An Elephant Never Forgets

You may have seen the Chinese proverb: Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand. Now you can see the statistics to support that ancient wisdom. From page 29 of Greenleaf’s book, here is what

We Learn and Remember After a Month:

14% of what we hear.
22% of what we see.
30% of what we watch others do/demonstrate.
42% of what we are exposed to through seeing, hearing and doing in a regular, consistent, repeated fashion – a same time-same situation approach.
72% of what is linked to remembered or imagined life experiences of the learner – of connections to the movies of the learner’s mind.
83% of what is performed as a challenge activity – first time or demanding actions that apply to new learning.
92% of what we teach others. Learners need to be teachers.

Faculty will have a few moments to reflect on why they may or may not have recalled what was filled in on the opening SMART Board screen. They might have utilized prior knowledge, an associated memory, or the novelty of the situation to get some of the list into their memories. On the other hand, due to nerves or excitement they may have had difficulty attending to the list and the information didn’t go beyond short-term memory.

On the smartkit site you can read about some research that explains the title of this post, why an elephant never forgets. Maintained by neurologist Dr. R. L. Kaplan, smartkit “strives to bring you a fresh daily supply of captivating puzzles to exercise and train your brian.”

This is the fourth of about twenty or fewer posts and for further information about this series, please read Closings and Openings. As you follow the development of this activity, please feel free to chime in with suggestions or questions!

Click to see a full size version of An Elephant Never Forgets screen.