9. Tell Me ...
1. Does our Educational system really teach us to doubt our true ability?
A central principle of Accelerated Learning is that we must first unshackle ourselves from the belief that we have limited ability. It seems illogical, or at the very least ironical, that we should subconsciously restrict our own abilities. Yet we do.
Education expert Stephen Cooter writing in the Society for Accelerated Learning and Teaching (S A L T) Journal emphasises that education used to be holistic. Subjects were not originally isolated from each other. Music for example was taught in relation to mathematics.
He writes:
'When grammar is connected with literature, neither grammar nor literature are forgotten. When information is given a rich context of connections, it is easily remembered and used. In contrast, when you look at modern presentations of information, you find that you are informed by specialists who know more and more, about less and less. History textbooks are frequently dry inventories of facts. Grammar texts are dry inventories of rules without explanation or life-like connections. When people study isolated items of information, they are attempting to remember things equivalent to nonsense syllables which are rapidly forgotten.'
The point is echoed by teacher trainer Valerie Beeby in a private letter to me. "The assumption that we have limited ability paradoxically stems from the very process by which we progressed from the restrictive thinking of early medieval times.
In those `dark ages' in Europe, all knowledge was believed to have been discovered already, and to be contained in the books of the 'ancients', written in Latin and held in the monasteries. Either it was not your place to learn things; or if it was, all knowledge was there for the reading. There was little question of finding out anything new. If you wanted to know how bees behaved, you did not study bees, but looked to see what Aristotle said about them.
An active, acquisitive mind, in fact, was a positive disadvantage. You could be burned at the stake! It was no accident that the churchman held tight control of `all knowledge' in their libraries - and upheld the use of Latin for learned discourse.
Then people began to rebel. Leonardo da Vinci in Renaissance Italy. Francis Bacon in Elizabethan England who died of a chill which he caught after getting out of his coach on Highgate Hill to put a chicken in the snow. (He wanted to see if the cold would preserve it!)
Men like da Vinci and Bacon had started to look at the world around them, and see that there was still a good deal to discover. It was no longer enough to believe something just because it was in a book.
All this produced an enormous increase in knowledge, freed people's minds from the stranglehold of dogma, and gave rise to a host of new and ingenious inventions. It produced, in fact, the modern world.
Unfortunately, it had side effects.
The side effects can be seen simply as three major splits, all forms of over-specialisation. Each split produced, along with the new freedom, a new limitation on people's realisation of their own capacities.
In the first place, there was the split between subject and subject. The famous 'Renaissance Man' had been skilled in a wide range of subjects: music, mathematics and medicine; art and astrology; dancing and divinity. But with the expansion of knowledge, it was no longer believed feasible to know everything about everything.
Enter the specialist, narrowly versed in his own subject and ignorant of others. It has been noted more than once that the canteen is often the most productive department in a research establishment. The canteen is the only place where specialists meet and informally exchange notes, together with personal details not usually considered relevant in formal discussions. The result is often a new angle on their work - and a new discovery or invention.
The second split is the well known one between the `two cultures', science and the arts. When it was realised, with the
development of scientific enquiry, that a hunch, or even a firmly held conviction, could be proved wrong by an experiment, scientists began to put less and less trust in their own gut reactions. The model scientist was a being totally unswayed by passion or human feelings, able to abstract general laws with sublime independence. Personal reactions were for the Arts people, who if they were at all scientific in their methods, had to conceal this under a florid cloak of Bohemianism, just as the scientist had to hide his emotions under his spotless white coat.
The division goes deep, to the extent that many a scientist, thinking abstractly, is unaware that he is consistently having recourse to mental images, rhythms, even bodily sensations, properly thought the domain of the artist.
The poet T S Eliot refers to the split in a famous essay as a `dissociation of sensibility', and points out that to the Elizabethan "Metaphysical" poet, 'a thought was an experience'. Later, thought and experience parted company; even, for poets, let alone scientists.
Both of these splits are well recognised today, and both often cause us to place severe limitations on our own mental capacities.
The third split came with the invention of ingenious machines for mass production, the industrial revolution. It was the split between the bosses and the assembly line workers.
The emphasis in the schooling of the workers shifted at this time to training these citizens to be efficient `producers' and `consumers'. Even the words are dehumanising.
Specialisation, assembly line co-operativeness, and, as a by-product, restricted-thinking mechanical efficiency, became highly prized attributes. It was natural that educational systems to turn out these ideals would be developed in parallel.
As so many social historians have noted, when a craftsman designed, made (and often sold) the product of his labour, the work carried much more satisfaction. When the work became fragmented and specialised into simple, but highly repetitive tasks, the result was high dissatisfaction, absenteeism and a general impression amongst the work force that they had limited potential.
It cannot be accidental that when the techniques of industrial management - and social engineering - were applied to education, the result was exactly the same. Indeed in 1923 the U.S. National Research Council actually convened a three way conference between representatives of the Government, industry and educators, the purpose of which was `to standardise measurements of education' and to `standardise human beings'. These were the exact words used.
The legacy of this type of thought on school architecture and teaching methods lasted 50 years. We believe that this attitude has contributed to many of the learning blocks. If you are attempting to train people to become efficient and quiescent cogs in society's wheels, you hardly need (or dare) to create much independence of thought or creativity.
The role of the teacher as foreman, overseeing a standardised curriculum, is hardly a far stretched metaphor.
Fortunately, we are now in the middle of the post industrial revolution. The new robotic and electronic technology that will free human beings from the drudgery of repetitious and mind numbing work, can be matched by the new methodology of Accelerated Learning which can in parallel free the mind.
Today's teachers recognise that the classes where there is warmth, a positive atmosphere and general participation, are the classes in which most is learnt and remembered.
Just how severely our expectations of our own abilities have been constricted, is well illustrated by an interesting experiment conducted by Georgi Lozanov. He set out to measure just how many words of a new foreign language it was possible to teach in a day. (The reason why so much work has been done on languages, is that progress in vocabulary is easier to quantify than for most other subjects.)
The test showed that the more the students were taught the more they learnt! After 800 class days - a significant sample - this was the result.
1. When the session (day) was designed to teach 100 new words the rate of correct recognition was 92%
2. When the session was designed to teach 200 new words it was 96.8%
3. When the same sessions were boosted to 1,000 new words in a daythe correct recognition was 96.1 %!
Lozanov's conclusion is fascinating. Accelerated Learning seems to work not by actually increasing the capacity of the human memory, but by overcoming the expectation that memory is limited. In other words it de-suggests the negative expectations of limited ability we have built up throughout our normal learning experiences, and allows our innate natural mental ability to operate more fully. (Remember the hypnotised weight lifter?)
This explanation must be correct, because if we did not have latent ability, the suggestion would only arouse a hope, without the possibility of it's being fulfilled.
At a learning rate where the students could, just, envisage being able to learn using conventional methods, they were tempted to try and use both the conscious and subconscious learning stimuli. When the rate of learning escalated so far above the accepted norm, the students relaxed their apprehension and allowed themselves to be carried along by the techniques.
The clear lesson is relax and let it all happen!
The suggestion that learning is going to be difficult is built up in many subtle ways. The fact that text books visibly start with the ultra simple and get progressively more complex, (the linear approach), reinforces the assumption that complex equals harder. In conventional teaching, simple elements are repeated constantly with the promise that later they will be fitted into the `big picture'. Yet this is not how psychologists have found the brain works. A recent psychology article points out that:
'It is well known that there is NO case where the brain functions only with its cortical structure (conscious) or only with the subcortex (subconscious). The functional unity of the corticalsubcortical system is indissoluble.
`Teaching practice where the instruction is addressed only to the cortical structure regards the pupil as an emotionless cybernetic machine'.
Yet that is what most left brain teaching effectively does. Even a good teacher usually regards the teaching process in stages. You normally address the logical cortex first and then later may address the emotional subcortex. Lozanov's breakthrough was to address them simultaneously, since every human operates simultaneously at both the conscious and unconscious levels. Creating the environment for an Accelerated Learning lesson is a subtle process. A teacher who says `Today we are going to learn 300 new words. I know you've been conditioned to believe this is impossible, but in fact it's easy and you'll be successful', has not a proper understanding of the subtleties of suggestion.
By merely mentioning that 300 words is thought to be impossible, she is alerting her students to be conscious of their learning process. She is effectively saying `Try, but expect to fail'. If you have ever gritted your teeth and tried to get to sleep you will understand the chances of success. The teacher is also reducing her effectiveness even further by telling her students they are wrong.
Contrast the approach with that of a French teacher using a positive and `suggestive' approach as quoted by Philip Miele in his book on Accelerated Learning, "Easier Learning in the Natural Way".
`Now let's learn how to check into a hotel in Paris. You already Know now many of the words like "hotel" and "baggage" and "taxi" "Sa femme" means his wife, but you probably know that too. Now the first sentence "Pierre et sa femme arrivent a l'hotel avec leur baggage" means "Peter and his wife arrive at the hotel with their baggage".
In an Accelerated Learning class this is the way new material is introduced - easily, gently, in the context of a story that follows the dramatic rules of fiction - with no mention of 300 words. That comes at the end, with a triumphant 'Look, we've learned 300 words today! We're already speaking good French'.
What happened to the mental blocks? They didn't crumble, the teacher worked in harmony with them. Now the students assume they can learn 300 words a day - so a negative assumption has been subtly converted into a positive one. There has been no direct antagonistic challenge to the students beliefs. No alerting to the possiblity of failure.
Consumer product advertising, which is rich in suggestive techniques, also knows how to overcome these existing beliefs.
The makers of an instant coffee for example, encountered a barrier in the public's mind against purchasing their product. Sophisticated projective testing revealed that women believed that using instant coffee was a mark of laziness and lack of family responsibility. Instead of trying to argue against this barrier, a new advertising campaign was evolved to harmonise with it. A new theme was adopted; the busy housewife can better achieve an existing ideal which is to have more time for her children, her husband and her guests, when she uses instant coffee. Sales went up.
The conclusion is that the mind does have barriers, but the way to overcome them is not a full frontal attack. The way is much more a subtle skirting of them. Replacing negative images with positive ones.
2. How to Double your Reading Speed in 20 minutes
One of the best proofs of how we are conditioned to accept one level of ability - yet how easy it is to significantly improve on that ability - is in reading speed.
The basic problem is that, even as adults, we want to "hear" the words in our mind as we read them. We may not literally subvocalise, but it comes to the same thing - because the eye can take in information much faster than the ear. So by insisting on "hearing" the words we significantly slow down our reading. We can only "hear" words at approximately 250 words to the minute, we can see them at the rate of 2,000 words a minute or more. If we can learn to read purely on a visual basis we can rapidly multiply our reading speed.
Another problem is that we insist on trying to "see" every word on a line of type. Yet there are an enormous number of redundant words in English. You do not have to see every word to make sense of the material you are reading. If you only read the key words, you would, at minimum, halve the number of words you needed to read - and thereby speed up your reading. You read, not to see every word, but to comprehend the sense of the material.
A third problem is that the eye does not take in a line of print in a smooth flowing movement. In fact only the information reaching a specific and small area of the retina called the fovea is seen really sharply. The eye must stop for a fraction of a second to focus a small amount of text on the fovea. So your eye movement is actually made up of a series of skips, thus:
The dots are where the eye actually stops to register a strong image in the fovea. The words around these points of fixation are in the field of peripheral vision.
Because we read in a series of skips or jerks we are often tempted to back-skip, to check whether we really saw or understood some of the previous words. This back-skipping is common and probably cuts our reading speed down by a third. You can measurably increase your reading speed in the next twenty minutes by carrying out the two following simple instructions. First, however, read 2 or 3 pages at your normal speed to establish your current reading rate.
1. Start reading each line of print not at the very beginning of the line but three or four words in. Your peripheral vision and the redundant words will ensure you miss no meaning. Similarly, if you finish reading two or three words from the end of the line you will miss nothing either. But you will have reduced the amount of text you need to fixate on and hence increased your reading speed without sacrificing any comprehension.
2. Start to run your finger down the page at an ever increasing speed. It must be much faster than you feel it is possible to register anything. Allow your eyes to follow your finger down the page, but look at the middle of the page. Increase the speed until you are spending only 2 or 3 seconds per page! At this rate you will initially perceive everything as a blur. Yet if you persevere you will find a strange thing happen. A few words will begin to stand out on each page - and they will be some of the key words. The words that convey the main argument or story.
It is an interesting proof that your brain is in fact subconsciously processing much of the printed page.
This high speed training succeeds in three ways. First it prevents any possiblity of back-skipping. Secondly, it breaks the dependence on "hearing" the words in your head. You are now relying purely on visual reading and this is essential to achieve a really fast reading speed.
The third effect is comparable to the effect of driving down the motorway at a sustained high speed. When you do come to slow down to a "normal" speed, you find that what you thought was 40 miles per hour, is in fact 55 miles per hour, or more. You have altered your perception of speed.
In the same way, when you go back to read at your "normal" speed after 20 minutes of very high speed reading - you will find that it is measurably faster than your previous speed.
Florence Schale from Northwest University studied groups of readers and in "The Psychology of Reading Behaviour" reported that most people were capable of reading at 1800-2000 words a minute. That's 10 times the normal speed under the constraint of "auditory" reading.
Having extolled the virtues of one simple speed reading method, you will be amused to learn that most people can achieve the same effect - with the opposite technique!
It is an excellent example of how adaptable we really are - and why it is important for teachers to recognise the fact that students learning styles can be very different.
The "opposite" method works on the basis of what psychologists call "the law of effect". An action will be discontinued if it proves to be unrewarding.
The idea is to deliberately practice the very habit you want to eliminate or overcome. Pay full attention to what you have previously done automatically. It is a technique often used to eliminate nail biting, spelling errors, stammering and nervous tics!
In the case of reading you would practice, for five minutes twice a day, to read very slowly. Force yourself to read much more slowly than normal. At the same time imagine yourself developing a reading speed that is even better than your normal one. In the conflict between will and imagination, imagination will always win!
After just two days you will find you are reading much faster because your mind will rebel against a limit it knows you can overcome.
This little digression has served two purposes. It firstly teaches you the secrets of speed reading courses for which regularly sell for many times the cover price of this book! Secondly, it is a microcosm of what Accelerated Learning is about. Given the techniques and given the proof that we really can break out of our self-imposed limits - we can achieve a quantum leap in our capabilities.
3. How does "Peripheral Learning" work?
Dr. Lozanov conducted a series of tests to specifically isolate the effect of what he terms "visual suggestion" in the learning system. One example typifies the complete series.
A group of 500 students were given a list of 10 towns. Five were faintly underlined in colour - but the underlining was almost imperceptable. They were given three minutes to memorise the 10 towns.
They were then given a long list of 180 towns and asked to pick out the 10 on the original list. Having completed this test they were asked if any of the original were underlined and if so in what colour.
The test was repeated at intervals on the 2nd day through to the 60th day and the recall of the original 10 they had consciously tried to learn, followed the expected Ebbinghaus curve of forgetting. The results of the second test, however, was quite the opposite. The subconsciously learned information (the towns with colour underlines) was better remembered as time went by. Whereas recall of the consciously learnt 10 towns declined from 80% to 50%, the correct recall of the underlined words rose from 85% to 91%.
In every mental activity there is a central and focussed experience - and several other peripheral ones. (The words peripheral, subconscious and paraconscious are often used interchangeably). The peripheral influences contribute strongly to what is remembered, learned and believed.
It may be the message you are trying to learn, but the medium is vital to your success.
Try to remember a list of facts on a sheet of paper with the minimum of paraconscious influences and its difficult. Try to remember the words of a song and it's comparatively easy. The medium is the key.
Peripheral influences and intuitive insight are the main means through which children learn because their conscious/rational/ logical abilities are not yet developed.
What makes a work of art? It certainly isn't just technical proficiency. It is the emotion that directly communicates to and affects the subconscious the limbic system and the right brain.
What makes a great actor? Someone who communicates his part not just with speech, (which is his approach to your conscious left brain), but with his intonation, gesture, body language and authority.
You never approach any learning experience with a truly blank mind. Your previous experiences always influence your attitude.
4. Is the effectiveness of Peripheral Material reduced when you know it exists?
It might be thought that, once you knew that you were being taught by a method that used suggestion and an approach to the subconscious, its effect would be reduced.
Not so. At the Lozanov Teaching Institute the results of some 600 students were compared with 40 professional people - psychologists, psychiatrists and full-time teachers, who had spent two weeks analysing the technique. The students achieved 93% recall overall. The professionals achieved 96%.
It is not surprising. Music students study the principle of music, yet of course music affects them as greatly, or even more profoundly, than other people.
5. Surely this sounds a bit like Mind Control?
It is! But not the way the question implies. The problem, as we've just seen, is that we are already brainwashed to accept that we're limited in potential and that can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Accelerated Learning, in contrast, promises to remove those learning blocks. It does use techniques that appeal directly to the subconscious but these techniques are openly built into the course.
6. So does Accelerated Learning use Subliminal Techniques?
No. There is a difference between peripheral communication and subliminal communication, and it's one of degree.
A peripheral communication is one which you could always pull into your consciousness if you choose. For example, in an Accelerated Learning course the English and Foreign texts are printed together. So while you are reading Spanish, the English translation is in your peripheral vision (you see it out of the corner of your eye). This is ethical because you can always bring it into your consciousness at will.
If we were to use a video film however, which flashed the translation for a split second, that would be subliminal. Subliminal literally means "under the threshold" and almost no amount of conscious concentration could detect the technique. This in our view would be unethical because the student is defenceless, therefore it reduces his freedom and constricts his personality.
Peripheral communication in contrast frees his personality because it uses an entirely natural process. We have already seen that we are constantly receiving stimuli from peripheral sources, sources just out of conscious focus, sounds just below conscious range. All the Accelerated Learning technique does is organise and orchestrate these natural phenomena.
Readers who are interested in the technique of subliminal advertising should read the previously mentioned "Subliminal Seduction" by Professor Wilson Key. It is a shocking exposé of advertising techniques exploited by some of the world's best known brand names.
7. Is any one element of the Accelerated Learning Programme of over-riding Importance?
The essence of Accelerated Learning is that learning becomes an enjoyable (literally joy-full) experience, in which tension disappears and in which the whole brain is united. When the conscious and subconscious, the long term and short term memory, the left and right hemispheres of the brain, are all involved and working together, the effect is not just doubled, it is compounded many times.
Just as the effectiveness of Accelerated Learning does not just involve a simple tripling of the speed of learning and/or retention, so the way Accelerated Learning is achieved is not simple. One element without the other is insufficient. A teacher, for example, who merely creates a fun, relaxed environment will not achieve much in the way of improved results. It is only the accumulative effect of the many harmonious, subtle and peripheral stimuli that can achieve the shift from learning at Accelerated Learning.
In an Accelerated Learning course the student's attention is drawn to the meaning of a whole sentence. The pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar are INDIRECTLY absorbed. They become part of the peripheral material. In that way they pass more easily into the subconscious and long term memory. Much of the new taught material is implicilty, not explicilty taught.
In contemplating the working of Accelerated Learning we were reminded of an old joke.
A customs officer, alerted to the possibility of a smuggling attempt, was surprised in the middle of the night by a man with a wheelbarrow filled with straw. Nothing was found. Next night the same man was back again with a straw filled wheelbarrow. Again the straw was painstakingly searched. Again with no result.
This went on for a whole week.
At the end of seven consecutive trips the customs officer was beside himself. He faced the man and said `All right - you win! I know you're smuggling something in that straw. I'm dying to know what it is - so much so that I promise not to prosecute, if only you'll tell me. So what on earth are you smuggling?'
The man smiled as he trundled off. 'Wheelbarrows' he replied. Our left brain and conscious mind is a bit like the customs officer. It can let an amazing amount of material into our long term subconscious memory, if only we engage in a little harmless diversion!
In fact at Accelerated Learning Language courses we attended, students frequently said that they often surprised themselves by using foreign words they were unaware of knowing. 'It was as if the words had been smuggled into my mind' said one. `It seemed like I was remembering words, not learning them' said another.
8. What is the "Health Bonus" of the Accelerated Learning Course?
Of all the advantages of Accelerated Learning, inevitably attention has focussed most on the speed of learning, because it is measurable, has an immediate payoff and appeals to our action orientated and speed orientated culture. Somewhat less attention is focussed on the sheer joy of learning it brings (though this is an essential ingredient). Even less attention is paid to the fact that so many students receive an important physical and psychological bonus.
Time after time it has been noticed that tension based illnesses disappear during an Accelerated Learning course. Charles Schmid a major U.S. teacher of the Accelerated Learning method says 'It happens so often I don't even notice it anymore'.
Cecelia Pollock, Professor Emeritus of Lehman College, Long Island has a very enviable success rate with dyslexics. We visited her to discuss her use of Accelerated Learning techniques with young children.
'Our thinking has been permeated with the I.Q. approach' she said, `We are taught that intelligence is static and for the most part innate. This concept places a ceiling on the learners potential and lowers her own expectations of her learning potential. Therefore we blame our children if poor learning takes place'. Significantly Cecilia Pollock emphasises that the psychology behind the development of Accelerated Learning denies that intelligence is fixed, but stresses rather that learning creates brain capacity.
Dr. Pollock continues, 'This is why my whole philosophy of dealing with teaching disabled children is an optimistic one. They are not stuck with their disabilities. In the Accelerated Learning process we have a real breakthrough for true mental improvement... it's a way of engaging the entire brain at once, the conscious and unconscious at once... all in a positive emotional climate. There is no learning without healing, and no healing without learning'.
A UNESCO report on a substantial two years study of 2,300 students in school systems exclusively using the Lozanov system, observed that the rate of neurotic disorders and absenteeism was halved - indicating in the most tangible way that school had become more enjoyable and less stressful.
Dr. Cecilia Pollock again, `Accelerated Learning is a profoundly humanistic system of education for all'. Instead of failure, it offers psychological relaxation and enjoyment. It helps children overcome their school related fears and depressions. Drop outs become remotivated, tensions and anxieties become relaxed and disappear.
It's destined to usher in a revolution in learning. All the boredom, the drill, the meaningless tests will be swept aside to make way for integrated knowledge, to the tune of music and song, poetry and puppetry, jingles and jokes... Lozanov expects people to be ten feet tall... AND THEY BECOME SO.
9. Are there people who cannot be reached by Accelerated Learning?
Mongolism used to be thought of as irreparable brain damage which caused its victims to remain at a mental age of about three throughout their lives.
When someone said that Mongoloids were geniuses in disguise, the statement sounded bizarre. But a Canadian family took that idea seriously.
They found their child could learn anything that other children could, but simply took longer in the learning process. Their child treasured each thing that he learned, because it was so hard won. Consequently, he pursued the matter further than the average child would. When he was about twenty, the C.B.C. produced a movie on his life history, in which he was the star. The director of the film said he was one of the best actors he had ever worked with.
A similar point was made by Suzuki, the violin teacher, who tried to teach a polio child to play the violin. For the first six months, every time she tried to hold the bow, it flew out of her hand. She went on to become a thoroughly competent violinist.
Anyone can learn, provided enough time is given them to master each essential part of the learning process and providing they believe in their success.
Dr. Pollock's work with dyslexics indicates that the Accelerated Learning method can contribute substantially.
10. Do Pupils get an Immediate Sense of Having Learnt?
Sometimes. Sometimes not!
Some people come away from their first Accelerated Learning session absolutely bubbling with enthusiasm. But some feel almost uneasy. The whole technique is so relaxed and stressless, that you feel that you cannot possibly be learning. It is only the next day that you realise you know much more than you thought possible.
After all, the technique is specifically designed to appeal to your subconscious, so you could hardly be expected to be aware of how much you really know.
In addition, if you have spent years convincing yourself that you have a limited ability, you have obviously adapted your behaviour to that belief. When you realise your learning potential is much greater than you thought, you have implicitly taken on a responsibility to develop it. That takes getting used to. Which is one reason why the effect of Accelerated Learning is accumulative, and the more Accelerated courses you take the more your ability grows.
Ironically, it is often the high achievers in our current educational system, who can have initial trouble in adjusting to Accelerated Learning. They have, by definition, succeeded in a primarily left brain system and they probably had to work quite hard to achieve their success. So they have a subconscious vested interest in perpetuating the methods in which they were successful. If suddenly learning becomes fun, relaxed and comparatively easy, it can, initially appear to devalue the effort they originally put in! However, even a few hours exposure to the enjoyment on an Accelerated Learning course soon convinces them.
11. Why should we want to Speed Up Learning?
We should not - unless it can be done without stress. Until now, any speeding up of learning basically involved intensifying existing teaching practice. The same techniques only more so. The results of that intensification make newspaper headlines every few months.
Teenage suicides in Japan; increased rates of child neuroses in Western Europe are all the result of extra strain and pressure put on young minds.
What is urgently needed, therefore, is a new way of teaching which simultaneously improves mental well being. The relaxed process of Accelerated Learning fits that description.
Given that faster learning can now be gentler learning, then we should obviously welcome it. We live in a period when knowledge is growing at an exponential rate. We live in a technocracy where progress involves the mastering of increasing by complex data; learning an ever increasing volume of information. The spoils go to the well informed.
The gift of fast but stress-free learning is literally priceless.
12. How new is Accelerated Learning?
It is new enough for us to have a Patent Pending on the technique! (as described in this book and as executed in the range of cassette courses available).
This is not to say that other researchers have not independently worked on individual elements in the method.
Thus, in addition to Dr. Lozanov, who originated the successful (but Inhibitingly named) technique of Suggestology, Colombian researcher, Alfonso Caycedo, Dr. Alfred Tomatis from France and Shinichi Suzuki of Japan, have all shown that learning is facilitated and speeded considerably when a good proportion is subconscious, and when the presentation of learning material is rhythmic.
Tomatis' research has shown that baroque music, and the violin in particular, stimulates the cortex. Suzuki is, of course, famous for his approach to music teaching. He suggests that a short movement or masterpiece is played once everyday to the baby from birth. He also favours baroque composers because of their clear rhythmic structures and uncomplicated harmonies.
After a few months another piece is selected since the first one will have been fully absorbed. The baby now hears two pieces per day. Gradually by this progression the baby grows into a child who is sensitive to music.
Suzuki's pupils usually begin specific lessons at age three. He emphasises relaxation, proper breathing and visualisation exercises. The development of the ear is paramount. Thus the
piece to be learned is always played before the lesson and memorised by the child. Older students study the music visually before they go to sleep. All students are taught "internal singing" - hearing the music in their mind's ear.
AlI the methods mentioned here rely on learning at two levels of consciousness - a wide awake (beta) level and a relaxed (alpha) level and learning both via active and passive phases.
Nonetheless, the Accelerated Learning method described later goes beyond the dual principles of previous researchers and extends into a series of very specific and practical co-ordinated techniques.
