Practice Makes Permanent

Practice is vital in learning.

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

We generally regard mathematics and the sciences as more conceptually challenging than other fields. This perceived complexity is related to the abstract nature of the ideas they encompass. For example, mathematical ideas tend to come without an analogous ‘thing’ or object that is based in reality. This abstract nature makes it difficult to anchor the concept to understand it better. You might say that words such as ‘love’ and ‘hope’ are abstract too, but at least linguistic concepts like this can be directly related to emotions we can feel.

These examples highlight the importance of practicing with the ideas and concepts you’re learning, particularly more abstract areas of learning, to enhance and strengthen the neural connections you’re making throughout the learning process. Even if the ideas themselves are abstract, the neural thought patterns you’re constructing are real and concrete.

Photo by Miti on Unsplash

Here is author Toni Morrison on how to get better at writing — or anything:

“I thought of myself as like the jazz musician: someone who practices and practices and practices in order to be able to invent and to make his art look effortless and graceful. I was always conscious of the constructed aspect of the writing process, and that art appears natural and elegant only as a result of constant practice and awareness of its formal structures.”

Consider a thought pattern as a series of neurons, which have become linked together, and ‘fire’ together through repeated use. Equipped with this picture, we can visualize three separate stages of understanding:

1. When you’re first beginning to understand something, the neural pattern is present but is weak.

2. You deepen the same neural pattern when you cover the material again or start a related problem.