How to become a learning expert?

Wassila Belhacine 6:18 p.m., May 04, 2022

What if you finally manage to learn Chinese, juggle a soccer ball, finish a Rubik's cube and edit Youtube videos?

In order to acquire the same skills as Neo in "Matrix", Guillaume, youtuber behind the "Super Heco" channel and author of the book "The Ultimate Guide to Learning Everything and Becoming a Superhero" (Editions First) gives his advice on becoming a learning expert. 

Make a clean sweep of the school way of learning

So, to become an ace at learning, you must first of all wipe the slate clean and forget what you know, or think you know, about learning.

Guillaume notably questions the way of learning in the French school system.

"In the school system, there are a lot of very good things, especially for having knowledge. But for skills, it's a little different. We're going to learn all the dates in history where the Pythagorean theorem but we don't not necessarily going to use it."

According to the author, it would be important to "learn how to learn" within the school and therefore to be able to access more practical activities which nevertheless make it possible to exercise everyone's cognitive abilities, such as the Rubik's cube. !

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Guillaume would also like the development of other learning methods within the school: "we are just told to reread the course, to make cards and to repeat so that it fits. It does not allow us to remember over the long term. term. Today, I have no memory of my history lessons apart from the somewhat striking things. It lacks a bit of pedagogy"

Develop all learning styles 

In the learning phase, we go through different emotional stages.

The first is curiosity, which drives the desire to learn, then comes excitement, during the first successes and happiness when you achieve your goals. 

You also have to deal with doubts and depression in the event of failure.

Then comes the phases of excitement and happiness after overcoming the obstacles inherent in learning.

"The emotions associated with learning are a roller coaster. We go up and down constantly", explains Guillaume.

If there are indeed learning predominances - visual, auditory or kinesthetic - Guillaume suggests working with these three memories in order to optimize his learning.

"The best thing is to be able to work with the three ways" 

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Sleep and regularity 

To learn well, sleep is a real weapon.

"When you do bodybuilding, the muscle is created in the rest phase. It will try to reconstitute the muscle fibers broken during the exercise to precisely enlarge them and be able to support the next session. The same thing happens happens during the learning process. We break fibers and it is during rest that the brain reconstitutes them and consolidates the memory"

Without sleep, the brain cannot consolidate what it has learned during the day, reports Guillaume.

"Sleep is really the key and you can even play with that by taking naps, you learn and then you do a ten minute session, you keep relearning and that can be very important."

And how do you find the time to learn?

The learning expert advises to learn during the latency moments in a day, for example in transport.

"If I spend 40 minutes on the subway, I can do Rubik's Cube. I can do that in a doctor's waiting room."

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The other key is regularity.

It is not very serious to do little as long as the practice is regular.

"It's no use looking for 4 hours a day, you won't find them. But if you look for 30 minutes, but you do them every day, then you will have progress" 

"The number of hours depends on the goal. If you want to learn how to juggle the ball to play soccer, it can take you ten hours. On the other hand, if you want to become a soccer champion, it can take ten years. Not everyone is destined to spend 10 hours to become an expert. You can just have fun, learn to juggle and it takes 10 hours to impress your friends", explains Guillaume.

Create your own mental palace

Another method of learning is that of the mental palace.

"A mental palace is a place you know. Me, I use my apartment which I visualize in my head. In fact, I imagine myself moving around my apartment and its landmarks. In each of its landmarks , I imagine the fact that I want to learn. I use a strong image linked to a landmark to make it stand out."

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These learning methods make it possible to limit diseases and prevent cell aging.

"It's almost brain sport," concludes Guillaume.