Page 219 - A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

thinking allows thought clouds to drift more easily into new areas of the brain.
Eventually, snippets of these clouds—refined, refluffed—can return with useful
parts of a solution.
Reshaping your brain is under your control. The key is patient
persistence—working knowledgeably with your brain’s strengths and
weaknesses.
You can improve your focusing ability by gently redirecting your responses

to interrupting cues like your phone’s ring or the beep of a text message. The
Pomodoro—a brief, timed period of focused attention—is a powerful tool in
diverting the well-meaning zombies of your habitual responses. Once you’ve
done a bout of hard, focused work, you can then really savor the mental
relaxation that follows.
The result of weeks and months of gradual effort? Sturdy neural structures

with well-cured mortar laid between each new learning period. Learning in this
way, with regular periods of relaxation between times of focused attention, not
only allows us to have more fun, but also allows us to learn more deeply. The
relaxation periods provide time to gain perspective—to synthesize both the
context and the big picture of what we are doing.
Be mindful that parts of our brain are wired to believe that whatever we’ve
done, no matter how glaringly wrong it might be, is just fine, thank you very

much. Indeed, our ability to fool ourselves is part of why we check back—Does
this really make sense?—before turning in an examination. By ensuring that we
step back and take fresh perspectives on our work, by testing ourselves through
recall, and by allowing our friends to question us, we can better catch our
illusions of competence in learning. It is these illusions, as much as any real lack

of understanding, that can trip us up en route to success in studying math and
science.
Rote memorization, often at the last minute, has given many lower-level
learners the illusory sense that they understand math and science. As they climb
to higher levels, their weak understanding eventually crumbles. But our growing
understanding of how the mind truly learns is helping us move past the
simplistic idea that memorization is always bad. We now know that deep,

practiced internalization of well-understood chunks is essential to mastering
math and science. We also know that, just as athletes can’t properly develop their
muscles if they train in last-minute cramming sessions, students in math and
science can’t develop solid neural chunks if they procrastinate in their studies.
No matter what our age and degree of sophistication, parts of our brain