The Secret of Learning: Why Don’t Students Like School?

The Secret of Learning: Why Don’t Students Like School?

Many years later, most of what we learned in school seems to have vanished with the sands of time. We joke about it by saying, “We’ve returned all our knowledge to the teacher.” But the harsher truth is that, in most cases, even the teachers’ names have been lost somewhere along the way. We can no longer remember what knowledge we were supposed to return, nor to whom, so the matter simply fades away.

And yet, among the many, there are always a few teachers we never forget. “He gave me an important piece of life advice that set me on a different path.” “She cared for me deeply and helped me get through the turbulence of adolescence.” “He was witty and humorous, and left behind so many jokes and stories.” “She explained things clearly and simply, and every class taught us a great deal without us even noticing.” “He was very strict, and once gave me a hard lesson I never forgot.” Like most memorable figures in our lives, the reason we remember these teachers seems to have more to do with their character, charisma, or the relationship they built with us than with the fact that “he explained the theorem of momentum so thoroughly that I understood it deeply and remembered it for life.” Even with the teachers who left the strongest impression, we probably cannot recall even a tenth of the knowledge they taught us—unless we have continued working in that field, using and practicing it over and over again. And that constant repetition and practice is one of the most important secrets of learning discussed in Why Don’t Students Like School?

Repetition and deliberate practice can hardly be called a secret anymore. The famous “10,000-hour rule” says that if you deliberately invest 10,000 hours of practice in a field, you can become an expert in it. In many real-world cases, this idea does seem to work remarkably well. But why? In Why Don’t Students Like School?, through examples from schools and students, combined with the author’s research in educational psychology, the book reveals the secret behind practice. And that secret may help parents, teachers, and students rethink learning itself, potentially leading to major improvement and breakthroughs in study. For that reason alone, the book is well worth reading.

The book points out that the difference between novices and experts is not simply that experts know more basic facts, but that through training they are able to turn tasks into memory and habit. Take chess as an example. Once you know the basic rules, you can be said to know how to play. But only through enough games, enough memorization, and enough repeated exposure to patterns—until they become part of habit—can you become a true master. In terms of raw intelligence alone, a chess expert may not necessarily be smarter than a beginner. What makes the expert stronger is that training and memory have replaced much of the basic thinking, freeing up more mental space for higher-level thought. The author argues that the brain’s capacity for working and thinking is extremely limited, so most of the time we tend to avoid thinking rather than actively engage in it. Because the brain’s workspace for conscious thought is limited, we cannot process too much information at once. Only after repeated training has stored large amounts of information in long-term memory, turning them into habits, can we use our working space for deeper thought.

Take driving as another example. A new driver lacks the necessary long-term memory and habits, so the process of driving relies heavily on working memory. They must constantly remind themselves to check the speedometer, the tachometer, the mirrors, and the turn signals. As a result, they must concentrate completely, tire easily, and often fail to react in time in emergencies. But after long-term practice, experienced drivers turn most of these basic operations into habits stored in long-term memory. Driving then occupies only a small portion of their working space, leaving room for chatting, listening to music, or making phone calls—though of course these are dangerous behaviors and should not be encouraged. More importantly, when danger arises, they still have enough spare working space to react and avoid it—unless that space has already been taken up by distractions.

This is enough to show the importance of training. In this sense, the large amount of drill and practice commonly seen in school is important and necessary for learning. First, repeated training allows us to build memory structures like those of chess players, enabling us to solve many problems through memory and habit rather than through complicated thought every single time. Second, training lets us store patterns in long-term memory and turn them into habits, so that when we encounter difficult problems, we can, like an experienced driver, mobilize spare working space to deal with them. Among all the factors that determine most students’ academic performance, large amounts of deliberate and effective practice may be the deepest secret behind learning. Comparing this theory with my own personal experience, I find it deeply convincing. And beyond this core idea, the book also presents and analyzes many other interesting and valuable theories and perspectives on learning, all of them quite illuminating.

For example, in the short term, last-minute cramming before an exam can actually be very effective. Intensive short-term practice may temporarily push a large amount of material into long-term memory. As a result, a student who spends eight hours cramming right before an exam may very well score higher than a student who studies one hour a day for the previous eight days. However, if the test were given a month later—or even a week later—the student who reviewed steadily over time might very well outperform the crammer, simply because their memory lasts longer.

Another example concerns the importance of background knowledge and analogy. The author gives two cases. In the first, one treatment for cancer is to use radiation to kill cancer cells. But the healthy cells along any one path are too fragile: if the radiation is too strong, the healthy cells will die first; if it is too weak, it will not kill the cancer. So what should the doctor do? In the second case, a general wants to attack a fortress. Every road leading to the fortress is narrow, so too many soldiers cannot pass through any one road. But if he sends too few soldiers, they will be unable to take the fortress. So what should the general do?

These are actually the same problem. Yet most people may feel completely stuck when faced with the first one, while quickly thinking of the solution to the second: divide the army and attack from multiple roads at once. In fact, this is exactly how radiation treatment can work as well—using multiple weaker beams from different angles to converge on the tumor. Most people, however, have plenty of background knowledge about siege warfare from stories and games, but far less background knowledge in medicine. Since knowledge is largely memory-based, it is difficult to transfer and make associations from one context (medicine) to another (siege warfare). Once we understand the importance of background knowledge, it becomes clear that in teaching, supplementing and preparing that background—not just presenting the knowledge itself—may greatly improve learning efficiency.

Beyond these ideas about learning itself, the final part of the book speaks at length to teachers in particular. In classroom activities, teachers occupy the leading role most of the time. Therefore, after understanding these various secrets of learning, the most important value of this book may lie in how teachers can use them to guide instruction—so that students may come to love school and love learning.