The Motivational Blues: Pt. 2

At long last, here is Part 2 of the post about common causes of feeling unmotivated when in the middle of tackling a learning project. (Part 1 is here.) And just like before, I will suggest to you some solutions to these common problems. So, if you didn’t recognize yourself or your problems anywhere in the list of that previous post, maybe today you will find out something helpful. Are you are currently feeling so blah in your project because:

You have lost perspective.

If you are absolutely sick at the sight of the books/DVDs/PC you are working with and learning with, perhaps it is because you have forgotten why you wanted to do this in the first place. If so, it’s time to talk to yourself again:

Why are you learning this subject? What did you originally hope to do with it? Do you still have an interest in or a need for this body of knowledge or set of skills?

Spend three minutes going over the answers to those questions. If your original reasons do still matter to you, then set the timer and begin studying once again. However, you might find that your old reasons are totally irrelevant now. Here is an official permission statement: Feel free to abandon the projects that do not deeply matter to you. Then, begin on one that does matter to you, and keep yourself going strong.

Perhaps you are studying for the wrong reasons. Did someone else tell you to, strongly encourage you, or strong-arm you into this endeavor? Usually, extrinsic motivation like that does not work for long, or work well. Choose projects YOU want to do, and always keep in mind why you want to do them.

You aren’t using appropriate material that works for you.

Do you know a lot about yourself? Do you know how you learn, what makes remembering things easier for you, and what you are naturally adept at?

For example, if you are an extravert who can’t sit still for two minutes together, you’ll need to respect that fact in your projects. Find what methods and materials work with your learning style and level of expertise.  Don’t expect to sit down with a book and a piece of paper for three hours of uninterrupted work every morning if you are naturally sociable, in motion, and aware of everything that’s going on around you.

Always work with your temperament and natural style, not against them. Fit your projects to your personality.

You are frustrated because it is taking too long. 

As they always say (rightly), patience is a virtue. Maybe you are simply looking for humungous gains in your improvement much too quickly. Realistically, it will take months to years to really get good at something. “There are no shortcuts,” as one of my favorite educational writers (and school teacher) Rafe Esquith, reminds his students.  If you can be more patient with yourself, you’ll enjoy the whole journey and your explorations while you are making them.

One trick I have to use on myself is making milestones for measurement. If you are improperly measuring your progress or the size of your project, it is easy to feel like you will never, EVER make it! Solution: Establish mini-goals during your project, and ways to test yourself. (More on this below.)

I have also learned that suffering of this kind can be alleviated by accomplishing some immediate application. Find a way to use your knowledge/skill now in a small way. Send someone a photo of your half-completed project. Translate the Spanish instructions on the back of your dishwasher detergent. Write up a short article explaining everything you have learned about your topic up to now and why it is important. Find a quick way to show what you know, and document your progress. Step by step, you will achieve your goals–and each step is valuable.

You are just completely floundering and feel helpless.

Consider if for all this effort you are making to learn, what you really need is a mentor/guide/helper. Find one. Sign up for a class, hire a tutor, or enroll in a program. Sometimes we just aren’t able to do it alone, and that is okay. With your enthusiasm, willingness to learn, and hard work, you will be someone’s dream student. Mentoring will benefit both of you.

On a smaller scale, perhaps what you need is simply an accountability partner or outside structure. You need someone besides yourself to observe and measure your progress. Again, sign up for class, or perhaps you can call a bossy friend. Always remember, work with yourself, not against yourself, or in spite of yourself. You can do this! There is always a way.

You feel you don’t have a sense of accomplishment/closure.

If you can never tell if you’re done, or when you will be done, with a learning project, this is probably because your evaluation methods/measures are faulty. Maybe they don’t exist. For each project we do, we need to measure progress within it properly. Of course, some projects are easier to do this with than others. Often, books have objectives and end-of-unit reviews built in. And if you’re learning to build a model plane, for example, you can mentally gauge what percentage you are through a project, ultimately knowing that when all the pieces are glued together, it’s done.

Based on your current project, create your own milestones that make sense for you: celebrate every finished chapter, mark down every completed 25%, commemorate every newly-developed skill—and look forward to achieving each of these milestones throughout your project.

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There you go: now you have a total of ten tips to help you combat the study motivation blues. I hope you can use them to pick yourself back up and restore your zest and exhilaration to the work  of your studies. Be sure to leave a comment if you think of some more!

From Poor Richard: Advice for Autodidacts

Lately I have been reading over selections from Poor Richard’s Almanac. I love anthologies of old-timey wisdom! Not only have I been reading them, but also copying sayings I find especially apt into my notebook. I know that Benjamin Franklin did not originate most of these pieces of advice that he published in his almanac in his printer days, and that he liberally selected phrases and ideas from other folks. But whoever wrote them, I find them fascinating tidbits on how to live life, from a very different time and place. They still hold true, however, since human nature doesn’t ever change.

Much of Poor Richard’s advice relates to savings, hard work, and persistence in business. Thrift and industry are important to me, of course, but today I have selected items that will be of interest to autodidacts like me. Below are some aphorisms to encourage students of all kinds.

First off:

The Muses love the morning.

Yes, get started as early as you can with intellectual work. Being a natural early bird, I was happy to see this one back up my own preference.

If you have time, don’t wait for time.

But that sentence is hard for everybody to follow. However, committing it to memory and using it remorselessly on myself has helped me resist procrastination lately.

But I like this one even better:

Would you live with ease, do what you ought, not what you please.

Motivate yourself to do the hard stuff with that sentence. Sure, it’s hard right now, but the future will be easier because of how much consistent effort you have put into your projects.

But why should you work so much to improve your knowledge and skills?

He that hath a trade, hath an estate.

This applies to students of all types, not just apprentices of the 18th Century. Whatever you set out to learn, if you persist and become expert, you can probably find a way to make some money with it. (And I don’t mean just by tutoring, either.)

Especially for high school and college students, this is wise advice:

In studying Law or Physick, or any other Art or Science, by which you propose to get your Livelihood, though you find it at first hard, difficult, and unpleasing, use Diligence, Patience, and Perseverance; the Irksomeness of your Task will thus diminish daily, and your Labour shall finally be crowned with Success. You shall go beyond all you competitors who are careless, idle, or superficial in their Acquisitions, and be at the Head of your Profession. Ability will command Business, Business Wealth, and Wealth an easy and honourable Retirement when Age shall require it.

Thinking about the future will help you to do what you need to do today, every when it’s really, really hard.

And don’t forget, no matter how hard it seems:

Little strokes, Fell great Oaks.

Each little bit that you study day by day will add up. You will be amazed.

The Motivational Blues: Pt. 1

We have such great ideas and ambitions to learn and do new things, but it’s hard going at times. Sometimes it’s just painful. As an autodidact, you have taken responsibility for learning something, reading a great book, honing a skill, or improving yourself in some way, by your own disciplined efforts. The first two days, it’s usually fantastic. Full of exuberance and excitement, you commit to learning German, or how to write a novel, for example, and put in the time eagerly. And then reality hits. After a short time, you meet a wall. You put off, postpone, and putter around with stupid things you don’t even like to do, in order to avoid your project. Motivation is gone.

Oh, I know well how that feels! Lately I have been trying to learn Latin, read Macbeth, continue studying the American Revolution, and write a book. Any of these wonderful projects on a given day can seem like absolute torture. Thankfully, these aren’t my first efforts as an autodidact. Learning is a way of life and a hobby for me.  And so consequently I have had years to observe, read, think, and strategize about motivation, and what to do when it takes off and leaves me.

Today’s post (and there will be more in Part 2 later!) examines some common causes of feeling unmotivated to work on your projects. Even better, it also suggests some solutions for you. Maybe you will say, “I have that same problem!” and get some ideas that will help you get back to your project, encouraged. So without further ado–

Do you have the motivational blues because:

• You think you’ll never be able to do it.

You’re just not organized enough, smart enough, talented enough, etc…for this learning project. So you may think. But…I read a wonderful book years ago by a psychologist and educational researcher that demolishes those myths. If you think you can’t do it, I want you to know that Dr. Carol Dweck’s research says you can! Get into the right mindset, what she calls a “growth mindset.” Her book Mindset describes people across all walks of life–athletes, students, CEOs–and what made them succeed or fail.

What makes people successful? The growth mindset, which is basically persistence and patience in learning, one step at a time, while being confident that your efforts will pay off. The brain is able to change and grow, and so you will be able to grow your own as you practice and learn. Of course, I highly recommend her wonderful book if you are interested in this topic. But for now, know that it’s true that “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Know that if you persist, continuously tweaking your methods/style/materials, you will surprise yourself with your success. You CAN do this.

• There’s just too much tedious work to do.

You might be unmotivated because you see a mountain of work to slog through. Ah yes, learning does require hard work, if you want mastery! However, this obstacle is surmountable with the handy tool that is on every cell phone: a timer. (I like the old-fashioned kitchen kind, too, that gives that triumphant trill when it rings!) When you are tempted to skip your study session for the day, try this trick. Tell yourself, “I will just do a short 10 minutes of studying today.” Set that timer and get to work. When it rings, you are free!

Perhaps you think you can’t do much in just 10 minutes. Give it a try and see. Even if you only have time to review what you have already done lately, it will pay off big time. And of course it is much better than skipping the work altogether. Bit by bit you really can get a big, tedious project done!

• You feel isolated and alone.

Some of you dear readers might be in school, studying the same topic together with dozens of other students, under the watchful eye of a teacher or professor. Most of you, however, I would guess are not. It is easy, as an autodidact, to feel isolated as we undertake, on our own, giant learning projects.  Doing the work on your own, day by day, while having to defend your project to family and friends who can’t understand why you want to put in all this time and energy, presents a series of uphill battles on the road to accomplishing your goals. It’s really, really hard sometimes!

So I would suggest joining a group in your local area that is somehow related to what you are studying. The benefits of being with other people who have a common interest and meeting  face to face are manifold. Failing that, if you are learning extremely obscure subject matter, my advice is to join a group online. Find a good fit with an e-mail group, forum, or other type of website with kindred spirits studying what you study. You will then be surrounded by fellow thinkers, and see that what you are doing is valuable to many people besides yourself.

• Your life is just too busy.

This one has a simple, but perhaps not an easy solution. You think your project can’t fit into your maxed out schedule? Well, for anything you already regularly do, you have carved out the time for it and made a routine. Now you will have to do that again for your study project. As hard as it may seem, if you really want to pursue your goals you will have to either  1) substitute study time for a half hour of TV or other entertainment or 2) “create” new time in your day, for example by getting up earlier in the morning or staying up a little later. Yes, this is difficult. But is your project worth it? Happily, once you have spent several days with your new routine, you will become used to it, and it will not be so difficult anymore after a short while. “Too busy” is a state of mind that can be changed.

• You are bored with this topic.

Before you dispiritedly throw your efforts completely out the window, see if you are like me. Constantly, I start projects going and have topics I work on with intense activity. But always after a few weeks or months, the initial energy I started with fades away, and I move on to something else. So people think I have no stick-to-itiveness. However, this is not true!  I simply live and work by cycles. Eventually I will come back to topic #1, after I have cycled through work on project #2 and spent time studying areas #3 and #4. Progress is always made–it’s just gradual and more spread out for me than for some other people. When it’s time to pack my Shakespeare back up, because I am studying Latin again, I know the time will come for me to get those plays back out again someday. And that’s okay! I am what author Barabara Sher calls a “Scanner.” (And a “Cyclical Scanner” at that.) There are many different kinds of us, and we need to know that our minds work this way. We are not broken, we are just different. Check out her book if you think you may be a Scanner, too. Boredom is not forever!

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                Which of these resonates with you most right now? Have you found something in this list that is a recurring issue in your own life? Leave a comment below and we can compare notes.

Next week we will look at several more reasons we lose motivation at times, even on our favorite projects and with very interesting topics. We can indeed do these great things we plan, if only we plan ahead for the hard times, and build in solutions and strategies for managing our motivation.

To be continued…

Starting with Shakespeare

Do you have a confident and cultivated appreciation for the works of William Shakespeare? Or, do you envy those who do? (Or, have you often wished that you really even gave a darn about any of it in the first place?)

I’m lucky enough to be a Shakespeare fan, although I certainly don’t consider myself “cultivated” yet by any means. Being introduced to the Bard’s works in childhood, I was led to love of them by an easy, natural, happy route. Dear husband, unfortunately, was first presented with Romeo and Juliet in adolescence, in a classroom where students were dropped into the text, told to memorize parts, and take turns reading them aloud to the class.  I have had to work hard to help him overcome his “Shakespeare PTSD,” but with the steps below, we have succeeded. If you would like to come to understand and appreciate the plays of the greatest writer of the English language, try the below recommendations that have worked for me and many family members and friends:

• The first thing you do is start with Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night is a delightful comedy which has: hilarious mix-ups, pranks, and all kinds of assorted jokes. Next step: pretend you’re a kid. Resist every impulse to start by reading the play out of a book. No, no, no, don’t do it! That’s the worst way to get yourself to love and understand Shakespeare’s words. He wrote these words for us to hear spoken aloud as we watch someone’s face. They’re mostly dialogues!
• That’s why the best way to begin with Shakespeare is to watch rather than read. Makes sense, right? As I said, pretend you’re a kid. Get a copy of Twelfth Night from the series: Shakespeare: The Animated Tales. Watch this fantastic version of the play that was adapted for children by the BBC into a 30-minute presentation. The animation for Twelfth Night is superb stop motion puppet animation. Some of the actors doing the voices were in the Royal Shakespeare company in the 1980s and ‘90s. This series is how I came to love Shakespeare’s great works—or at least, is how I began to love them. (When using them with children, however, parents should definitely pre-screen them!)
• Once you have enjoyed the children’s animated Twelfth Night, you can graduate to find a good audio recording of the play. (This is an excellent way to absorb and internalize the beautiful language.) If you can, get the old and extremely excellent full-cast audio recording voiced by actors Paul Scofield, Siobhan McKenna and John Neville . I first heard it on a record, literally a vinyl record, that my grandmother had bought for us at a thrift store. Back in the 90s my parents still had a turntable, so my sister and I  were able to listen to it and enjoy (and memorize chunks of dialogue to annoy each other with). Now available digitally, you might see if your library’s-books/audiobooks site has a copy.
• Ultimately, you will want to see Twelfth Night in person, on stage. Perhaps your state or region has a Shakespeare festival that will do that comedy this year–hopefully! Check to see if a nearby theater or college is offering a performance soon. At my alma mater a few years ago, a cast of six travelling British actors did the entire play with just themselves and a half-dozen small props. It was incredible! You will be well-prepared to enjoy such a performance after becoming familiar with it in the ways mentioned above.
• And then, after completing this list with Twelfth Night, repeat with Macbeth, or Hamlet, or The Taming of the Shrew…

I’ll wager you will become a Shakespeare fan for life if you get started listening to the words and learning the stories of these plays. And the more you see them, hear them, and someday read them, the more you will love them. Think of the Shakespearean allusions and references in books and the culture that you will be able to pick up on! It’s like finding buried treasure.

Don’t ever be intimidated by these great works: they are for all of us. It takes a little bit of work in the beginning, but soon it will feel like falling in love. Remember that, as Shakespeare himself wrote in Measure for Measure, “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” Start with a small dose of Shakespeare today!

Remember What You Read: 10 Ways to Help Your Memory

We read for fun. We read for school or for job. We read to improve ourselves. We read to become more, better, and smarter. However, if we can’t remember something we read, we may as well not have read it at all! Are we just doomed, then, if we constantly struggle to retain what we read? Absolutely not! We can work with our brains, so that they work for us.

Here are 10 ways that have helped me remember what I read. I hope they help you!

• Tell it to someone. Preferably a patient fellow human being, but a pet or a photograph will do in a pinch. Narrating is one of the most powerful ways to remember something you’ve read, seen, or heard. We don’t know that we know something for sure until we are able to “teach” it to someone else!
• Free-write about what you read for five minutes. When I was reading my list of Great Books in High School, my mother had me write at the end of each reading session. This method is like the one above, telling what you’ve read, but since the person is yourself it will be useful to you more often. If five minutes isn’t enough time, go for ten.
• Make an idea map. An “idea map” is an extremely weird looking study device that verges on the miraculous. Back in my college days, after I learned how to study with them, I reduced my study time per class by 2/3, and still got As.  Today I still use them to organize my reading, thinking, writing, and even shopping lists. The above image is an idea map I made on my computer. I also write them by hand with a handful of multi-colored gel-pens. Someday I will do a post on this incredible tool, but for now, you can see the basics here. This method works with the whole brain to help your memory, and is a lot of fun in the process!
• Create analogies as you read to link what you’re reading to what you already know. The prosaic truth: learning is a process of categorizing ideas and forming associations between them. Translation: we learn by comparing things to other things. Even as little kids we did this. When you read something you want to remember, associate facts intentionally. With literature, draw comparisons between characters and family members. When reading non-fiction, compare and contrast what you read about in one session with an area of your own expertise, with your job, or with another class you’re taking. Making connections like this is one of the best ways to learn.
• Underline important words and ideas. (These next two ideas apply to readers of paper books, rather than e-readers. Sorry, folks!) If it is your book, you can write in it. Get over your squeamishness! Writing in the book will help you identify and remember key points, ideas, and sections. Especially if you are a student, you will want to highlight and underline key words and phrases. (Be smart about underlining by selecting words and short phrases, rather than entire paragraphs!)
• Make notes in the margins. Writing your thoughts in the book will help you remember not only what important/interesting points you read, and what you thought about them, but also what sections or pages of the book you found them in. That way when you are flipping back through the book to find a particular section, you will remember better where it is in the volume. Sounds silly, maybe, but I have found this incredibly useful many times!
• Pre-read the table of contents and chapter headings. If you do this before reading any if the text, and ponder a little about what you’re about to read, it will prepare your brain to organize and store the info better once you read it. This is one of my favorite things to do to help me read better. It’s just like scanning your route on a map to get an overview of the route you’re about to travel. You’ll travel faster and better through your reading!
• Copy important quotes out in your own handwriting. When there is a specific passage or quote from your reading that you want to internalize thoroughly, you should write it in your own hand. You will be using more than one sense this way, which is always good for committing something to memory.
•  Visit a (good) website to see what other people think about what you are reading. Perhaps if you are reading fiction, you should wait till you’ve finished–spoilers are no fun! Getting other people’s perspectives will alert you to things you may have missed. And non-fiction readers can find experts and forums for their topics and subjects that can prove a goldmine. Ideally, an online community will help you understand and connect better with your reading, which will ensure better memory of it.
• Ask yourself questions. While you read, constantly talk to yourself. Ponder. Wonder. Question. Ask yourself the “five w’s and an h.” By asking yourself questions, you will force your mind to answer them. Doing this makes you think more about the reading material. And that will of course help you remember it better! 

Whatever you’re currently reading, give a couple of these strategies a try. See how much better you retain the information compared to before. And let me know in the comments if you’ve thought of another way that I need to try!

Fantastic Book–What Manner of Men: Forgotten Heroes of the Revolution

I know, I know, the photo doesn’t look spectacular. You’re immediately thinking it’s probably a boring book that nobody wanted to read even in the 60s. DON’T JUDGE IT BY ITS COVER! My book here is an ex-library copy I bought from Abebooks.com, so it looks even worse. Inside is what counts, though!              It’s been almost a year and a half since I was randomly combing my library’s bookshelves and started finding fantastic books about the American Revolution. Never before had I been interested in this period of history. I knew next to nothing about it really beyond the facts that George Washington crossed the Delaware River and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Combing the shelves is a great habit, I have found: it led me to finding the phenomenal What Manner of Men: Forgotten Heroes of the American Revolution by Fred J. Cook.  Published in 1959, written as a side-project by a journalist whose main interest was organized crime and politics, this is truly history that dazzles. The writing is suspenseful, superb, and sincere, and I came away from this book with a mini-mission: to help make sure these people would not remain forgotten.

Many heroic Americans are featured in this book, both male and female. It begins with the unbelievable military career of Allan McLane, whose fierce loyalty was totally uncompromising, and who sacrificed years of his life and lots of his money for the cause. Following his is the story of Timothy Murphy, the greatest sharpshooter of the Revolution who decided the outcome of the great Battle of Saratoga with his unique double-barreled rifle and breathtaking skill. Deborah Sampson’s story is here, the saga of the woman who enlisted and served as man during the Revolution. Peter Francisco the Portuguese/Virginian Hercules, audacious naval officer John Peck Rathbun, the privateer Jonathan Haraden who never lost one battle with an enemy ship, even when odds were three to one–all these stories and more are here. Long gone and completely forgotten today, these people led such daring exploits that readers will believe they are reading fiction. During the approximately six years of the conflicts making up the American Revolution, these incredible characters dot the war in the American Colonies from New York and New England all the way through Virginia and Georgia.

It was a terrible time. Over and over, in spite of incredible odds and difficulties, these incredible people defied them, persevered, and succeeded. McLane was wasn’t an ambitions man, in it only for the glory; freedom’s cause was the love of his life, and it did hurt him terribly that he was constantly ignored by the Continental Congress and other leaders, treated like an expendable. Tim Murphy suffered much for the American cause at the hands of Tories, Indians, and even his own commander at the Middle Fort in the Scoharie valley, but he defended his wife and people even to the seemingly treasonous point of mutiny. Leaving a difficult life of indentured servitude for the difficult life of the Continental Army, Deborah Sampson suffered multiple wounds before her discovery. They wanted freedom, these people: freedom to settle the wilderness, freedom to farm and trade, and freedom to rule themselves. Seemingly, no sacrifice was too extreme for these folks on the foremost of the front lines.

If this book were fiction, we would all say the stories and events were unbelievable, unrealistic, over-the-top. But history is more fantastic than fiction. Even comic-book heroes have nothing on these heroes of two hundred and fifty years ago. If you’re interested in the American Revolution, read this book. Even if you think you are not interested in it, read this book. I guarantee you will come away from it inspired, seeing a new dimension to this great struggle, when you see many of the different, incredible efforts it took to win the war. We need to be grateful by not forgetting those who sacrificed. Order or interlibrary loan a copy of “What Manner of Men” and keep their memories alive!

Rethinking Flash Cards

Flashcards: they are the most over-used but under-utilized study aid. Whatever you are trying to study/learn–biology, math facts, French, or ancient Egyptian history–at some point flashcards will probably be helpful  you. But before you grab your index cards and click your pen, make sure you read through this list of ways to really make them work for you!

Flashcards: Tips & Tricks

• Make the cards go twice as far. I got this great idea from a language-learning book: take the 3 x 5 cards and turn them vertically. Write one term at the top, and then flip it towards you and write the definition on the top of the back. Flip back to the front side, rotate the face of the card so that the blank space is at the top, and write another term. On the other side, write the definition. Voila! Two for the price of one. You have saved the planet, and some money, too.
• Doodle on them. Add symbols for extra memorability. If you really don’t feel comfortable drawing, you can give them differently-colored borders classified by topic. Or, use different colors for different words in different categories. (This gives you the added benefit of working the words and concepts deeper into your long-term memory by noting and encoding connections, similarities, and differences into your mind from the very beginning!)
• Use them for games. Why do we waste so much time playing Free Cell? Mindless card games are, unfortunately, lots of fun. But what if we played flashcard games that helped us retain study material? Here are two suggestions, one done solo and one with a helper:
  • Paper pop quiz:  (Before you begin, have a snack ready to reward yourself for an A or a B.) Take the flash cards, make a stack, and count them. Number the lines of a sheet of notebook paper, up to as many numbers as there are cards. Grab your stack of flash cards and look at just the front sides. Write down each answer, card by card, without flipping them over yet. After you get to the last line, check your answers. Grade yourself by dividing the total number right by total number of cards, and then multiplying by 100. 91-100% = A,  81-90% = B, etc.
  • Helpful Hints: If you can find a friend (or sibling or spouse), you can play this game even if s/he doesn’t know the subject matter. Whoever ends this game with the most points wins. For every card you can correctly answer right away when your friend flashes it, you get to tally a point. When you come to a card you don’t know, you have two options: 1) put it in the “don’t know” stack for a penalty of -5 points for you and +5 points for your friend, or 2) ask for a little hint, such as the first letter, or the number of letters in the word. For each hint that you ask for and have to use, deduct two points from your total and add two to your friend’s. Be sure to reward yourself afterwards if you win the most points–and thank your patient friend either way.
• Store them for easy use. With a hole punch and a binder ring, you can ensure your flashcards’ long and happy life. Easy to find and keep together, flashcards stored this way will be organized and quickly into your hand. This storage method allows you to study easily in those odd moments when you might otherwise waste time on social media. (Just lookin’ out for ya there!)

If you have always despised using flashcards to study with, I hope you will give them a second chance. They provide several benefits for your study efforts. As proof, I will leave you with a link to The 60-Second Guide to How Flashcards Actually Work, another blog’s  post with a lovely and informative infographic. Then–get studying!

Fantastic Book: Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish

Although I was already learning Latin in high school, my parents balked at graduating me (I was homeschooled, for 12 years) with only a “dead” language on my transcript. They insisted I take Spanish. Luckily, by Eleventh Grade I had picked up a phenomenal Spanish book in a thrift store. It made my two semesters of Spanish later on in college absolutely painless. Because I lent it years ago to a coworker who never gave it back, when my husband wanted to start learning Spanish last October I had to order it again, but it was worth every penny a second time. Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish can’t be beat!

The pedagogy is astonishingly brilliant. Unlike every other language book I have ever seen, Margarita Madrigal’s text starts by teaching us Spanish verbs in the past tense. As she humorously remarks about her innovation to teach the past tense first in Chapter 3: “Once you have mastered it you will have the narrative language that you use every day with your friends. You will be able to tell what you did and saw and how it impressed you. ‘I did’ this or that is the beginning of a story, whereas ‘I do’ thus and such is apt to stop you cold. “I eat a lot” can only be followed by a few unpleasant remarks, but ‘Last night I had dinner with Joe’ opens up endless possibilities.” (I’ll bet every student of a foreign language can relate to that!) And Miss Madrigal has more than one trick up her sleeve. She also teaches Spanish by using hundreds of English words that you already know, teaching you how to easily transform them into real Spanish words that you will nearly effortlessly remember. These vocabulary words are then worked into functional, intuitive exercises based on a three-column sentence-building pattern. The exercises and the many dialogues throughout the book help you read, speak, and think in Spanish.

Margarita Madrigal was uniquely competent to write this book. Recently I read up on her life story, and learned that she grew up bilingual and bicultural, the daughter of a Costa Rican musician and the best pianist of a small Kansas town.  Raised with both languages, she taught Spanish to English speakers, including many celebrities of the mid-20^th century. Never marrying, she wrote and co-wrote bestselling books on many languages, including French, Russian, and German as well as Spanish.

Although it’s the best text I’ve seen, it may not be for all Spanish students today. First published in 1953, a few concepts and terms are outdated now. (I doubt that most of today’s Spanish-learners will be asking to use the phonograph or chatting about taking the train to the tennis club!) However, the book has been republished recently, so the publisher may have updated these words; I have never seen a new copy, though, so I am simply speculating. Also regarding the vocabulary, I suspect that the pronunciation guide and some of the terms and phrases may be geographically Central/South American; travelers to Spain and other places may want to use another resource with a different regional variant. Fellow Americans who are concerned with a working knowledge of Spanish for communicating with our neighbors to the south will be all set with preparation from this book!

An excellent self-study resource, it will perfectly suit learners who enjoy using printed books for the bulk of their practice. Reading parts of it aloud, to project the sense of real speech in the dialogues, will be especially helpful. It is no exaggeration when I say that readers who do the exercises will be thinking in Spanish immediately. If you want to learn Spanish, purchase this book and tackle it 15 minutes a day. You will be amazed. Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish just might make you believe in magic before too long!

Carpe Diem (Autodidacts Unite!)

True education occurs when a free human being responds to the magnificent world with wonder, with fascination, and with the full and mysterious power of the human mind and heart to understand.

–Grace Llewellyn and Amy Silver, Guerrilla Learning

Starting today, I’m going to restart and refurbish this old blog that I started way back in my salad days, my undergraduate times. Although it has now been more the four years since I graduated from college, I am still just as fascinated by the multiplicity of goodies that an active “reading life” presents.  I have heard this blog begging for some fresh writing lately. Cheerfully willing to oblige, I plan (1) to provide here a new source of educational ideas and resource recommendations, (2) to capture and examine many of the fascinating facts, fancies, and figures I learn about each week, and also (3) to offer encouragement to readers to join me in the exciting endeavor of being an autodidact.

Listing the best of what I find for many disciplines, hopefully I will generate for readers a database of the best that is out there for learners (and educators) of many walks of life. As I come across good books, I’ll review them. I’ll link to websites, too. Creative opportunities to learn often lurk just around the corner, and I will write about those opportunities when I stumble upon them.

While I am doing my own explorations, I will be using these pages to crystallize my own thoughts and reactions to my findings.  Wholeheartedly embracing the sage advice that in order to learn best, one should teach, I hope to be able to cement my own learning through sharing and writing about a variety of topics. Considering that I will be recording many of my own intellectual journeys here, this blog will certainly read like a “book of days” at times.

Over the course of my (short) life so far, I have met many people who are somewhat fearful at the thought of making their way through the works of Shakespeare or the pages of a Latin textbook. I hope to persuade the timid to go ahead and begin! While many people think that only geniuses can study and learn from the Great Books, I will be here for them trying to pull back the curtain on what I call “the Great Oz-Syndrome”–after all, observing the world around us and asking questions about it is something we have all been able to do since age 2 or 3. Teaching yourself anything is only a slightly glorified version of that. Encouraging readers over and over to start small but start today, I will try to persuade folks to turn in their fear of learning for love of learning. (It can be absolutely thrilling!)

These three intentions will be guiding my content selection and my writing here. Offering you all a treasure-trove of ideas, retelling the captivating tidbits that I learn, and encouraging you to tackle your own great learning projects, I expect that I will be posting frequently. On this blog, I hope that all readers will find that they too have the brains, the heart, and the nerve to follow their wonder and explore this “magnificent world.”  Today is the day—and this is the blog!