How To Stimulate Memory And Learning In Children

Bruno is passionate about maps. At just five years old, he knows how to place Australia, Chile or Iceland without making a mistake and is able to draw detailed world maps from memory. In the library he likes to spend the afternoon looking at children’s atlases. And although his parents installed educational applications for children on his tablet and computer, what he is passionate about is exploring cities, neighborhoods and islands on Google Maps. You can spend hours browsing the world.

His teacher at school has already noticed his interest in this subject and has taken advantage of it to reinforce his writing and reading, as well as skills such as oral expression and group work. He usually entrusts him to find information about a country and then explain it to the rest of his colleagues. Last year they even made a map of the “human” world among the whole class, in which they drew how they dressed, what they ate and where they lived, among many other things, children from other countries of the same age.

“It is about taking advantage of what interests them to motivate them and thus promote learning”, explains Gloria León, Bruno’s teacher. What teachers have long intuited is being demonstrated by recent studies in neuroscience: without emotion, there is no worthwhile learning.

Stress is a great enemy of memory

You can sink your elbows and try to memorize like a parrot, but that will only – and perhaps – allow you to pass, not learn. And without acquired knowledge, there is no critical reasoning. Neither is intuition, essential for creativity.

“Until now from science we had talked about memory, attention, learning, but in a scattered way, without taking into account the basic codes that the brain carries inscribed, as essential as eating or drinking. Learning and learning well has us allowed to survive; if not, we would have already become extinct “, explains neuroscientist Francisco Mora, professor at the Complutense University of Madrid and author of Neuroeducation. You can only learn what you love (Alianza Editorial).

Understanding how the brain works sheds light on the knowledge acquisition process and can help us learn as well as teach better.

Increase motivation

Neuroscientists and teachers agree that, when facing a task or learning, motivation is essential. And what awakens her varies depending on age:

• For university students, a good motivation is to think that after a while they will end up working as doctors, architects or teachers.
• For an older person embarking on a new language course, she may be motivated by the sheer joy of learning.
• For children, the teacher has to encourage motivation.

“The teacher has a great responsibility, to chisel the minds of the students, in the same way that Michelangelo from a piece of marble managed to make something as beautiful as David. You cannot tell Pedro to be attentive in class. You, as a teacher, tell him something curious, interesting, with enthusiasm and you will see how he opens his eyes wide. That means that he is opening the door of knowledge, which is attention. ” Says Mora.

That motivation can be incentivized with gratification. “Any learning must entail a reward. It is a way of stimulating the brain”, considers David Bueno, professor of genetics at the University of Barcelona and scientific popularizer.

For this expert in neuroeducation, the best way to do it is through social recognition. “If a child or adolescent has had a hard time learning something, the best way to keep him motivated is to acknowledge his effort in front of his peers and at home. We are social animals with a huge social brain. That works more than giving him something.”

Emotions help to memorize

Although it is believed that the brain is a kind of supercomputer that archives what is learned in an orderly and organized way, the truth is that it is more like a huge trunk in which memories are deposited without a precise order.

According to the importance of the information, it is stored in:

• Short-term memory. The one used to remember an address or purchase.
• Long-term memory. Necessary for critical thinking.

This knowledge is not stored as it is, but is broken down into fragments that are stored in different neural networks. And, by remembering, those bits of information are retrieved and put back together. For something we learn to pass from one memory to another, the amygdala, a region of the brain related to emotions , needs to be activated.

“Anything that we learn that is linked to an emotion is much more likely to end up in long-term memory,” explains David Bueno, in charge of the popular blog Criatures. Memorizing without understanding or internalizing ideas makes little sense. Often times, that knowledge lasts until the exam and then disappears.

This genetics professor gives as an example something he usually does in his classes with university students. Before writing a formula widely used in genetics on the board, he tells them an anecdote about Tartaglia, the scientist who stated it. “I tell them that Tartaglia was not called that, that was a nickname because he stuttered. The students usually burst into laughter. And the best thing is that they no longer forget the formula, because I have appealed to their emotional brain.”

Techniques to enhance memory

On the other hand, although we now have immediate access to information and it is no longer necessary to remember as many things as half a century ago, that does not mean that memory is not important.

For Jaume Sarraona, professor of pedagogy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​”we continue to need to memorize things to use in everyday life, such as multiplication tables or a certain vocabulary in English, or if we study medicine, the detailed parts of the body.”

Therefore, we must also memorize things, such as lists, that may be difficult to find motivating. A good help is mnemonic devices, such as funny rhymes. In a way, that stimulates the amygdala.

Another hook is repetition, a technique that Sarraona considers very effective “because the more we repeat something, the more it sticks in the mind. But not parrot repetitions, but by engaging in learning. We must teach students to feel excited about it. What do they do”.

Explaining what you have learned can be a good tactic. As they say, you only come to understand something when you are able to make others understand it. “Contact with others is essential in learning, because it activates the social brain”, adds Bueno. The social brain, the newest known part of this organ, makes things much more fixed.

Sleep, move and eat well

Sleep and eating patterns also greatly influence learning ability.

Rest hours, to begin with, are basic. They vary according to age but we all must rest regularly to be able to consolidate new learning. Apparently, it is as if the brain uses those hours to review and reinforce over and over again the brain connections that are established with each new memory.

Likewise, a healthy and balanced diet that provides omega-3 fatty acids is essential for the good condition of neurons.

Sport is also influential. Recent scientific studies have shown that when practicing exercise, a protein is secreted that stimulates the formation of new neural connections and even nerve cells precisely in the memory centers.

“Children should never be left without a playground. Pedagogically it is absurd. Because at that time they are running, kicking the ball, jumping … recharging their energy neurons to learn new things. Punishing them without playing sports is not desirable for the same reason. reason “, considers Bueno, which adds” children have to go both to the library and to the gym. “

Favor the study

Auto-pilot or inattention to what you are doing because you are thinking about something else are enemies of memory. In order not to accustom the brain to using it, small challenges may be posed to it, such as, for example, minimally varying daily journeys, reading or learning a new language or instrument.

The lack of routine creates dispersion and makes study difficult. Helena Matute, professor of experimental psychology at the University of Deusto, advises having a comfortable space, with light and silence in which to get to work every day.

Routine encourages study and concentration, as if the brain automatically prepares itself in that context.

Stress is memory’s worst ally. Trying to get a child to do many things is counterproductive, neuroscientists say. While moderate anxiety can improve productivity, when it is high and sustained it can lead to failure. “If it costs him a subject and we inflate him with homework so that he can reinforce it, the opposite can happen, that he becomes blocked,” says Bueno.