Learning To Learn

by Angela Brownemiller

What is intelligence? Is our success in life predetermined by the level of intelligence with which we are born? If not, if intelligence can be influenced by life experience, what can a parent or an educator do to help raise the intelligence of a child?
Learning to Ways to Nurture Your Child's Intelligence is the provocative response to these and other important questions posed by concerned students, parents, and teachers, as these issues take on international significance. Dr. Angela Browne-Miller, an esteemed educator and clinical social worker, offers important guidance to promote cognitive development in children and to help adults investigate the potential of their own intelligences. She describes methods of stimulating mental abilities and intellectual performance. Dr. Browne-Miller contends that children can be taught how to concentrate, to think, to organize their thoughts - and, ultimately, how to be intelligent. The essence of this excellent book's message is that parents and teachers can create a reality in which children's spirits and minds flourish, providing we all develop our own understanding of mental ability and consciousness. To this end, the author explains how common assumptions regarding intelligence affect parents' views of their mental capabilities and those of their children. Dr. Browne-Miller delves into a number of controversial biological and genetic views regarding intelligence and examines their influence on the development of mental ability.
After a close look at the influence of family life on children's mental ability, the author describes in depth the vital criteria for selecting preschools and elementary schools, taking special care to delineate signs of abuse and neglect as found in a number of such settings. She examines the transitions a child makes from the home to the educational setting, where school success and school problems emerge. For example, the author illustrates how "educational labeling" and "tracking" and the identification of gifted children can have negative psychological and emotional impact. Devoting significant attention to the more cognitive aspects of mental ability, Dr. Browne-Miller carefully describes methods of developing mental ability in young minds, including instruction in strategy selection, concentration, memory, and other functional elements of cognitive ability, as well as processes of association and inquiry that are instrumental in the development of creativity. Learning to Learn concludes its plan for raising mental ability with a fascinating explanation of Dr. Browne-Miller's consciousness technology - the practical methodology for attention, focus, and commitment to mental efforts.
Learning to Learn is an invaluable resource for anyone dedicated to the enrichment of a child's mind, including parents, teachers, early childhood educators, psychologists, counselors, sociologists, and pediatricians.

249 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1994

About the author

As seen on Oprah, Talk of the Nation, US News and World Report, and hundreds of other national and international media, author, speaker, consultant, clinician, psychotherapist, Dr. Angela Brownemiller, aka Dr. Angela ®, and aka Ask Dr. Angela ®, last name also spelled Browne-Miller, has written over seventy books in several genres. Dr. Angela Brownemiller's work and books address health and wellness, mental health, consciousness, spirituality, as well as cutting edge innovative concepts and issues. See www.DrAngela.com for book list, and for more information on this author.

Reviews

[min125 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great practical tips on teaching metacognitive awareness in children. Research based and lots of insight on education.

[Chen Chen · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. Introduction:

It's a book about children's learning, yet the key principles apply to learners of all ages. After all, we are all new to the world of knowledge, and we are all children in some ways.

2. Contents:

Part 1. What is intelligence?
1.1 Two types of intelligence
- Knowledge: the acquirement of expertise knowledge and its operations
- Cognition: the ability to use and interconnect, or mobilize, various domains of expertise knowledge
1.2 Knowledge construction
- Similar to Bayesian update theory, the newly acquired knowledge will be based and constructed upon the existing knowledge systems
- To master new knowledge, be sure to understand the original knowledge structure, and be sure to remember to avoid cognitive biases when assimilating information
1.3 Cognition construction
- Strenuous effort required to develop cognitive ability
- Some practices: drawing associative pictures, plan/think before actions, reflect/summarize after actions, consciously maintain new learnings

Part 2. From home to school: easing children's transition period
2.1 Transition
- Transition requires adaption, and it brings pressure
2.2 What can I do?
- Prepare beforehand: understand the differences between home environment and formal learning environment
- Practice beforehand: develop the discipline and clear communication skills required for formal learning at home

Part 3. Factors to mental development
3.1 Family factors
- Love and emotional contacts: feelings are valid, behaviours that attach to the feelings can be not appropriate, yet feelings themselves were neither good or bad, encourage the children to identify and express their feelings
- Clear communication: be specific, avoid overly generalized statements, either it be positive or negative
- Interdependency and identification: help the children to grow the sense of responsibility toward each other, and foster interdependency among family members, as well as foster children's self identify
- Rules and family activities: establish rules (being organized) and routines
3.2 Physical factors
- eat well: whole grains, fats and protein, vegetables, fruits
- sleep well: 8 hours
- exercise
- live well: organized, enriched learning environments

Part 4. Mental abilities and meta-cognition

4.1 How to learn?

4.2 How to improve problem solving skills?

4.3 How to improve creativity?
- Increase your knowledge storage, or mastery skills
- Draw associations between various domain of knowledge to come up with paths of solutions
4.4 How to improve self-confidence?
- Develop awareness: life is more about overcoming problems; there are phases in problem solving, take every struggle as a challenge, that is, a chance to grow;
- Four phases of intellectual elevation: struggles-> paradox->insights->intellectual elevation
- Use positive langauge: "I cannot do this" -> "I can do this with help and practices"
- Complete tasks: break down bigger tasks to smaller tasks; complete the smaller tasks to increase the sense of achievements;

3. Conclusion:

Learn, learn, learn
Think, think, think
Practice, practice, practice
Understand