Charles Leighton, The sluggard
Uncram
‘How We Learn,’ by Benedict Carey
In
“Outliers,” a fixture on best-seller lists since it was published in
2008, Malcolm Gladwell assured us that talent and intelligence matter
little, but that 10,000 hours of practice in our chosen endeavor is all
it takes to become a chess grandmaster, Bill Gates or a rock star as
successful as the Beatles.
Taking
that can-do message toward a Jillian Michaels level of hysterical
intensity was Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” (2011). A
similar but gentler approach came from Paul Tough, in “How Children
Succeed” (2012), who described the benefits of grit and character — the
ability to overcome and learn from failure. Last year, Amanda Ripley
chimed in with “The Smartest Kids in the World,” showing why students in
countries like South Korea perform so well: because they study so much.
Now
comes the inevitable counterattack against these purveyors of the
hard-work school of schooling. In “How We Learn,” Benedict Carey tells
us to ease up, take a break, get a good night’s sleep and stop the
cramming. Instead of beating our brains into submission through 10,000
hours of drudgery, we need to study smarter, not harder.
Carey,
a New York Times science reporter, begins his book with a confession:
He once was a grind. Like those high-school students in South Korea, he
was “the kid who sweated the details, who made flashcards. A striver, a
grade-hog, a worker bee.” Then, after being rejected by all but one of
the colleges to which he had applied, and dropping out after a year, “I
loosened my grip,” he writes. “I stopped sprinting.”
The
softer approach, which he jokingly refers to as “freeing the inner
slacker,” worked well enough for him to eventually obtain degrees in
mathematics and journalism before landing at The Times in 2004. Now he
has devoted his considerable reporting chops to uncovering the
scientific basis of how learning actually occurs, and how we can make
the most of our brain’s natural proclivities: A nap is not just an hour
or two of lost study time; sleep actually enhances learning. Daydreaming
and distraction are good ways to generate creative solutions to
difficult problems. Breaking up study times across days and weeks beats
cramming, even when the total study time is the same. And mixing up your
environment, by trying a new cafe or new music on your earphones, works
better than serving time in a library carrel.
I
very much would like to report that all this makes for gripping
reading. Almost a decade ago, I collaborated with Carey on a profile for
The Times about the psychologist Albert Ellis, and like millions of
readers, I have learned immensely from his many well-reported articles
over the years.
After
a promising introduction, however, Carey makes most of his points by
reciting study after study, with only the occasional cameo of a
psychologist or research subject to break things up. Alas, since strong
narratives and scene-setting, personalities and detailed observation
are the sleds on which data, studies and statistics move in the best
science books.
Some
of these insights, moreover, are already well known and widely applied.
Do we really need randomized, placebo-controlled studies to tell us
that taking breaks, getting a good night’s sleep, and letting ideas
percolate are better than cramming for 48 hours straight on the wings of
Provigil?
Then
again, following Carey’s recommendations, I intentionally read his book
over a period of weeks, and then took a full day’s break before sitting
down to write this review. It helped.
Ultimately,
“How We Learn” makes for a welcome rejoinder to the faddish notion that
learning is all about the hours put in. Learners, Carey reminds us, are
not automatons.
HOW WE LEAR
The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens
By Benedict Carey
254 pp. Random House. $27.
Dan Hurley’s latest book is “Smarter: The New Science of Building Brain Power.”
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