When it comes to students rating teachers in a classroom, one of the most common things students look at is clarity. “Did I understand what this teacher was teaching me?” “Was the teacher clear in what they’re teaching?” Now, sometimes this is probably a good thing. I’ve had some terrible teachers and a lot of it comes down to clarity… but most of the time, this is the wrong way to judge teachers (at least if you want to actually learn anything). Turns out that a) students are a terrible judge of what they know and don’t know, and b) confused students actually know more than students who aren’t confused. Sounds weird, right?
Confusion = Understanding
Eric Mazur, famous Harvard physics education researcher, recently did a keynote at ICER 2011 (you can read more about the whole keynote here). Of course, he talks about education – I also hear he’s a pretty smart frood.
The part of the keynote that I thought was particularly interesting (at least when it comes to this series of “Making Japanese Obvious“) was the bit on “confusion,” where confused people actually answered the questions more correctly than those who stated they weren’t confused (by quite a bit, too).
He asked students a couple of hard questions in a test (on things they hadn’t faced previously). Then, afterwards, he asked if they were confused or not confused. These are the results.
By quite a large margin, “confused” students did better than students who weren’t confused, which I think tends to go against common sense (at least until you think more about it). So let’s do just that (and think about it).
When it comes to new concepts, if you’re confused you tend to know more than if you’re not confused. Assuming that Mazur is right in saying that students aren’t a very good judge of their own knowledge (I’d tend to agree with that, which is why I like it when Anki tells you how knowledgable you are for you), those that are not confused are often simply just remembering things incorrectly or plain wrong (at least 75ish percent of the time).
Those who are confused on the other hand get the answer right around 50% of the time. It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly better than 25% of the time, which is how often “not-confused” students got the answers correct.
It’s an interesting idea, just because most students associate “not being confused” with “knowing the content.”
So, if we believe all of this, then the goal is to become confused. If you’re confused, then you’re showing understanding, even if it’s a partial understanding (I don’t think anybody can say they understand everything just from watching a demo or reading something). It shows you’re learning and that you know enough to be confused in the first place. People who aren’t confused just don’t know enough to be confused, I think.
Getting Confused
So if that’s the case, we should be trying to get confused while learning and studying Japanese. The words “trying to get confused” don’t seem like words you’d hear often when it comes to academics, but I think it’s one of those things that will get you ahead if you shoot for it.
One thing I’d love you to try and change in your mind is this. Try to think about it before you begin studying (anything) until it becomes a part of your identity.
Confusion is a natural part of learning. If I’m not getting confused then I’m not learning enough.
Remember the last “obvious” post where we talked about epiphanies in Japanese and learning? The idea of getting confused goes hand in hand with this. Without confusion, you won’t have epiphanies. If you don’t have epiphanies, Japanese will never become “obvious” to you. Confusion and epiphanies are things that must happen when you learn. If they don’t happen, you aren’t learning enough or challenging yourself (or, you just think you know what you’re doing, but perhaps you don’t).
Point is, confusion is great, and you should embrace it, not fear from it.
Creating And Tackling Confusion
Now, of course, you don’t want to be confused all the time. You want to reach that point where “Japanese is Obvious” and confusion is a thing of the past. Confusion is for new concepts, but once you get through the confusion and learn something well, it’s no longer confusing… it’s obvious.
Everyone’s going to be confused by different things. I can’t really tell you exactly what to do to create more confusion in your studies. I can tell you that if you aren’t consistantly confused by things, then you should challenge yourself more, because you’re probably taking things too slow. That could mean learning more, studying harder things, or it could just mean you’re avoiding things that give you trouble. People who avoid the things that give them trouble (and confusion!) don’t get better, unfortunately. It’s something you must face, and if you don’t you’ll fall behind.
Confusion’s your friend, not something to be scared of.
In fact, I think confusion is something you can learn to love. The problem is that most schools beat confusion out of you. The goal in school is to study for the test… to get that A+ rating and to pass your classes. The goal isn’t to learn and to enjoy learning, so you learn to avoid the confusing stuff and do just well enough to get the grade you need (or your parents need).
With a lot of you and Japanese, however, you’re doing it for your own enjoyment. You’re not doing it to pass a test or anything like that. You’re doing it for you. We’re naturally wired (until it’s taken out of us) to get joy out of solving problems and fixing things… that’s been shown again and again in various studies. Confusion is part of that process, and solving problems that cause confusion will release all sorts of great chemicals in the brain as a reward. Once you learn to enjoy learning for the sake of learning, confusion won’t be so scary anymore. Confront it as much as possible. Confusion is great.
So, try this before you head back off onto other things. Make a list of the things that confuse you (especially if it has to do with learning Japanese). The things that confuse you are things you have some knowledge in (that’s a good sign). Now, figure out what you need to do and what you need to solve to make these things go from confusing to obvious.
Can you try to tackle one of those things right now?