Learning How to Learn (VI): Physical Exercises

Have you ever wondered why there are always sports facilities in good schools? These aren’t placed there just for the fun of it. Schools have sports facilities because educators have realized that physical activities in form of sports, jogging, or even walking helps learning. Every good school has a sports program where they develop the physical aspect of their learners. This is important because as you participate in physical activities new brain cells are born in your brain and this helps in learning.

I recently developed a habit of jogging for the first 30 minutes of my day. I do this 6 times every week and I now find it very difficult not to get off my bed and hit the street jogging. In doing this I have benefitted in interesting ways. First, I realized that it reverses any stress I feel in the morning. I was accustomed to waking up tired and stressed out. It was usual to hear me say, “I am tired,” first thing in the morning. When I jog I feel much stronger and the energy takes me through the day.

Second, I realized that it helped me to process information faster. While jogging I am able to steady my mind on a thought and keep it there until I have the answers I seek.

Third, I listen to audio books while jogging. This means that I multitask and use the opportunity to learn from books that would have taken me a longer period of time to cover. The moment I realised this secret to learning, I make sure I don’t leave my room without an audio book in my phone.

Success Myth #1: You Must Cheat to Learn

You may think after reading this myth that you don’t believe it applies to you but the only prove of believe is in your actions. In my society our learning has been incapacitated by this myth. We have institutionalized examination malpractice. This scourge, which some years back was a tightly kept secret, now thrives enabled by examination bodies, school administrations, invigilators, students and their parents.

The problem with cheating to learn is that it short-changes your brain, crashes your self-esteem, degrades your integrity, removes your dignity, and makes you less likely to render useful service to your society. At the end of it all, after you have cheated your way to examination “success”, you haven’t learned anything.

Contrary to this myth I have met learners who believed in themselves enough and had sufficient dignity to refuse malpractice. They read, practiced, understood, and passed their examinations with very good grades. As I said in the beginning, if one can do it, you too can.

Learning How to Learn (V): Discipline

You must be disciplined to stick to your goal of learning. This means you control yourself to consistently choose only the things that will help you achieve your goal. It also means you obey the laws that guide to the acquisition of your goal. Many people desire to learn something but at the same time desire a hundred other contradictory things. Others desire to succeed in learning but won’t follow the guiding principles. They want the “golden” egg without nurturing the “ordinary” goose that lays it. in both cases they’d meet with failure somewhere along the path.

This seems to be my story in my desire to learn to play the keyboard. Gift, my wife, bought a keyboard some years ago and I want to play. I don’t want to be the next Ludwig van Beethoven or another Alfred Cortot but just to learn how to strike some chords and make something that sounds like music. I have tried a lot of the tricks in the books. I have placed it in front of me, downloaded free tutorials on YouTube, told friends I’d soon be a keyboard player, but have ever since failed to make any progress. If I were to choose one single reason why I haven’t made progress I’d say I am not disciplined to learn it. The time I should use to practice I use to write or read an unrelated book. I’d even readily watch a movie than practice!

Discipline is indispensible to learning. “If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist,” said inspirational writer Neil Geiman. It is true because you require the discipline of writing even at times you aren’t inspired or feel like writing if you’ll be a novelist to be reckoned with.