I Literally Just Told You

I spend a lot of my day repeating myself.  I repeat information.  I repeat student's names to get their attention.  I repeat directions over and over and over and over.  While part of this is an issue of attention and listening (particularly when they are just ignoring their own name), some of the problem is also with the mystery of our memories.  The combination of our working memory and how we encode information creates a challenge for teachers as we try to put things into their long-term memories.  

During the pandemic, I discovered a love for British game/panel shows on YouTube.  There's one I am not sure will last long, but it has an interesting premise.  It's called "I Literally Just Told You."  All of the questions in the show are being written live and are about the episode you are watching.  For example, they introduce each contestant as you would on any show, and then the first question might be, "How many children does Darren have?" or "What does Lisa do for a living?"  You would think that, knowing the premise of the show, the contestant might pay really good attention during those introductions.  They might, but they certainly don't remember it sixty seconds later when they are asked.  

Our memories are complex and often paradoxical.  We can be singing an 80s song in our heads, flawlessly remembering every lyric from four decades ago, while walking into the bedroom, only to realize that we have no idea why we walked into the bedroom.  Did I need shoes?  Was I going to make the bed?  Is there a book in here that I want to take to school with me?  I have no idea, but I am still singing "Secrets stolen from deep inside, the second hand unwinds . . ." from Cyndi Lauper's early career while I can't remember the thought I had just twenty seconds ago.  Clearly, recency alone is not what our memories need.

If you attend church, can you summarize last week's sermon?  Your minister worked hard on it.  He structured it in such a way that he hoped would help you remember.  Chances are, it was filled with really important things that struck you upon hearing them.  What about last night's news broadcast.  There was an awful lot of important stuff in there; big things are happening in the world.  Yet, the importance of those story details is not enough for your memory to store it.

For a while, researchers thought memory was related to emotion because of the involvement of the amygdala and because we obviously remember emotional moments vividly (weddings, funerals, where you were when you heard of a tragedy).  Yet, most of what we want to remember and want our students to remember is not inherently emotional.  How would I attach emotion to balancing chemical equations or the quadratic formula?  And, even if I could, is it good for kids?  They are already walking around in an emotional soup, and it may not be ethical for me to add to that.

Could it be frequency?  Maybe I remember the song lyrics because I've heard them so many times.  TV commercials certainly rely on that.  Maybe all the repeating I do is valuable after all, even if it drains my energy.  But . . . ask anyone who has been in a play, having read and heard the lines at every rehearsal doesn't help them on "crash and burn day," the first rehearsal where they are required to be off book.  

This example from the great Daniel Willingham's book, Why Don't Students Like School? shows that frequency is also not enough for your memory.  Which drawing of a penny represents the way an actual penny looks?  There are a few I am certain are wrong.  I know Lincoln does not face left.  But is the year on the left or right?  Yikes!  I am far less sure of that.  I think the motto is on the top, but aren't there some coins where it isn't?  If you are interested, the correct one is G, but the point Willingham is making is that seeing a penny thousands of times doesn't mean you remember its details.

So, how does memory work?  I'd encourage you to read Why Don't Students Like School for the best explanation (or watch Daniel Willingham's TikTok videos (you know I saw them on YouTube) in which he talks about study skills.), but I'll summarize it with this sentence.  We remember what we put effort into thinking about.  As he says it, "Memory is the residue of thought."

Asking your students to think about the material means asking questions.  "Family VIIA is the most reactive non-metal family" is much easier to remember if you understand that each member of that family has 7 valence electrons and only needs one more to fulfill its stability requirements.  So, when I ask students this question in a retrieval activity, I should follow up by asking, "Why is that true?"  Why questions automatically require students to put thought into the meaning of the fact.  It is also helpful to put a fact in the context of relationships.  If family VIIA is the most reactive non-metal family for that reason, what would be the most reactive metal family?  Is the reason the same?  Sort of, so now let's think about the difference.  

This takes a lot of time, and you can't do it with everything you teach.  But if there are things that are going to come up again that you want them to remember and use, invest the time.

As for the directions you keep repeating, write them on the board.  Then, just point back to it when they ask you to repeat it again.