Institutional Affiliation
After reading chapters 1 and 2 in the book How We Learn (Carey, 2014), write a 2- to 3-paragraph
discussion about the most surprising fact you discovered in your reading. Choose a fact that informs your
work (teaching – 8th grade math), life, or relationships with family or children (ages 8, 5 and 18 months).
This is about your learning, your needs, and your discoveries, written in a scholarly fashion.
The only reference should be:
Carey, B. (2014) How we learn: The surprising truth about when, where, and why it happens. New York
Chapters 1 & 2
Introduction
The book “How We Learn” has a number of surprising facts. This paper intends to
discuss surprising facts found in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the book “How We Learn” which
was written in 2014 by Carey.
Chapter 1 of the book “How we learn” reveals that the brain of human beings has no
capability of storing facts, experiences that an individual goes through, or ideas that one has, as
computers do (Carey, 2014). Notably, in a computer one opens a file by clicking on it, where the
computer always displays the same image for the file. In contrast, the brain of human beings
embeds facts or experiences or ideas in networks, which are based on perceptions of the
individual, real facts, along with thoughts, thus slightly different permutations bubble up every
time. For instance, Chapter 1 reveals that people that drink milk from the carton have a high
likelihood of forgetting their friends’ birthdays, while people who always misplace house keys
barely mind calculating a pyramid’s surface area (Carey, 2014).
In addition, Chapter 2 of the book “How we learn” reveals that learning is not about
building up an individual’s skills or knowledge, neither is forgetting to lose the information an
individual had gained (Carey, 2014). According to Chapter 2 forgetting is a way of learning
since when an individual is retrieving a memory the accessibility of the memory is altered, thus,
the memory’s content is also altered (Carey, 2014). Notably, Chapter 2 reveals forgetting to be a
form of learning, which is based on a theory known as “Forget to Learn theory” (Carey, 2014).
CHAPTERS 1 & 2 3
Conclusion
The way learning occurs is surprising. Thus, the essay above has discussed surprising
facts found in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the book “How We Learn” which was written in 2014
by Carey. The essay reveals that the brain of human beings embeds facts based on perceptions of
an individual leading to bubbling up of slightly different permutations.
CHAPTERS 1 & 2 4
Reference
Carey, B. (2014) How we learn: The surprising truth about when, where, and why it happens.
New York, NY: Random House.
