"Learning as 'popular fitness'"
Now, fitness is this huge Thing at the moment, and there is this phenomenon where people are happy to take weird little pieces of advice that they get out of magazines and apply them to their bodies.
We have 6 week exercise plans designed to take you from flabby couch-potato to person-who-can-run - all based around the idea of setting aside a certain time on a certain day to do a certain activity because the piece of paper said so.
We have circuit training, where people have a list of little exercises that are repeated multiple times (because the piece of paper said so).
We have fitness trainers who give tips on shaking up your workouts and diet advice and what have you, and we think about this advice and let it shape the way we approach our lives (because the piece of paper said so).
What if we applied that to learning? What if we had a 6 week plan which asked you to spend 20-40 minutes each day for six weeks (plus two scheduled rest days each week) doing a number of exercises/activities - starting with short, easy activities and building up towards longer, more sustained activities?
What if we had some sheets of "circuit training" routines where we would repeat simple, basic exercises in a set pattern (six minutes of flash-cards, six minutes of close tests, six minutes of tongue-twisters, then repeat)?
What if we regularly read pithy little bits of advice from people who know how to learn, and took it on in the same "hey, that's a good idea" manner that we have when reading running magazines and the like?
Would we (could we) learn better by following advice the same way we exercise better by letting the piece of paper keep us on track?
If we started treating our brains the same way we treat our bodies (when we're treating them like "well-oiled-machines"), what would happen?
