If there is a book that can increase your child's learning efficiency by 30%, would you like to read it?
I think a lot of parents would be willing.
If there was a book that could fundamentally change a child's way of thinking, would you like to read it?
I think the answer would be more affirmative.
Learning Brain Science is one such book. The whole book introduces a lot of brain science knowledge that is closely related to our study and life through 56 short articles. The author of this book is Professor Yuji Iketani of the University of Tokyo. Yuji Iketani is a brain science expert specializing in the plasticity of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex of the human brain.
He's no ordinary scientist. In Japan, Yuji Iketani is also a best-selling author with many fans. His "Examination Brain Science" sold well for more than a decade, selling nearly 2 million copies in Japan alone.
A super useful book on brain science,
Solved the parenting problem that had plagued me for years
2023 SUMMER
Yuji Iketani's books are quite popular in Japan because the content he talks about is of great interest and use to the public, and he can explain very professional brain science research in an easy-to-understand manner. The "Learning Brain Science" I introduced today is Yuji Iketani's new work. This book continues the style of his previous works, which is fun, easy to understand, and easy to use. How easy is it to use?
First, let's talk about how this book helped me get my two babies.
01
15 minutes to solve the problem of not drinking water
Neither of my two children likes to drink water. Often a jug of water is brought to school, and half a pot is left when I come back all day. Thirsty, prefer to drink a drink. I wonder if you have the same baby at home? I also often tell them that drinking pure water is the best way to quench thirst. The lack of water in the human body will affect metabolism, and it is not good for the brain... But it didn't work.
It just so happened that one day I saw the section "Lack of water in the body can lead to memory loss". So at dinner, I read the part of "Learning Brain Science" to the two children very ceremonially.
When I read that "a study from the University of Connecticut shows that when the human body loses less than 1% of our body weight in water, that is, when we can't even feel thirst, it can lead to memory loss or cognitive errors," my sister began to look for a kettle to drink. My brother looked at my sister and thought it was funny. But when I read that "most children are dehydrated by the time they arrive at school in the morning." In Israel, 63% of students meet symptoms of dehydration, and in Italy even 84%", the brother is no longer calm. He asked: "Then I must also be dehydrated every day when I go to school." ”
The book also mentions that an experiment at the University of East London for primary school students showed that drinking 20 milliliters of water just 20 minutes before the test can increase the test score by 10% compared with the dehydrated state. What's even more interesting is that the problem is more correct. When I said this, my son told me that night before he went to study hall that night, remember to bring him a kettle.
I was secretly happy. The professional research results, the words of the experts, are really much more convincing than mine!
When parents can let their children understand the underlying logic of things, and children can really realize the value or harm of a thing, education will naturally come naturally.
02
An experimental study,
Easy correction of "staying up late pseudo-schoolboys"
Let's talk about sleeping. Nowadays, many middle school students always like to use "get up early" and "go to bed late" to show that they are working hard. My son also often doesn't sleep until 12 p.m. Sometimes I set my alarm until after 5 a.m. and try to get up early to read.
But in fact, the flag of waking up early and going to bed late just makes him feel that he is working hard for a moment, and then move himself a little. Or it may become an excuse for him to be lazy at some point. I've never seen him get up after 5 o'clock. Not only that, because he felt that he could still study at 12 o'clock at night, so he often played special games at 7 or 8 o'clock, and began to rush to catch up with homework at 9 o'clock. When I stayed up until 11 o'clock, I often couldn't open my eyes.
In order to ensure his sleep time, my baby father and I were both hard and soft, grinding our mouths every day and exhausting. Until I read the book "Learning Brain Science". An experimental study of mice in the book found that neurons active during the day were reactivated during sleep. During sleep, the events of the day are played back in the brain, and the playback information is more accurate than expected. What's even more surprising is that memories are played back dozens of times faster than the actual thing happens. This high-speed memory playback occurs mainly in the hippocampus, where the brain is responsible for memory. Further research proved that the hippocampus consolidates memories precisely by repeatedly "reviewing" what happened that day during sleep.
After I told my son about this experiment, he immediately realized that sleeping time helped him organize what he had learned during the day. This time cannot be taken up casually, otherwise the gains will outweigh the losses.
In fact, carefully observe those real top students, they are not fighting for time, they are fighting for the efficiency of learning. There is also a test in the book about self-control and willpower. Experimental research tells us that self-control and willpower are both finite resources. They are similar to muscle strength and are gradually depleted with use. So, when people need a lot of self-control to do something, they lack motivation and patience in other areas, and even morality becomes weak.
No wonder Gu Ailing said that her secret to winning the championship is to sleep 10 hours a day.
Brain science tells us that
These methods of education turned out to be wrong.
Did you get a trick?
2023 SUMMER
01
The child praises too much and is easy to float,
More training and more punishment to remember long?
Praise and reprimand are the educational methods that parents often use for their children. Some parents are good at encouraging their children and like to motivate their children with some incentives. But some parents will feel that if they praise their children at every turn, the children will not realize their own problems and cannot improve well. So there must be more criticism. If you always do not do well, you have to be punished.
Which of these two educational methods is more effective?
Yuji Iketani said scientists have done experiments with mice. By giving cheese and electric shocks, respectively, the mice are guided out of the maze. The experimental results showed that the rats found the most efficient way by giving cheese; This is followed by a combination of cheese and electric shock modes; The worst effect was that using only the electric shock method, it was almost impossible to successfully train the behavior of mice.
Harvard University later did some related experiments on people. The experimental results show that the effect of positive excitation is the best. Negative punishment is the least effective, even worse than doing nothing.
02
Motivate children and use external rewards sparingly
What are external rewards? For example, if you want to motivate your child to study hard, tell your child that you did well in this final exam, and your mother will take you out on a trip during the holidays. Or maybe your mother treats you to a big meal, or gives you a gift. Travel, meals, gifts, these are external rewards. Even educating children to study well can they have a good job and make a lot of money, which is also a long-term external reward portrayed for children.
The Yale research team has studied more than 10,000 cadets at the U.S. Army Academy. They designed a 31-question questionnaire that asked cadets why they aspired to become Army officers. In the questionnaire, there were both those who answered their intrinsic motivation of "enjoying military life itself" and those who answered their extrinsic motivation of "wanting to get ahead" and "wanting to protect their families." The researchers then followed them for 14 years to see who would later become officers.
The results showed that people with strong intrinsic motivation were more likely to be promoted to officers, about 1.5 times more likely than those with less intrinsic motivation. But interestingly, even if they are strongly intrinsically motivated, if they have a lot of extrinsic motivation at the same time, the percentage of these cadets promoted to officers will drop by as much as 20%.
This experiment teaches us that pure love is easier to achieve ideals. So, let's go back and look at the way parents motivate their children to learn. It works better if you can focus on inspiring your child's love of learning itself. Allowing children to find a sense of accomplishment in learning is the best reward for children.
03
The intensive training course has a greater knowledge density,
Works better?
Pre-exam intensive training, summer intensive training, this is the curriculum that children often encounter in extracurricular tutoring. Parents often prefer such courses because of the high knowledge density of these courses. It seems that a class is very efficient. But after reading the book "Learning Brain Science", I will put a question mark on the intensive training class for children. It is likely that the effect will not be as good as parents think.
The case study given by Yuji Iketani shows that people remember things that interest them more deeply. When people are interested, the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory, is more active. This not only allows people to remember the "object" of interest, but also leaves memories of unrelated things around the object. Therefore, we will find that those teachers who often intersperse some small talk in the classroom are not only more popular with students, but also have better teaching results. If a class is an intensive output of knowledge points from beginning to end, it is difficult for a child whose brain is not yet mature to concentrate on digesting these knowledge points. They will not feel interested, but will be stressed, which will inevitably affect the learning effect.
Essential popular science books at home,
Not only suitable for parents to read, more suitable for children to read
2023 SUMMER
01
Find ways to really improve learning efficiency
As I mentioned earlier, by the same token, "parents say" and "experts say" have very different effects. Children believe in authority more. Therefore, the book "Learning Brain Science" needs to be read to children. Let children understand for themselves which methods can really improve learning efficiency and which methods are pseudoscience.
✔ Caffeine can make memory last. Drink after studying, the effect will be better than drinking before learning.
✔ Walking can improve memory. It will be better to endorse while walking.
✔ Supplementing with glucose before the test is beneficial to improve test scores.
✔ Evening study hall and studying in the library will be significantly better than studying alone at home. Because people are more likely to make memories when they complete tasks together. Even without communication, emotions are transmitted and amplified.
These are all methods that have been proven to be effective and improve learning efficiency. For more learning tips, let the children find them in the books themselves.
02
Stimulate your child's interest in brain science
Did you know that insects and birds see the world much more colorful than humans? Did you know that autism can be treated with intestinal flora? Did you know that drinking too much of a zero-sugar drink will more easily cause blood sugar to rise?
The book "Learning Brain Science" also tells many of the mysteries of the brain. Although the author cites a lot of professional research, there is no reading pressure at all for middle school students who are already exposed to biology. On the contrary, it will stimulate children's interest in brain science. In the future, your child will make some achievements in this field, and maybe not.
03
More than just popular science books,
It also helps to develop self-awareness in adolescents
We all know that adolescence is a critical period for developing self-knowledge. The book "Learning Brain Science" helps children better understand the brain, in fact, it is helping children better understand the world, know others, and know themselves.
After reading this book, the child will understand:
✔ Those classmates who flaunt themselves as very good in school all day are actually paper tigers; People with low abilities tend to overestimate themselves; And people who are really capable tend to be humble.
✔ Failure does not prevent us from progressing, on the contrary, it helps us progress. The process of brain learning is a process of eliminating errors and correcting failures. The so-called experts are those who have tasted every failure on this path.
✔ Getting busy is the most comfortable pace of life. If you don't do anything all day, you won't feel comfortable, only more painful.
✔ Good old people who are always considerate of others in the team and do not have clear self-preferences are more likely to be isolated by the team. Think of others and not lose yourself at the expense of yourself.
✔ Hypnotic experiments have proven that forgotten memories do not disappear, but are stored somewhere in the brain, but cannot be read by the "mind". But it is precisely based on past "memories" that we feel the world, think about problems, and make judgments. Every little memory of each person shapes our personality.
The book "Learning Brain Science" demystifies the brain for us. If you want to have a smarter brain, read this book as carefully as I did. Expect you to get more.