservatism, if someone says, "Frankfort," you are likely to think (without thinking), "Kentucky." The information we learn in this mode can be called upon almost immediately in a very predictable manner.

Obviously, taxon memory is a vital part of our learning. There are some things we simply have to memorize—multiplication tables, capitals of states, students' names—and we have to be able to call up that information without a lot of fuss. However, it is not the way the brain learns naturally, and to utilize it effectively, strategies must be deliberately employed to assist learners in memorizing material. The book to read is A different kind of classroom, available in your media center professional reading room.

Locale Memory

In most of our daily operations, we do not use taxon memory. We use a different system of keeping track of the world around us and recording it.

• Locale memory is universal. This is not something only "smart" people have. Every human has a spatial learning system. It is survival oriented and its capacity is virtually unlimited.

• It is never just "facts." It is never--and that means never--limited to static, context-free facts. There is always a complex system of relationships between all the items.

• Locale memory "maps" are formed very quickly and are updated constantly. When you walk into a new room, chances are that you are not going to bump into any walls when you go to leave. You know rather immediately where the walls are and where the furniture is and how to get out. Likewise, our brain continually scans the environment for changes.

• It is motivated by novelty, curiosity, and expectations. Our brain has its maps of the way it has decided our environment works. We guide our behavior by the expectations we have of how things work and keep checking it for accuracy. Any change the environment is immediately attended to by the brain until the change is incorporated into the map (as new information) or discarded as unimportant. An example would be of construction noise outside. At first, it is distracting, but if it keeps up, the brain tunes it out because it is not important to the immediate task of survival. There will be more on this in the upcoming lessons on the brain and how it works.

• Motivation is intrinsic. Because of our innate desire for novelty, we are intrigued by changes and new material to learn as long as it relates to what we already know. We seek to make sense of what is happening in our world. Remember Tenet #1: The learner constructs knowledge.

• It is enhanced through sensory acuity. Sensory input--sounds, movement, tastes, smells--improve map-making. That's why the ABC song works so well and why most actors cannot learn lines sitting quietly at a desk.

Intricate maps take time. While we can map out new information rather quickly in a rough kind of way, making all those connections between all the bits of information can take quite a bit longer. It always amazed me at the high school level that a teacher with 20+ years of experience in his subject seriously expected students to attain the same level of connectivity as he in one taxon-memory-based unit!

Routes & Maps

Imagine you're in a nice hotel at a wonderful Enriched Thinking Curriculum conference, for a whole week.

It could happen. Anyway, you go to the front desk and ask the clerk where the nicest Chinese restaurant is. He says, "Go out the front drive, turn right, go two blocks, turn left at the light, and it will be three blocks on the right."

Some of you memorize it, some write it down, some draw maps, and off you go. You now know a route to the nicest Chinese restaurant.

Taxon memory is like learning a route:

It gets you there, but it's the only way you know. If there's a traffic jam, or you decide you'd rather have Moroccan, you're stuck.

At the end of the week, if you've had time and the inclination to explore, you know several ways to get to Ming's, and you also know other restaurants in the area. You have developed a map of the surrounding area. It's flexible and powerful, and your dining options have increased thereby.

Locale memory is like learning a map:

You know how to use the information at your disposal, and it's endlessly expandable. If the conference were for two weeks (let's not get carried away...), you would have time to make your map even bigger.

Interesting distinction:

In our real-life metaphor, we would have to use taxon memory if we tried to memorize the route to Ming's before we left the hotel. It would have no real context for us, and our brains would have to work to scratch those instructions into our head.

But once we left the hotel and actually drove to Ming's, we'd be using our locale memory: the experience of going two blocks, turning left, and then looking for Ming's would be instantly entered into our memory, and if we ate at Ming's the next night, we would have no problem at all finding the place.

Route learning in schools

Our methods lean on taxon memory.

Our outcomes and procedures tend to be both limited and predetermined, whether for educational, policy, or test-taking reasons. This actually shuts down map-building (locale memory) functions, because maps are always complex and personal. When every step is predetermined, students frequently fail to see the relevance of such information. Hence they tend to memorize (and forget) rather than think (and learn.)

We require therefore the imposition of a strong extrinsic system of motivation.

We use tests, grades, tokens, stickers, smiley faces, etc. The problem with these systems is that they are unsustainable: the student either loses interest in the system or buys into it to the exclusion of more complex learning modes. Either way, we've lost the instructional game at that point. The book to read is Punished by Rewards, by Alfie Kohn.

However, route learning has obvious short-term advantages.

It can give us quick, recognizable results which can be measured readily. It also gives us a quick way to sort out winners and losers.

A Tale of Two Lesson Plans

A route learning lesson on oak trees

Let's assume for some reason that the curriculum requires students to learn about trees. We know how it goes traditionally:

The lesson plan would involve reading through the chapter on trees, with worksheets on roots, cambrium, leaves, capillary action, etc. "Who can tell me what deciduous means?"

The motivation would be the grades they accumulate on worksheets, tests, and the final project. The brain would be hard at work, if at all, memorizing the material necessary to complete the tests. No one would be very excited about the unit. Trees? Who cares?

Assessment would be the tests (matching, true/false, short answer) and of course, the leaf collection.

The results would be a backseat full of notebooks full of misidentified leaves. If we've done a wonderful job with the taxon memory thing (and thank goodness we're good at it, since it's all we've got), then we also have some students who will remember that trees have roots, branches, leaves, etc. Quick, from your own memory of your tree lessons, does obovate have to do with leaves, roots, or layers?

A map learning lesson on trees

The lesson plan takes a different tack: you take the class out to look at two oak trees on campus. One looks odd, like it's sick. You have the class compare the two trees, making notes in their notebook.

Back in class, you pose two questions: "How can we cure the oak tree?" and "Why should we cure the oak tree?"

Now students (using our Big6 model) begin to generate questions of their own.

• Is the tree sick?
• How do trees get sick?
• How do trees work? What are the parts of trees?
• What disease does this tree have? Who could tell us?
• How can we cure it?
• Can we cure it? Should we cut it down? Can we cut it down? Are there tree ordinances? Who would know?
• Should there be tree ordinances? Do we need to write one?
• How many trees are on campus? What kinds are they? Where are they? Should we have more? Where should we plant them? What kind of soil/water/sun would they need?
• Why are trees important ecologically? Psychologically?
• Are there trees in literature? Religion? Mythology? Music? Art?

  Divide everyone into teams, and go!

Motivation obviously is inherent: you have given the students a real problem to solve and are guiding them through the process of figuring out what they need to know and where to go to find that information. The lesson encompasses your entire curriculum: science, math (counting, calculating, estimating), social studies (mapmaking, local government), language arts (research, writing, literature), fine arts (music, art), and habits of mind (presentations, awareness of resources, etc.)

Assessment depends on what each student is doing-- that's the tough part. The easy part is that assessment is based on what each student is doing: performance assessment. At some point, of course, you will want to pull everyone together and make sure they understand how a tree works, roots, leaves, and all that, but now it means something to them because it's important to solve their problem. The different part of this is that you might assess every student on something different contribution to the process!

Results? Research has shown that lessons structured using this particular "essential questions" technique produce significant learning gains. Students tested a whole year after the lesson still remember the material, because it had been built into their locale memory.

Does this second method work? Pedagogically, yes. Within the constraints of school as we know it? Probably not, or with great difficulty. It obviously takes more time and more energy, and it obviously requires that students be taught how to manage their learning in ways that we currently do not teach them. It will not produce uniform learning results, and if that's a goal of the system, then it works against the system.

However, it produces educated kids, and it produces lifelong learners. What a pity we don't test for that.