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“You know,
if you just studied, you would get better grades.” If I had a nickel for every time this was
said to me growing up, let’s just say I would not be worrying about how to pay
for my genealogy habit. This phrase was said
so many times, by so many people, I just tuned everyone out. Why?
Well, no one ever sat down and actually explained to me what “studying”
was. They all assumed I understood.
My first
week of high school, we were tortured by our Honors English teachers with 3
days of videos. I can’t even recall what
the name of the video was, but I do remember being bored out of my mind and trying
not to sleep most of the time. The video was a middle-aged man, with a sweater vest and khaki pants, pacing around on a stage, telling me how to be a better student. His technique had worked for thousands of students and it would work for us, too—guaranteed! It obviously made an impact from the snores
heard around the room. For the next year
our teacher would remind us that if we just followed those principles we would
have done better in her class.
It’s not
that I was a recalcitrant kid. I just had a mixture of “I don’t care” and
cluelessness that was a real point of frustration for the adults in my
life. Simply put, I was bored to tears,
even with Advanced Placement and Honors classes. Year after year a concerned teacher would pull me aside and tell me that if I just studied, or tried harder, I would easily make honor roll. It’s not like I wasn’t
trying, or at least that is what I thought.
I excelled in subjects that I was enthralled with and struggled to pass
those that didn’t catch my attention.
The perplexed looks on my parents’ faces at report card time, when their
daughter who could barely pull a C math brought home A’s in analytical geometry,
was priceless.
“If you
would just study.” “You are so smart, we
hate to see you struggle.” “Your
potential is just lying there, you really need to tap into it.” Do you see a trend here? I had adults talking at me about studying,
but because I was so smart no one took the time to actually try and help me
learn how I should study. It took until
my junior year of college to figure out what studying meant, for me.
When I was
in middle school I came home with an assignment to study for my first world
history test. I didn’t know what to do. After staring at my books I walked into the
basement where my dad was folding the laundry.
Down there on the cold concrete slab, with the whop, whop, whop of the
dryer tumbling, I asked my dad, “I’m supposed to study, what do I do?”
Whop, whop,
whop.
“Well, did
you read the book?”
“Yes.”
“Did you
pay attention in class?’
Whop, whop,
whop.
“Yes.”
“Well it
sounds like you studied to me.”
And that
was it. I put my shoes on and went
outside to play with the other neighborhood kids. Today, I can’t remember what I received on
the test, but it doesn’t matter. That
piece of advice stuck with me for the next decade.
The point
is, I didn’t get it. More importantly,
neither did anyone else in my life. It
seems that people just assumed that I would get it, eventually, or that I was
just being lazy, which actually was a fair conclusion in a lot of
circumstances.
The key is
everyone studies and learns differently.
While our tricks may work for other people, I honestly don’t believe
that there is ever a 100% foolproof way that will work for everyone out
there. What is key is that you develop a
way that works for you and stick with it.
For the
field of genealogy this is important. We
are a group of adults, many of whom are coming to it later in life, and we must
self-educate ourselves. If you are
lucky, you already know what works for you and what doesn’t. If you aren’t, well how are you going to
buckle down and fast-track your education?
Here are a
few tips to keep in mind the next time you to need to “Study” a new technique
for your genealogy pursuits. Maybe one
of them will help you figure out the right way for you to study and learn
information to make you a better genealogist.
· Highlight doesn’t mean color the
page.
Highlight is just that, calling out a key point. It doesn’t even have to be a full
sentence. You could highlight a few
phrases in a paragraph so that when you come back later those are the first
things your eyes are drawn too. This
works well for visual learners who take cues from the images they see.
· Notes are not transcriptions, they
are actually more like abstracts.
Once again, focus on the key points. These could be definitions, diagrams,
important steps, etc. Draw out the
concepts that you need to remember and put them down on paper. This works well for kinetic learners who take
cues from doing things.
· Ambience, or study music, shouldn’t be heard two tables away.
A lot of people can’t work in absolute silence. Some need a TV on, others like listening to
music. The important thing to remember
is that it should not compete in your head with what you are trying to do. If you find that you are pausing to listen to
the music or watch the TV, then it is a distraction you don’t need. This works well for audio learners who can
remember things when they put it to sound or music.
· Patterns are all around us, use them
to your advantage.
Connecting the dots in our research comes naturally to many
genealogists, but what about connecting the dots in the manuals we are learning
from or the lectures we attend? Find the
patterns imbedded in the ideas coming at you.
Do they cross subjects making a larger pattern that can connect puzzle
pieces over a number of topics? As you
learn you should be able to connect new information to something you already
know. Once you make connections to past experiences
(or research you are doing) it is less likely you will forget it. This technique works well for visual learners
who can see what they read and associate images with words.
· It’s true, if you don’t use it you
will lose it.
A great way to retain information you learned is to teach it
to someone else. Teaching makes you
think about what you read, put it into new terms, digest it, then turn it into
something that another person can learn from.
The questions your listeners come up with will also help you. Even if you don’t know the answer and have to
get back to them after you look it up, it was a learning experience. Just another way for you to remember and
build on the subject you already know.
This is a great technique for people who are audio learners since
talking will reinforce the ideas in their heads as well as kinetic learners who
like to do things.
· Don’t do too much, just focus on the
task at hand.
Yes, I am guilty of multi-tasking. One of my favorite things is to listen to
podcasts while I am exercising or driving in the car. However, if it is something I really want to
buckle down and learn I have to give it my full attention. Even the act of driving takes away from the
act of learning. When you set out to
read, write, listen, or learn something new give it your full attention. Set aside learning times if you need to. Create do not disturb signs for your office if it gets your family to leave you alone.
Learning is serious business and you should treat it seriously.
If you
would like to read more on the subject, make sure to read my past guest posts
on the NGS blog.
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