Learning With Your Brain

Learning is a Process of making Pathways in the Brain

From the foregoing description we see that the nervous system is a mechanism for the reception and transmission of incoming messages and their transformation into outgoing messages which produce movement. The brains is the center where such transformation are made, being a sort of central switchboard which permits the sense organs to come into communication with muscles. It is also the instrument by means of which the impression from the various senses can be fused and experience can be unified. The brain serves further as the medium whereby impressions once made can be retained. That is, it is the great organ of memory. Hence it is to this organ we must look for the performance of the activities necessary to learning. Everything that enters it produces some modification within it. Education consist in a process of undergoing a selected group of experiences of such a nature as to leave beneficial result in the brain. By means of the changes made there, the individual is able better to adjust himself to new situations.

When the individual enters the world, he is not prepared to meet many situations; only a few of the neural connections are made, permitting the performance of a meager number of simple acts, such as breathing, crying, digestion. The pathways for complex acts, such as writing and speaking English or French, must be built up within the lifetime of individual. It is the process of building them up that we call eduction. This process is a physical feat involving the production of changes in physical material in the brain.

Learning involves the overcoming of resistance in the nervous system. That is why it is so difficult. In your early schooldays, when you set about laboriously learning the multiplication table, your unwilling protests were wrung because you were being compelled to force the nervous current through new pathways, and to overcome the inertia of physical matter. Today, when you begin a train of reasoning, the task is difficult because you are opening hitherto untraveled pathways. There is a comforting thought, however, which is derived from the factor of mutability, in that with each repetition the task becomes easier, because the path becomes worn and the nervous current seeks it of its own accord; in other words, each act, each thought, tends to become habituals. earning is, then, a process of forming habits; the specific nature of which was described my article at yesterday.

Make School Your First Job

Many students work part time while going to college.
Some even hold down full-time jobs. These students often report that they appreciate their education more because they worked to pay for it.  
Working does have to interfere with getting good grades, but it does mean you have to manage your time carefully. Don’t work too much your freshman year—10 or 15 hours a week is probably plenty.  

Another tip: Schedule your study time like you schedule work. 

Remember, school is your most important job right now. A college education will give you the biggest payoff down the road, so don’t let anything else interfere with it.  

Go to class, participate in discussions, get to know your professors, and make sure you get out of every class what you need to know. After all, you’re paying for it! 

If you can find a job on campus, it will probably be easier to fit your work around your class schedule. And, you won’t have to pay for transportation to get to a job somewhere else.  
Visit your school’s student employment office to find out about job openings on campus. Your professors also may know about jobs in their departments. If you can find a job that’s related to your major, that’s even better. Relevant work experience will look good on your resume when you start hunting for a permanent position after graduation. 

Money- Making Endeavor 
Turn a hobby or skill into a on don’t have to work for someone else to make a few bucks. For example, are you a whiz on the computer or in a particular subject? Offer to tutor students who need help. Do you like children? Advertise to the families of professors and campus personnel that you are available to baby-sit. Put your talents to work and become a young entrepreneur. 

Evidences of Mental Waste

In this respect you are not unique. Most people fail to use their minds to best advantage. A group of college student were examined to see how musc of their time was wasted. More than fifty percent of them wasted thirty-five hours a week. College students presumably represnt the upper intellectual layers of the population. They are supposed to spend the major part of their time mental activity. Most of them probably make a serious effort, yet according to these figures they fail to apply themselves to the maximum degree.

Their proffesors are also derelict. They may lecture in disorderly fashion. When the right word escapes them they "hem" and "eh-," using what sarcastic observer callas the "professorial hee-haw."

Business executives, also representing top-notch "brain workers," suffer from mental lapses. Ask any secretary to tell you how much time her boss spends in daydreaming; how disjointed some of this dictation; how many times he pauses for lack of words; how often he says, "strike that out," "Let's begin over again," etc.