On Monday, I stopped my car in front of my daughter Juliet's middle school. She jumped in the front seat, feeling down. She asked me to help her study for her science test.
"Dad, I need to memorize a unit about the Reproductive Cycle of Plants. And I can hardly make it."
"You know memorizing seems like the best way to study, but in fact you can do better in tests if you work on trying to understand the material."
Juliet was open to my advice. It was Monday afternoon and we had two nights to study before the test on Wednesday. I suggested a plan. "Tomorrow night, you are going to teach the material to me. Tonight, read the unit. Prepare to teach."
Asking her to teach me was an unusual idea but I was determined to do it.
Studies show teaching somebody else is a very useful way to learn. Even if you don't do the teaching, the act of preparing to teach leads to more learning than just trying your best to memorize the material.
On Tuesday afternoon, Juliet sat down with her science book facing me and said, "Okay, Dad, let's study." I wanted her to teach me. But false starts happened. I couldn't be too hard on her. So instead we started with me asking her some simple questions. She knew some but not others. When she didn't know the answers, I encouraged her to check the book.
She started checking things that didn't make sense. And she was actively seeking to test her understanding. I was happy to see it. She wasn't memorizing; she was trying to make sense of things, which was exactly what I had hoped she would do.
