This is Day 2 of 31 Days of Math Learning Success. Follow all the days here and check out other crazy bloggers that are writing for 31 days here.

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
~ Albert Einstein

Of course it makes sense, right? You study to learn.

“Why else would I study?” you say.

Study to pass…?

Do you know how many students study just to pass?

More that you can even imagine in math classes, that’s for sure.

And if you’re in a terminal math class (like the final math class you’ll ever need in college), that might be okay.

Might.

But generally, studying to pass is a bad idea.

Give it time to settle.

I figured out once that it took a whole semester for my brain to “get” anything I learned in a math class. I could reproduce it on a test. But I never really understood what I was doing until I had to do it again – for something other than the grade – in the next math class.

There’s a ton of new brain research out there showing that your brain needs time to forget the extra junk so it can remember the good stuff.

Well, that’s a sad simplification of the results. But that’s the gist.

And that explains the “learn today, understand tomorrow” theory of my own learning.

Study to learn, but don’t get hung up on it.

Memorizing for a grade is a bad idea. But studying and not quite understanding is okay.

As long as you have faith that someday you’ll get it.

And you keep trying.

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