Learning like a little kid

Nature, switching things up over time. (Image by analogicus)

Four-year-olds are incredibly powerful learners.

For that matter, so are adults. But when we go to teach a four-year-old, we're dealing with a different set of constraints. They can't read, their fine motor skills aren't fully developed, and they have a smaller working memory.

Thus, in designing learning experiences for small children, we've got to take these things into account. Ironically, I've then adapted the best practices for teaching small children to my work with adults (including myself).

The main technique I use is similar to a circuit training regimen you might find at Crossfit in a "workout of the day." Such a workout might consist of 10 burpees, 15 push-ups, 20 squats, and a quarter-mile run. You then repeat a certain number of times or until a certain amount of time has passed.

In a fitness setting, there's a lot of value to this type of high-intensity circuit. Just as one muscle group reaches the point of fatigue, you switch to a different one. You don't have a chance to get bored or frustrated. If you're less successful in one area, you have a chance to find greater success in another.

In a special program I designed for Eclectic Music, we start a small child’s music lesson with a few minutes of singing, taking turns in a call-and-response sequence. We quit just before the point where the child's working memory is fatigued. Then we switch songs, pick up an instrument, or focus on a certain musical concept. Over the course of a half-hour, a child might play ukulele, hand bells, piano, autoharp, harmonium, and various un-pitched percussion. They will explore solfege, rhythm, movement, music notation, improvisation, and play a variety of different songs. Each time we pivot to a new activity, we are reinforcing the musical concepts in a fresh way, conserving the energy and focus of both teacher and student.

If that sounds fun to you, you can take advantage of the same approach in your own learning experiences (and even your workday). When (or before) you reach the point of fatigue in a given task, switch to a different, though perhaps related, task. This allows you to take a break without taking a break, which can accelerate your progress.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with breaks, which are an important part of learning, growing, and working. It's just that, for some activities, you can only go so far in a given day. Forward motion is dramatically increased when you use this type of circuit training to extend your daily capacity.

For example, on your first day of learning the guitar, you can only play for a few minutes at a time before your fingers start hurting. If you limited your practice to one session per day until your fingers are sore, you'd be playing for less than ten minutes a day.

Instead, we can switch things up: We can practice chords, scales (which mercifully use only one finger at a time), short melodies (which apply the scales we're learning to actual music), and strumming (in which the sore left fingers get a chance to rest). We could also do some ear training and music theory. Multiple activities allow us to make the most of a thirty-minute music lesson and could yield an hour or more of practice over the course of an evening.

When I'm feeling particularly listless on a weekend day on which there are chores to be done, I'll build a circuit for myself: Write 200 words, fold half a basket of laundry, put four dishes in the dishwasher, mow ten rows of lawn. I can also use time constraints (ten minutes of this, five minutes of that), but I enjoy being able to "beat my score" by seeing if I can complete a subsequent circuit faster. By the time I've reached the end of the first round, I no longer feel the resistance to doing the work. I might even be having fun.

Not everyone needs hacks like this, but they are particularly useful for children, people with ADHD and other learning differences, and anyone whose routine has gotten a bit stale. Keeping the learning experience dynamic and varied can be energizing and inspiring for all of us.