Learning Economy is Fun??!!

Cash, our lives revolve around it. What we do for it, day in and day out can be quite amazing. Of course some of us love the jobs we have and we are thankful for it, especially when we hear stories of  friends who may not have it so great; having to slog just to get the pay check every month. As much as we like what we do for a living or have to trudge to work daily we are compelled by that force called economy. No matter what our opinion may be of economy or economist we are tied into its force as soon as we decide that we want something for ourselves.

We start small as innocent children wanting our own toys, later we are taught as students to measure success by what we own from everyone–our parents, advertisements to politicians to movies; in no time we are rearing to get a job as soon as we out of school or college smitten by the allure of what a wad of cash can do for us. We have become part of that force arising from human effort we call the economy.

Living as citizens of nations weaves its economy into our lives, it would make sense that its study can provide us with insight that is beneficial to us. If only it was fun to study economy. Certainly a thick university text book is out of the question, but what about a comic book on economy? Yes, I enjoyed this book enormously. Economix by Micheal Goodwin (if you are into the Asterix comic series the name itself will touch your funny bone) is a book to sit and ENJOY the study of economy especially as the modern world's history. The book is an entertaining history book about how we got to where we are at today. Splashed here and there in this illustrated history book are economic principles and how they worked and didn't work. So if you are looking for some education in economy this book is a great start, even recommended by a professor of law at the University of British Columbia. This is not a small book, its 300 pages and is a keeper. The images on this post are from the book which is available on Amazon.com.

Exams and Exams–It's still really about memory

I was a student once, sat for many exams to prove my metal and seems like this is still the life for many a student. A month or so before exam time is crunch time–time to burn the midnight oil, sleep less and hope to God that you can remember everything you studied. Interestingly no matter that they say memorising is not critical in exams–its understanding, strong memory is still the key to success in exams (this is from experience coaching kids for exams). Sometimes you have to remember the understanding not just the facts. So if you go for a course that purportedly helps you ace your exams you will most likely be thought memorising techniques more than anything else. Of course its all nicely packaged into a seminar. This is the way it will be I guess until we find a better solution to qualifying students instead of exams.

I mean the days when memory is the cornerstone of intelligence is probably coming to an end. With the internet and future development in accessibility to it all you may need is a wrist watch to help you remember facts. These are the days of–oh well, I'll just google it. How long before students can't be stopped from taking a computer in one form or another along for their exams.

For now of course the traditional methods still rule and over the years we have come to catalog the many techniques we creatively use to remember stuff for which we now have fancy names like mind-mapping, bubble and double bubbles, 'visceralisation' etc. The generations of the 21st century who have been growing up with the internet need to be taught memory techniques that I and my friends as students in the 80's used to come up with ourselves out of sheer necessity. While so many of these techniques are simply common sense to me, students today are often lacking in coming up with creative ways to remember facts and figures because there is little practical need until exam crunch time reigns in.

If you are a student looking for such techniques or a teacher or parent looking to help your student or child with their study this online tutorial by Scott H. Young can help. Mind-mapping is of course well represented in many online sites. Mr. Young's tutorial delves into using mental pictures, metaphors or analogies, 'pegging', 'viceralisation' and other holistic methods such as teaching as part of learning.

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