Learning Through Story

Hi Shasa here. Thanks for dropping in. I'd like to start by letting you know just exactly where you are. You are sitting on a small grassy hill on a hot summers day, in the green field of Memory Land. You are under the cool shade of a fantastical tree. A tree with a white trunk and pink leaves. A tree that looks a lot like a human brain. This is my happy place. And you are welcome to use it. It is a place where learning is not a chore but a seductive and enticing apple that you can't help but bite.

Who is Memory Land for

Memory Land is for anyone who may have hopped in the car and thought...

"I want to learn something in my next 30 minutes, but I also want a whimsical light-hearted story to relax and engage with."

It's for anyone who wanted to read their child a bedtime story, while at the same time subtly teaching them something. They may not even realize they know this something, until 16 years later when a penny drops in chemistry class.

Memory Land is for anyone who has an interest in the ancient art of Memory Palaces and storytelling used for centuries to remember and pass on information.

How does it work?

Did you toil as a child over remembering the character's names in the "Hairy Maclary" stories? Probably not. Are you racking your brain trying to recall the colour of Goldilocks' hair, or how many bears lived in the house eating, gosh... what was it... cornflakes for breakfast?

I'm amazed by how easily and even enjoyably our brains work when we weave a lesson into a story, a place, a song, and a context. This is not an old idea. Ancient cultures have long used stories to pass on information about what mushrooms eat, where to find water, how to survive...

Ancient Greeks used memory palaces to memorize long public speeches.

Current day memory champions use bizarre characters in familiar locations to recite entire decks of cards in perfect order. Our brains evolved to be very good at processing the three dimensional environments in which they had to navigate. They became so good at remembering, shocking, funny, scary or unusual images that there is more challenge in trying to forget them. With the progress of writing, printing and literacy we slowly lost this need to leverage the powerful storytelling and spacial navigation processes in our brains. Processes that made it so easy to remember things.

Why should we revive these memory techniques?

It is very useful to be able to google up the answer to a question. But in order to make abstract connections, see familiar patterns in completely unrelated fields, or combine a flashlight with a helmet to create something completely new, we need to have this information at hand. Not just in google, but inside our heads. Stories and methods of loci reduce the cognitive load required because we are doing something our brains are so optimized to do, this leaves space to expand even further our cognitive capacity.

My goal

My goal is to write stories that can be enjoyed by all ages, as just a story, or as a way to teach, learn, and retain specific information. These may not always be the most beautiful and gripping stories, but I hope that in time I can grow in my ability to weave a complex and dry topic into an empowering and memorable story-line. Where possible I plan to share these stories in different modalities. Audio podcasts that can be listened to, picture books to be read, and as you-tube videos to be watched. The stories can be consumed in the way that suits your life best, but my advice for topics you really want to retain would be to consume all of the modalities. Here is why...

My advice

While memory techniques can be much more effective than simple rote learning, they still require some revision. I will attempt to make 5 modalities in which you can consume each story as separate revision. Podcasts, paperback books, e-books, videos, and meditations. This way you get the benefit of spaced repetition as well as individual learning strengths that are unique to each modality.

One more thing

Another way to revise is of course to share and discuss the lessons with others. That's also a blatant way of me saying, please like and share Memory Land content on social media. Not only will it prevent people thinking you're completely bonkers when you start mentioning snowmen on diving boards at math class, but it will help me out enormously in putting Memory Land on the map.

Stay tuned for stories which I shall start releasing very soon.

If I can provide people some small solitary relief and absorbing engagement in the time of this current global challenge, I will be truly privileged.

Look after yourselves

Shasa Bolton

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