The traditional view of learning (which is often unconsciously assumed rather than explicitly stated) goes something like this:
If you have really and truly learned a thing, then you won’t forget it; and if you do forget it, that just proves that you never truly learned it to begin with.
Under the influence of this myth, we tend to think that the key to successful studying is to work extremely hard, making sure we really know a thing before we move onto the next. Then, once we have truly mastered the new thing, we move onto something else. Inevitably, however, reality kicks in and we forget the earlier thing we learned, leading to guilt and frustration.
This implicit myth about learning is embedded in our school system and influences us from our earliest days. The only problem is that this paradigm has been proved completely false by the discovery of what is known as the “spacing effect.”
The “spacing effect” refers to the principle that human beings and animals learn best when their learning sessions are spaced over a long period of time rather than crammed into a briefer interval. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, studying less, if spaced appropriately, is more effective than studying more.
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