PRESIDENTS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES AND THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION AND WORK

Margaret Truman and Elliot Roosevelt both wrote best selling mystery fiction. Both authors are children of U.S. presidents and both are talented writers. They were double blessed. Of course not all authors are born to famous, or wealthy parents. But the wealthy clearly have more opportunities to obtain good educations and they have the more leisure to write novels.

Life classifies them as winners before they take their first steps.

I wonder how many talented authors, inventors and scientists, we lose because life circumstances rob them of opportunities and doom them to work in factories, garbage trucks or grocery stores.

What if everyone had the opportunity to learn as much as they wanted and the freedom to indulge in leisure? Would we see more great novels, works of art and inventions? We would. We would also see healthier people across all of America.

Work can be a joy; it can also be a drudge. Historically poor people did the grudge work even if their IQ was 190.

Rich people reaped the benefits. Is that fair? Of course, not.

Will it change? The answer lies in how we solve or attempt to solve two of America’s most serious problems. The cost of higher education and the shrinking job market.

Not surprising, all of the presidential candidates have ideas on education.

Jeb Bush who grew up in a wealthy family and who most likely did not have to work his way through college says there is no such thing as a free lunch. Work and work some more and get ahead by work, work, work.

This advice is from a man who never had to dig ditches, collect garbage or clean sewers. If he has never done those things, he can’t imagine how tired a person is at the end of eight hours.

Mr. Bush may not realize that many Americans now work two and even three jobs just to pay for necessities.

When I shop for groceries or pet supplies, I am interacting with people who have part-time jobs. Retail jobs are usually, part-time and minimum wage with no benefits.

Full time jobs are hard to find for many of us even those of us with advanced degrees. College professors, for instance, are now more likely to be part-time adjuncts than full professors. They are forced to work longer hours at more than one job. And they make a fraction of what professors once made.

So if education is too expensive and if the jobs aren’t there, what are we to do? We in working America already work as hard as we can; stop telling us to work harder, Mr. Bush.

What about other candidates? Aren’t Democrats the party that teachers turn to? Aren’t they the education party?

Hillary Clinton says students need to work at least ten hours a week. That sounds like the work study programs already in place. Hillary is not suggesting any changes.

Okay, Mrs. Clinton, let’s make the students work ten hours a week for their tuition. They have to find another job for room and board and textbooks and for cable television. When do they study?

Students need that study time. Jeb Bush had study time. HIs classes and necessities were paid for by his wealthy parents.

Mrs. Clinton says she worked her way through college. So did I. I had a factory job where I worked at least forty hours a week. Overtime was sometimes mandatory. I graduated Magna Cum Laude, so my grades were very good. I spent all my spare time studying and, in fact, had no social life. It took me over ten years because I took one or two classes at a time.

Not many people will sacrifice the way I did, nor should they be expected to do so. So what can we do for students?

Bernie Sanders wants to give all Americans a free college education at public schools. Is this an outlandish idea? Sanders says no and I agree with him. While students are taking these free classes, they will still need to work part time for their rent, groceries and their textbooks.

I would love to have government provide these for them. That way they could concentrate on their educations. If they have free time maybe they can write books like Margaret Truman and Elliot Roosevelt did. Maybe they can have a few carefree years like Jeb Bush did.

Taking students out of the workforce makes more jobs available for those with families to support and house payments to make.

What about the kind of jobs that pay a decent living wage and provide benefits? Those jobs may be a thing of the past. We know that many of the best jobs have gone overseas. We know that factory workers in third world countries will work for low wages and American companies in their greed lost no time in shipping our jobs to those counties.

In the future, robots are set to take over jobs like plumbing and performing surgery that we thought were safe. What do we do when all our jobs disappear?

We can enjoy learning and leisure. Pleasures once available to only the very wealthiest amongst us can be available to all. We can write novels like Margaret Truman and Elliot Roosevelt did. We can take up portrait painting or gardening. We can study history or astrology.

Leisure has never been a dirty word, at least not when applied to the wealthy. The rich man can play golf all day or lay on a deck chair on his yacht. But working class people are expected to slave every day even when jobs are not available.

We can all contribute more to the wealth of the mind and the spirit even if it is just our own individual spirit. We should have the luxury of less drudgery.

Haven’t we been doing the rich man’s dirty chores for too long?

TELEVISION: LIMITS AND E-LIMITS

Smart schooling often requires tossing out the television. Or at least limiting the hours it is on. There is nothing wrong with television like there is nothing wrong with wine and candy. But a diet rich in any of these items is unhealthy. Television is addictive, and children are easy victims of its lure. We would all do best on a diet of one or two pre-selected programs a week.

When we do watch television,we need to learn from it. That doesn’t mean we select a television diet of documentaries and news programs. If I watch a CSI program, I can take an interest in the science. If I watch the “Tudors” or any historic recreation, I can take an interest in the history.

Are there any old westerns playing this week? The American west is rich in history, science, ecology and geography.

MIX AND MATCH QUIZ, FAMOUS COUPLES

For Valentine’s Day here are two lists. The first eleven names are famous wives. The second group of names lettered a -k are famous husbands. See if you can match the husband with the wife. If you don’t know who someone on the list is or was, please look him or her up. This is an educational blog.

For each of the ladies mentioned in the first list, you will find her famous husband in the second list.

It has been said there is a woman behind every successful man. Let me add there is a man behind every successful woman.

I will have the answers tomorrow which is a play day. But if you choose to skip tomorrow, please come back the day after that.

You may also email elfaygo@icloud.com for answers.

wives

1. Elizabeth Barrett

2. Anne Boleyn

3. Julia Dent

4. Amelia Earhart

5. Linda Eastman

6. Farrah Fawcett

7. Alice Hathaway lee

8. Bonnie Parker

9. Alice Roosevelt

10.. Eleonore Roosevelt

11. Joanne Woodward

husbands

a. Clyde Barrow

b. Robert Browning

c. Ulysses S. Grant

d. Henry VIII of England

e. Nicholas Longworth

f. Lee Majors

g. Paul McCartney

h. Paul Newman

i. George Putnam

j. Franklin Delano Roosevelt <

k. Teddy Roosevelt

Shop Amazon Fashion - 20% Off Clothing

Shop Amazon Instant Video - Save on Romance Titles for Valentine's Day

LIFE-LONG LEARNING, BY PATRICK MATHIESON

In this post guest blogger, Patrick Mathieson, answers the question: What is the best way to structure self-education after graduating form college and working full time? This post originally appeared in Quora.

Welcome my first guest blogger.

If you try to set up a comprehensive self-education program all at once, you run the risk of stumbling, missing your ambitious learning goals, and becoming discouraged.

IMO, the better tactic is to develop the habit of learning new things every day. The best way I know to do that is to read constantly. And the best way to read constantly is to always have a book (or books) right next to your bed.

This is what my bedside drawer looks like right now:

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is grab a coffee and pick up a book. When I go to bed at night, the last thing I do is floss -- and then pick up a book. You can see from the above photo that there's not much rhyme or reason to the book selections... just stuff I think is interesting. Every few months I blow a hundred bucks on Amazon and add 7 or 8 titles to my stack.

(Interestingly, you mentioned "neuroscience, mathematics, coding, critical thinking, behavioral economics" in your question details... you might actually enjoy a few of the books you see above.)

I'm sympathetic to the idea that reading materials should be coordinated in an effort to make a "structured self-education" program... but I also recognize that the human brain craves diversity and gets bored easily. Personally, I find it more productive to focus less on what I'm reading, and focus more on reading consistently. If you regularly read books for an hour or two every day (which isn't hard... squeezing in 45 minutes of reading over coffee and breakfast is my favorite part of the day), you can burn through 20 or 30 or 40 books in any given calendar year. That's enough to digest all the seminal works in whichever field you think will help most in your career and still have time for Harry Potter and 50 Shades of Grey.

That said... Quora is a pretty awesome place to learn new things, too. If you can sneak in 30 minutes of Quora-ing in addition to everything I wrote above --- you'll be in good shape. Good luck.

LEARN LIKE A LINCOLN

Abraham Lincoln was an un-schooler. He did not sit in a classroom all day watching a teacher write on a blackboard. He was not surrounded by bullies and class clowns.

In doing manual labor and farm chores, he stayed healthy and fit. In the evenings he read books. Just obtaining a book was difficult for him, but he did find books to read and he engaged his mind with writers and thinkers. As an adult he was a self-taught attorney. Lincoln was in charge of his own schooling, and he received a great education because learning was important to him.

He did not have a teacher or classmates to make fun of his size or belittle his love of learning. We all know bullying is wrong, but schools have not been able to stop it.

Lincoln was fortunate, but today’s students can be fortunate too. Learn more about un—schooling for your children and for yourself. un-schooling could be is a path to life long learning.

Happy birthday, President Lincoln. He was born 206 years ago.

Shop Amazon Instant Video - Save on Oscar Nominees and Winners

Learning Hack of the Day: Pegging Lists

What do the Lone Ranger, The Three Stooges and Mary Poppins have to do with learning faster, easier, better? Read on.

Numbers are best memorized by using associations. There are numerous (no pun intended) ways for creating a numbers pegging list. You could do it by sound.

1 is a bun

2 is a shoe

3 is a bee

4 is a door

5 is dive

6 is a trick

7 is a heaven

8 is a skate

9 is a sign

shape

1 is a tree;

2 is a swan

3 is Mickey Mouse ears (rotated )

4 is a sailboat

5 is a sea horse

6 is a is a musical note

7 is a gold club

8 is a pair of eye glasses (ratated)

9 is a balloon.

There are other methods. My favorite is by association.

1 is the Lone Ranger

2 is dancers

3 is the Three Stooges.

4 is The Beatles

5 is the Dave Clark Five

6 is Number Six from “Battlestar Galactica” actress Tricia Helfer

7 is “The Magnificent Seven” or just one actor from the series. I use Yule Brenner

8 is Dick Van Patton (“Eight Is Enough”)

9 is a Muse

I don't have to stop at nine. I could continue

10 is the British Prime Minister who lives at Number 10 Downing Street or a ten gallon hat.

11 is George Clooney (“Oceans 11')

12 is Brad Pitt (“Twelve Monkeys)

13 Huck Finn who was 13 years old in the book.

14 Woodrow Wilson for his 14 Points or William Shakespeare for his 14 line sonnets.

15 Bart Starr, Green Bay Packer Hall of Famer who was number 15 Use any sports star you wish.

16 a teen age girl who is blowing out the 16 candles on her birthday cake.

17 Mary Poppins who worked at 17 Cherry Tree Lane.

18 a truck driver

19 a golfer

20 Abe Lincoln (a score is 20 years.)

It is not enough to memorize a pegging list; think briefly about the associations and peg them in your mind.When you need a longer number. Put images in your mind and chain them together.

To memorize pi (3.1415926535), I might think about the three Stooges (3) who are goofing around when along comes William Shakespeare (14) who wants to write a sonnet about the Three Stooges. Imagine these men interacting for awhile. Along comes Bart Starr or any foot ball player (15) who wants to show off tossing the ball or kicking field goals. But his muse (9) is holding him back. She is wearing a red gown and a gold chain and she is struggling to keep Bart Starr from playing football. She says he should be writing his memoirs. Shop Amazon - Valentine's Day Savings - Fire HD 6 Tablet Shop Amazon - Textbook Trade-In - Get Up to 80% Back

Learning Hack of the Day: Tweak

Find a system that works for you. When I studied writing, all the books and teachers said a journal should be hand written. It was the best way of getting in touch with feelings. One could sit on the bed, legs swinging, and pretend to be a child again as one scribbled down one's thoughts. Thoughts flowed more smoothly from hand to pen to paper. But computers and on-line journals quickly became popular. As a writing instructor, I taught as I had been taught. Write your journal in a notebook. But I quickly discovered, it is more efficient to type the material directly into the computer. It can be cut and pasted into the stories where fits.

In time planning, I would set aside special hours for cleaning house, exercising and writing. But cleaning and exercising are boring. Writing is hard work. I learned to take fifteen minute cleaning, eating or exercise breaks.

Longhand journals and blocks of time make sense to some people and to lots of writers. I still journal and plan my time, but I tweak it. I make the adjustments that are right for me. You can do the same thing. Shop Amazon - Textbook Trade-In - Get Up to 80% Back Shop Amazon - Find the Value of Your Video Games

Learning Hack of the Day: Initiate Your Own Learning Plan

Our public and private school systems are not set up to recognize genius. Thomas Edison was sent home from school because the teachers said he could not learn. Most budding Edisons in our educational system are just flunked. Too often these children accept the false diagnoses that they could not learn. Unless you have a medically diagnosed learning disorder, you can learn. Know that the failure is often the school system. Stern unfriendly teachers, boring textbooks and regimented activities do not promote learning. If the school system is not working for you, explore homeschooling and unschooling. Find alternatives. Find the system that works for you. Abraham Lincoln had little formal schooling. He was self taught. The best learning for you is the learning you initiate.

Learning Hack of the Day: 52 Cups of Coffee

Here is an idea from Dale Stephens in his book, “Hacking Your Education, Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will.” Stephens is a leader in the Unschooling movement, which shows people how to learn without going to traditional classrooms. Stephens suggests “52 cups of coffee.” Invite someone you don't know, to coffee. Talk with that person for an hour. Learn from him or her. Then ask this person to recommend someone else for next week's coffee. For the price of a cup of coffee you might get a free French lesson, or better yet, a n interesting life story. The world becomes your school. Read his book for more ideas on learning hacks.

Learning Hack of the Day: Free Write in Your Journal

Several days ago, we started a journal because we know whatever career we choose, we will have to be good writers. Journals are practice writing and they help us to be more creative and to think through problems. Journals are to written in daily. To begin with, you might make your journal a diary, but more and more, you will want to get into creative thoughts or explore your feelings or devote the journal to dreams or special topics, like your pets or children or hobby. Every journal is individual. A good journaling trick if you are having trouble finding entries is to do some free writing. Free writing is writing as fast as you can. If you can't think of a word, skip over it. If you can't spell a word, spell it the way it sounds. If you can't think of anything to say, just keep repeating, “I don't know what to write,” Eventually something will start coming out, and you will be surprised at your insight. I remember a student who started out, “I don't have anything to say today.” Then he started writing about his feelings and ideas and ended, “I guess I had something to say after all.” Set a time limit or a page limit on your free writes. If you set a time limit, set a timer for five minutes. Ten minutes might be too long for beginners. Journals are a great way to keep in touch with ourselves. They also make great future reading.

John Langan's Seven Steps to a Better Memory

If you are looking for a good book on getting better grades, check out John Langan’s “Reading and Study Skills.” Adult learners will find it is the bible of books on how to survive in school.  Parents will find lots of help for their children.  Sixth graders and above can read the book for themselves. Struggling students might want to reread it once a year.  Now in its tenth edition, a new copy online  might cost you over a hundred dollars. College book stores will be just as expensive. Older editions are just as good and usually much cheaper.  Go with an older edition, unless assigned the latest edition.
The book discusses attendance, test taking, note taking  and all the other skills, students need.
It was a required textbook in the college classes I taught.  I drilled Langan’s seven steps to a better memory into students, so I hoped they would never forget.
Step One: Organize the material.  Using this step I could introduce Pegging. My students organized material chronologically, alphabetically, or by order of importance.  See my earlier and blog on “Pegging” and “Loci.”.  To really learn anything, you must learn the order.
Step Two: Intend to learn.  So many students think they don’t need English or math and that they can forget the information as soon as the test is over. Decide to learn the material and to keep that learning.  Review previous learning from time to time. I find a good time to review my old learning is when I am walking the dog, biking or doing dishes.
Step Three: Test yourself repeatedly.  Who says the teacher must do all  the testing? Write your own tests.  Quiz fellow students and let them quiz you.
Step Four: Use memory techniques.  Langan introduces his readers to catch words and phrases, but to learn more about memory techniques, read my blogs.  I will also be sharing a list of books that have some of these techniques. Those of you not willing to wait for me to address these topics can look for books by Harry Lorraine, Joshua Foer  or Dominic O’Brien,all of them memory champions. 
Step Five: Space out learning sessions.  Don’t cram for tests. Study everyday, but give yourself breaks. Get up, watch a television show, walk the dog, or eat a sandwich.
Step Six: Over learn. When I would give tests, I would watch the students leave the classroom, take  a deep breath and promptly forget the material.  Spend a little extra time and really learn the materials. I can rattle off the names of U.S. presidents in alphabetical or chronological order. Give me a number from 1-44, and I can tell you what president had that number. I also still know the shorthand I learned way back in high school.
Learning is something you should strive to keep.
Step seven: Study before bed time. We are more open to new learning when we are relaxed. Studies have shown that playing baroque music and relaxing comfortably increases learning.The very best time to study is just before bed time.
While Langan is a great introduction to learning, my techniques go further and show you more. I elaborate on techniques described by Langan and other scholars.  I hope you enjoy my blogs and learn from them.

Speed Learning

By Mary Ann Slavcheff

Now that we know pegging and chaining, are there others ways to speed up learning? There are. 

Mnemonics

Thirty Days Has September, April, June and November.

Fall back; spring ahead.

Red sunset at dawning, sailors warning; red sunset at night, sailors delight.

Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally.

I before E except after C.

There are a few others that night be less well known.

What happened to Henry VIII’s wives?

Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorces, Beheaded, Survived.

What is the order of the planets from the sun? 

My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas.

Songs

People in my generation know what year the battle of New Orleans was fought.  We 

simply remember the first line of a Johnny Horton hit song. “In 1814, we took a little trip along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.”

Many years later Tom Lehrer sang about the “Elements.” Hundreds of kids memorized the lyrics and the elements. Gosh that was fun. And while singing along with Lehner or with their friends, they didn’t even have to use chaining or pegging.

I have an album that includes campaign songs from each president and another album that includes songs from some of the presidential losers.

There are songs about adverbs, adjectives, nouns and even pronouns.

YouTube

You can find most if not all of the songs listed above free on youTube.  I learned American Sign Language on YouTube. I am sure one can take guitar lessons and much more from this site.

I Tunes U.

Say you are taking a class in mathematics, chemistry or political science, and you are having difficulty with the instructor or the textbook. Maybe you have not started the class yet, but you want a preview.  Maybe you already took the class and want to know more. Check out iTunes U.  The lectures are free.  It is a college education without the expense.

Television

I remember hearing students discuss the television series, “The Tudors.” in the elevator at Wayne County Community College. They were surprised that the future Queen Elizabeth I was the daughter of Ann Boleyn, who had seemed to be more of a pretty mistress in the series than a real queen.  While they may have been enjoying the soap opera aspects of the story, they were also learning history.

Growing up in the 1950’s, television westerns started my interest in American history.  Recently there have been movies made about both John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. When films turn to history, the story ideas are unlimited.

But there are also police procedurals and crime scene investigation (to learn science on a dozen levels). One television program was about a mathematician.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor  in her autobiography writes about watching “Perry Mason” on television when she was growing up. It made her wonder not only about the jobs that lawyers do, but also about what the judge was doing.  The rest as they say is history.  She sits on the Supreme Court now.

Prepare, Don’t Compare

By Mary Ann Slavcheff

Students often compare themselves with other students. When we get our tests back, what do we do? We look at our scores and at our neighbor’s scores. “What did you get?”  we ask?

What about final grades?

“ What did you get in the class?”

“What did she get?”

It can be frustrating, if despite all your hard work, someone who you consider a flake  says he got a higher score.

But the competition is seldom about who learned the most. Instead it is often about final grades or scores.  Someone else’s learning is impossible to measure accurately.

Let me tell you a couple of stories.

When I was in high school, I was an awful student. I had problems in and out of the classroom, and teachers considered me hopeless. I didn’t do the work and that was it.  But when I took a shorthand course, I liked those symbols. I took the time to practice and learn them. I should have been doing well, but the instructor wasn’t about to give an “A’ to someone barely passing other classes. There had to be something wrong, if I was doing well in this subject.  I ended up with a “D.” 

But I liked shorthand, and over the years I kept it up. When I finally got to college and became a serious “A” student, shorthand helped me. I could take notes on 100 percent of what the instructor said, if necessary. Of course, that would be too many notes, but I could keep up with even the fastest talking instructor. 

I still take shorthand.

A few years ago I met an old classmate.  She was a serious student then in all the classes that I dismissed.  I remember  how well she did in shorthand. “Do you use shorthand?” I asked her.

“I don’t remember any of that,” she said. “I’m surprised I even passed the course. I couldn’t remember half those squiggles.”

I barely passed the class and still remember it. I was clearly the winner and the real learner. That teacher dismissed me as a goof off because that is how she read me before the class even began. A better teacher would have  recognized my interest and given me the “A” that  I now think I deserved.  But that is all ancient history.

Learning became its own reward for me.

While my old classmate and I were being honest about our grades and what we learned, know that other students sometimes lie.

I remember one of my students whom I will call him Willie. He seldom came to class and when he did come to class, he was unprepared.  He was the class goof off. He made jokes when he didn’t know the answer, so he had entertainment value.

The class ended. I gave him the grade he deserved which was not a passing grade.

The next semester when I walked into the school atrium., several students from that class were sitting around the tables. The goof off student was all smiles. He walked up to me, put his arm around my shoulders, smiled and said,”Thanks for the “A,” Mrs. Slavcheff.”

I didn’t say anything;  there was nothing I could say. It is illegal to discuss a student’s grade with an outsider present. I ignored his comment.

The students who had worked hard and several of whom had earned A’s stood there with open mouths. They couldn’t believe it.

The next few days I would walk into the building and see all those students again. The goof-off Willie would grin at me. “How you, doin’,  Mrs. Slavcheff?” The hard working students looked like I had just harpooned them. They believed he had gotten an “A.”

Finally, I went up to  my angry former students. “If he says he got an ‘A’, tell him to show you his “A.’”  I said.

I had not passed that student. His lie was believed for awhile, but he couldn’t show anyone his “A” because he never got one.  So remember that students lie, the next time someone tells you his grade was higher than you know he deserved.

But does it matter?

Start learning because it is the best thing you can do for yourself, not so you can compare your grade to someone else’s grade.

Pegging: The Alphabet Is a Simple  Pegging List

Last week, we created fun alphabets. I asked all my readers to come up with a fun alphabet of their own. I suggested a list of favorite actors, singers or Facebook friends.  We could now use these alphabets which are forms of pegging lists to learn new material. 

Alphabets are easier to learn than most other lists because they already have an easily recognized order. After you have memorized the items in your fun alphabet, we can use them to memorize other lists.  Remember my fun alphabet of singers circa 1960:

Paul Anka, Pat Boone,  Chubby Checker, Bobby Darin, Everly Brothers, Fabian, Leslie Gore, Johnny Horton, Burl Ives, Stonewall Jackson, Kingston Trio, Brenda Lee, Johnny Maestro, Rick Nelson, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Que Sara Sara,  Bobby Rydell, Neil Sedaka, Johnny Tillotson, Leslie Uggams, Bobby Vinton, Andy Williams, X-Ray , Kathy Young and Zippidy Doo Dah

I  can now use this list to help me memorize another list. Say I want to memorize the first  26 American presidents in order.  A simple  way would be to attach or peg each president to a singer in the fun alphabet. 

I might picture Paul Anka washing a ton of clothes. I even see a scale that weighs piles of clothing and “By George,” says Anka as he is washing a ton of clothes.  I see the picture clearly in my mind.  Anka might be washing dollar bills with Washington’s picture on them.  By associating Washington with the first item in my fun alphabet, it is easier to learn.

If Paul Anka is too much ancient history, use another celebrity whose name beings with A.  Take Christine Aguilera, for instance. 

John Adams is second just like the letter “B.” I use my fun alphabet. Pat Boone (or Justine Beiber)  is singing the theme of the “Addams Family.”  I get a clear picture of my mind and even hear Boone working on those lyrics.  Watch the spellings if you are using this as a school project. John Adams not John Addams.

Thomas Jefferson, our third president,  I will peg to Chubby Checker who  is signing the Declaration of Independence as he does the twist.  It is a fun image, and after all our Civil Rights battles, I like the idea of Checker who is a Black singer signing the Declaration.  With Chubby is George Jefferson and his son or someone named Tom.

James Madison, our fourth president, is pegged to Bobby Darin.  Perhaps Darin is  is  taking a bath on Madison Avenue as he sings  “Splish Splash.”  Maybe Darin is in the cast of the television program “Mad Men.”

The next 21 presidents in order are:

5. James Monroe  6. John Quincy Addams  7. Andrew Jackson  8. Martin Ban Buran  9. William Henry Harrison (Tippecanoe)  10. John Tyler  11. James K. Polk  12. Zachary Taylor  13. Millard Fillmore  14. Franklin Pierce  15. James Buchanan  16. Abraham Lincoln 17. Andrew Johnson  18.Ulysses S. Grant  19. Rutherford B. Haynes  20. James Garfield  21. Chester Arthur  22. Grover Cleveland  23. Benjamin Harrison  24. Grover Cleveland (who served two nonconsecutive terms as president thus he gets the number  22 and number 24 slot.)

25. William McKinley 26. Teddy Roosevelt.

I will let you find your own associations for these presidents.  Use the items on your own fun alphabet or use mine.

Pegging lists can be used over and over. After I memorize the presidents in order, I can use the fun alphabet to memorize the Confederate States in the order they seceded, the state capitals or a list of Plantagenet  rulers in order. 

Alphabets can be used in many different ways. For instance, I might find it easier to memorize the presidents in alphabetical order. Three presidents had names that started with “A.” Two presidents named Adams, John and John Quincy, Chester Arthur.  

Under “B”  we have the two Bushes, and Buchanan.

Under “C” we have Carter, Cleveland (who we have to count twice because of his non consecutive terms) Clinton and Coolidge.

No presidents have names that started with “D” .  President Eisenhower was the only “E”.

I could add numbers later.  For the letter “J”, Andrew Jackson 7, Thomas Jefferson 3, Andrew Johnson 17, Lyndon Johnson 36. We will get to simple ways to memorize numbers in another column.  Usually U.S. presidents are memorized in chronological order, but I like over learning things.  And it is fun to use different orders.

So now we have at least one good pegging list - the alphabet.   If we can memorize all the presidents in any order, we have two pegging lists.   Any list you have already learned, can be used as a new pegging list.

A last note about alphabets. Our alphabet is not the only one. There are hundreds of alphabets and they come in handy in memorizing globs of information. Memory experts use Master Code and Dominic Code, both based on the alphabet to convert numbers into letters and vice versa. 

But alphabets are not the most popular or even the most used pegging list. Believe it or not there is an easier pegging list.  I will introduce you to that one and how it is used in an upcoming column.

SMART TIME MANAGEMENT AND THE ALPHABET AS A PEGGING LIST

BY MARY ANN SLAVCHEFF

       Today as I walked my dog Tiki, I decided to try something different. Instead of memorizing the license plates numbers in order as I sometimes do,  I reviewed the NATO alphabet.  

I had never put a lot of effort into memorizing this alphabet and I had not thought of it for some time. But it was time for a review; I looked at the letters on a license plate and converted them to Nato words. 

For those not familiar with the NATO alphabet it is an international phonetic  alphabet. When someone in the armed forces or a police officer wants to spell out say a license plate he does it with:

Alpha, Brava, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Limo, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee, Zulu

So a  license plate with the letters MAS (my initials) would read: Mike Alpha Sierra.

As I walked and reviewed, I was doing several things correctly as a learner. Time spent walking a dog or doing any mindless task like dish washing or driving a familiar route or folding laundry can also be spent testing ourselves on our knowledge.  I was using my time smartly. 

Using time for two compatible projects is called layering. It is different from multitasking which does not work because with multitasking, focus is difficult to impossible.  I can’t, for instance, give  a caller directions to my home, look up a pasta recipe  and balance my checkbook all at the same time. Each activity needs focus and they are being short changed.

What else was I doing right as a learner as Tiki and I walked? I was Pegging. One of the reasons the NATO alphabet was easy for me to memorize because it it an alphabet.  I already had the order down.  I just had to learn a list of associations.

Associating new learning with something already learned like the alphabet is called Pegging.   It has many forms, but let’s take one of its more basic forms which is a simple list like the alphabet. 

If the alphabet sounds too simplistic for those of us beyond kindergarten, then make it fun.  Create fun alphabets  or use one already created like the NATO alphabet. 

Okay, so the NATO alphabet isn’t fun.  What is a fun alphabet anyway?

I grew up in the 1950’s and early 60’s and like a lot of adolescents and teens, I loved certain recording artists. I bought their records and put the long playing records  in alphabetical order according to the singer’s name. To this day I remember that order.

Paul Anka, Pat Boone, Chubby Checker, Bobby Darin, Everly Brothers, Fabian, Leslie Gore, Johnny Horton, Burl Ives, Stonewall Jackson, Kingston Trio, Brenda Lee, Johnny Maestro, Rick Nelson, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Que Sara Sara,  Bobby Rydell, Neil Sedaka, Johnny Tillotson, Leslie Uggams, Bobby Vinton, Andy Williams, X-Ray , Kathy Young and Zippidy Doo Dah.

Note that where I did not have a singers name I made a substitute, songs for Q and Z and then the reliable X-Ray for X.  I also selected only one singer for each letter of the alphabet.  Having too many names could confuse me.

This list was easy to learn by just imagining my record collection. Later when I had a nice collection of DVD’s I could do the same thing with titles.

I have an actors list too.  Alan Alda, Dan Blocker, Jack Cassidy, Johnny Depp, etc. We could also create lists of sports stars, fictional character, words associated with a hobby or historic period.  We can create dozens of alphabets. I suggest working with just one fun alphabet until you get more practice.

You might get stuck on some letters like I did with my singers.  For those words that start with difficult letters have something that can be unrelated nonsense ready to plug in.

X = Xena, the Warrior Princess; Xanth, a fantasy land created by author Piers Anthony;  X Men, X Box or Xmas.  Z could stand for Zorro, Zipper, Zip codes, Zoey  or Zippidy Do Dah

If you get stuck too often  often enlarge your topic. Instead of names of boats, have transportation as your main category. Then you can include cars and even airplanes. When you get to “Q” you have the Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth both legendary ships, or you can also choose an aircraft type for which there are designation codes for most letters of the alphabet. 

What a great excuse for memorizing aircraft designations. It is now a fun alphabet.

The alphabet can be a great learning tool. Too bad it is often dismissed as too simplistic.  It has an easy order and it has already been learned; it is easy to tack new information onto it.

Create your own special alphabet, use the NATO  alphabet, or my list of singers circa 1960.  Now we all have at least one pegging list. In my next blog, I will show you how to use a pegging list.  Over the next several weeks, we will create other pegging lists. 

Pegging lists are as simple as ABC. The alphabet is not the only type of pegging lists. There is even a simpler method of pegging.  We will learn that too.

Then we will learn another technique.

Introduction

Can we learn faster and with less effort?  Can we discover smarter ways of doing things? We live in a world where new information constantly assails us. New technology often requires retraining.  Our children come to us with help with their school work. Do we remember the algebra, the history, the chemistry?

Can we learn faster? The answer is yes. We can learn more, learn it faster and keep up longer and we can enjoy the learning.

For many years, I taught study skills. Many of of my students already had  difficult experiences in school, and some felt they could not become good learners.  But all they needed was to learn a few simple techniques.  They also needed to believe that they could learn.  Our self confidence is often shaken in school. We sometimes learn more about how difficult it is, when learning is really easy. Even the toughest subjects can come faster and easier.

The techniques I showed my students and that I will show my readers  were used by ancient scholars who needed to memorize every word and detail of some very complicated material. 

When books were rare and very expensive to reproduce, knowledge was handed down orally by poet singers.  History, science, literature, mathematics and all branches of learning were shared by memorization.

The Bible, the Illiad, the Odyssey and much of ancient history and astrology came down to us because people memorized it.

The best teachers including Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, advised against using textbooks.  They wanted their students to have the knowledge in their heads, not on a piece of paper.   These teachers also knew how easy learning could be.

Over the years, however, we have learned to depend on books to supplement and preserve our knowledge. Books and online databases seemingly have made it easier to access information. This is not learning.

We still need to put some of this knowledge in our heads and keep it there. We must also know how to access that knowledge from our heads when we need it.  The book or database may not always be available. 

How many of us can list the presidents of the United States in order, recite the state capitals or recite pi to tenth?  Do we know the order of the planets from the sun or the classification of animals and plants?

It is a shame not to learn when learning is so easy.

Real learning means not only knowing what book or website to go to  to look up the answers.  If we are going to be respected in our fields, we also have to have many facts in our heads. We can all have encyclopedic minds if we want them.

Memorization is still the core of learning. But too many people think it is tedious and boring. The only method some students have for memorization is repetition. And while some repetition is necessary, it is not the only memorization technique.  It is just the only technique that most people can name.  

Not knowing that there are other techniques, we are forced to over use repetition which many of us hate.

Yet senators in Rome were able to memorize long speeches with very little effort or repetition.  I can show you how they did it.  Remember when you were a preschooler. Learning was fun then, and it can be fun again.

The ancients knew lots of great tricks.  When it came to learning, they were practically magicians. But the ancients were not the only ones who showed an interest in learning faster. and easier.  

Some of today’s top scientists studied accelerated learning techniques. They discovered, for instance, that playing baroque music, doing deep breathing exercises and using positive self talk could boost learning speed.

Other scientists studied hundreds of the world’s greatest geniuses including Leonardo Da Vinci, Mark Twain, and even Vince Lombardi and Walt Disney.  One thing that all these people had in common was that they kept diaries.  I will even write a column about  keeping a diary and how it can assist in learning and  creativity.

Who knew there were so many ways to learn faster and think better?

The techniques themselves are all simple. Kindergarteners can learn them. And those who want to keep or rediscover the  the joy of learning should want to know them.

Of course, not all of us are in school. Some of us are looking for a job, learning a new job or working to keep up with the job or hobby that we already have.  I can give you some tips here. Learning is a lifelong activity and the more we know about how to do it and the more we believe that we can do it, the better off we will be.

I hope that students of all ages will let me help them learn better and with less effort.