Vídeo 1: Easy does it—

Why trying too hard can sometimes be a problem

Synopsis
The brain has two alternating ways of learning. The focused mode is activated when we pay
close attention to something. The diffuse mode is activated when we’re more relaxed and not
purposefully focusing on anything.
By using a pinball machine analogy for the brain, this video allows us to better understand
how learning involves going back and forth between the two different modes. When we grow
frustrated in our learning, it’s time to step back and allow the diffuse mode to go to work!

The two different “pinball tables” in the brain represent the two
modes of thinking and learning—focused and diffuse.

Why knowledge of focused and diffuse modes is important

Kids get frustrated when they can’t figure something out. If this happens too often,
kids can quickly lose their enthusiasm. They can’t help but look at the other faster learners
with more “natural talent” (even though some of these other kids are also struggling secretly).
As frustration builds, kids can even end up hating a topic. It’s a vicious circle, but it can be
avoided.
It’s important to help kids understand that it’s perfectly normal not to understand
something difficult the first time they tackle it. If they take breaks as they struggle, and learn
over several (or even many!) days, they can actually learn the subject more deeply than the
apparent super-stars.
But just telling kids to take a break doesn’t help much. If kids don’t understand why
their struggles arise, and why breaks are needed, your advice can sound like just so much
well-meaning, contradictory fluff. After all, aren’t teachers and parents always talking about
how important it is to be persistent?
The key is to explain how the brain works to kids before the kids begin to get
frustrated. After all, when kids are frustrated, it’s hard to get anything new into their brain.

Learning How to Learn, Video 1

 Thus, you want to make children aware of the back-and-forth nature of learning as the
brain toggles between the focused and the diffuse modes. Teaching about this process before
the frustration arises can serve as a sort of vaccination. When frustration does kick in, you
can tell your student—“Ah hah—it’s time to take a diffuse mode break!” And they’ll know
what you mean.
Incidentally, learning to detect that frustrating feeling of “my mental wheels are
spinning uselessly!” can also help students avoid wasting time on a difficult problem on a
test. Teaching kids to let go and move on and return later to difficult problems or concepts is
an important skill that helps them have time for the easier problems they can solve.

EXERCISES TO BE CARRIED OUT IN CLASS:

Exercise 1-1 The Brain Is Like a Pinball Machine
Background:
Your goal in this exercise is to give children a physical feel for the differences
between the focused and diffuse modes. When students are close together, it’s an analogy for
the focused mode. When they’re further apart, it’s an analogy for the diffuse mode. The
thread, ribbon, or extension cords will also help kids begin to think about the patterns in their
brain that arise when they learn something. Remind your students that this exercise involves a
metaphor for how the brain works. It’s just meant to give an initial feel for what’s happening
in the brain.
Some inquisitive kids will want more specific details—for example, how exactly do
the children in this exercise relate to what’s going on in the brain? You can tell them that the
children represent synapses (connections between neurons), which we’ll explain with more
detail later.

What to do: What you’ll need:

These two different configurations of children represent the “close together”
1. First, have the children stand relatively close to one another—perhaps two feet apart
connections, with pre-laid patterns of the focused mode, and the
Roughly
widely 15 or more
spaced youngsters
from one another, similar to the pattern above for the focused mode. Have one child stand
and space enough for them to to
connections of the diffuse mode.
stand on an open floor (perhaps
move the desks & chairs to the
Learning How to Learn, Video 1 side of the room).
 A 10- to 15-foot-long ribbon,
jump rope, or extension cord
the side—this child will later serve as the “thought.” (Make sure there’s room for the
“thought” child to slip between the other children, as described below.)
Explain that this pattern, where the kids are close together, represents the focused
mode of thinking. Each child represents a place where thoughts bounce through connections
as they move along in the brain.
Then take the ribbon and ask some of the children to hold it, so it looks from above a
little like the strand in the focused mode illustration. Explain that the ribbon represents a
pathway in the brain that has already been laid because an idea has been practiced. Then ask
the “thought” child to walk and follow along the ribbon. Explain that this is what it’s like
inside the brain when someone is focusing on solving a familiar problem or thinking about a
well-known concept. There are already mental paths for their “thought” to follow. Notice
what this means—if a person doesn’t know anything about the subject, there aren’t any paths,
so it can be very difficult to solve problems or understand the concepts.
For example, if you asked the kids to add 4 + 7, (or a more complicated problem if
they already know higher level math), their thoughts would move along the “ribbon pathway”
that’s already laid in their brains as they worked to solve the problem.
Similarly, if you asked the kids to tie their shoelaces or recite a poem that they know
by heart, their minds would run along a different focused mode pathway. Ask the kids to hold
a second, differently-coloured ribbon to represent this second pathway, and have the “thought
child” (or substitute in a new “thought child” to share the fun), and have them walk and
follow along with the new strand.
Finally, replace one of the ribbons with the thin piece of thread. A thin pathway is
what happens when the student has just barely learned something, but hasn’t yet practiced
with it. The thin path can make it harder to follow along the strand and think the thought.

2. Next, remove the thread or string, and move the children further apart. Explain that
the more spread out pattern is the other mode—the diffuse mode—that the brain can work in.
Notice that this mode doesn’t have previously laid connections—there’s no yarn, string, or
thread. The “thought child” can trace any path they might like between the students. And the
thought can easily range much more widely.
This is the mode the brain falls into when you’re relaxing and not focusing your
thinking. It may look like there’s not much going on in this mode. But actually, this mode
allows your thoughts to range much more randomly and broadly. You can’t focus intently in
this mode, the way you can in the focused mode. But you can at least jump to a new place
with your thoughts. This “jumping to a new place” in your thinking is what can allow you to
figure out the answer to a tough problem, or understand a concept that’s really had you
puzzled. In the diffuse mode, you can start a new way of thinking more easily!
When you’re learning something new, especially if it’s a little hard to understand,
your brain goes back and forth between the two different modes as it figures things out and
begins to lay out the focused mode patterns of expertise.

Exercise 1-2 Toggling Back and Forth Between Focused & Diffuse Modes
This exercise helps children more fully appreciate that their brain toggles back and
forth between the focused and the diffuse mode—and that they can only be in one mode at a
time.

Learning How to Learn, Video 1

What to do:
1. Getting the idea of “only one mode at a
time.”
A. First, have the children stand. Tell them to
lift their right arm out to their right side.
This “lifted” right arm represents their
focused mode.
B. Now tell them to put their right arm down
and lift their left arm. This “lifted” left arm
represents their diffuse mode.
C. Now, tell them to lift their right arm, or
their left arm, at random, depending on whether they are imagining they are in the focused
mode, or the diffuse mode. Tell them they can’t raise both arms at the same time (at least
when they’re pretending to be the focused or diffuse modes in the brain!)

Helpful Background Information

Real brains are a little different from our arm exercises in that you can go into focused
mode (“right arm raised”) whenever you want. But going into diffuse mode is a little more
difficult. It’s like falling asleep—you can tell your brain to fall asleep all you want, but it
falls asleep when it chooses. It’s almost like your left arm (your diffuse mode) will raise only
when it feels like it—you can’t order it to go up!
Some people’s brains fall into diffuse mode more frequently—they can lose focus
easily. This may seem like a drawback, but it can actually help with creativity.
Focusing is important to help load the information in mind. Shifting to diffuse mode
after an intense period of concentration can allow the brain to start to make sense of the input.
After this exercise, ask the children to explain the concept of switching between
focused and diffuse modes to you, or to one another. Or ask them to create their own
metaphor for switching between the focused and diffuse mode!

Exercise 1-3 Table talk on the Diffuse Mode

What to do:

1. First brainstorm. Have your children team up in groups of three or four and take turns
describing an experience where going into diffuse mode helped them solve a problem.
This should take 3 to 5 minutes. Then ask some of the groups to share their best tips.
2. Second brainstorm. Ask the children to brainstorm in their groups what they will do next
time they begin to feel frustration in their studies. Then ask some of the groups to
share their best tips.

Teacher tip: Remind students that a little frustration is okay in their studies—you
want to make sure students don’t give up too soon. Finding the balance of when to take a
break can take some practice.

Exercise 1-4 Brainstorm a list of diffuse mode activities

Learning How to Learn, Video 1

What to do:

1. Ask the kids in your class to join together in groups of 3 or 4 students. Then get very
excited and tell them they will have only two minutes to do a very important task. But
first, they need to see who got up earliest that morning. (Give them a few moments to
sort that out.)
2. Select the group’s recorder. You can do this by saying—“Whoever woke up latest is
going to be the person who is the recorder—they need to get out a piece of paper and
a pencil.” (You can switch this up by selecting the one who woke up earliest, or any
other means you wish to use to select the person who is the recorder.) There will be
groans.
3. Describe the brainstorming session. Then ask the student groups to come up with as
many ideas for diffuse mode activities as they possibly can. Tell them that no idea is
a bad one—the more ideas, the better! The recorder needs to jot down the ideas.
4. Begin! With excitement, say “On your mark, get set, go!” The groups will begin chattering
with ideas. Walk around the groups and encourage them with phrases such as “I like
that idea!” or “Oh look—they’ve already got six ideas over here!”
5. Stop the brainstorming session. Sometimes it can be hard to stop children’s excited
chatter. A good technique is to say “If you can hear me, raise your hand!” Repeat it
several times if necessary to get at least a few of the students to raise their hands.
Then say “If you can really hear me, raise your other hand!” By this time, the children
should have quieted down.
5. Gather ideas by asking individual groups at random for some of their ideas. Do not
ask for volunteers until after you have selected some groups and individuals yourself.
(This prevents the same students from answering all the time.)

Below is a list of examples that students may come up with. For your convenience,
we’ve divided the activities into general diffuse mode activators, and those that are better
used as rewards.1 Note that sometimes there is overlap between activities. For example,
dancing can be very relaxing—but if you are focusing intently to learn a new dance step, it
can definitely be a focused mode activity!

General diffuse activators

 Go to the gym
 Play a sport like soccer or basketball
 Jog, walk, or swim
 Dance
 Travel in a moving vehicle like a bus or a car
 Draw or paint
 Take a bath or shower
 Listen to music, especially without words
 Play songs you know well on a musical instrument
 Meditate or pray
 Sleep (the ultimate diffuse-mode!)

Learning How to Learn, Video 1

Diffuse mode activators that are best used briefly, as rewards. (These activities may pull
you into a more focused mode than the activators listed above)

 Play video games

 Surf the web
 Talk to friends
 Volunteer to help someone with a simple task
 Read a relaxing book
 Text friends

Exercise 1-5 Feeling the shift while forming a square

This exercise can help children to get a sense of what it feels like to go from focused
to diffuse modes.

1. 2. 3.

1. On the class’s blackboard or whiteboard, draw the two triangles on the upper left of the
above drawing. Ask the children how you’d put those two triangles together to form a
square. This is easy—the kids will gladly tell you to draw the square underneath.
2. Draw the two squares in the middle of the above drawing. Then say—“I’d like to make a
square from these four triangles.” And draw the two side-by-side ( ) squares
underneath, as shown in the middle of the drawing.
3. Ask the children to brainstorm in groups of 3 to 4 whether the answer looks right to them,
and if it doesn’t look right, if there might be a better answer. When the children arrive
at the solution, applaud and ask them to observe the feeling of “ah hah” when they
realized what the solution was. That was the intuition of the diffuse mode!

Learning How to Learn, Video 1

Teacher tip: Your first tendency is to put four triangles together to form a rectangle, as
shown in the middle. This is because you’ve already laid down a focused mode pattern, and
you naturally tend to follow it. It takes an intuitive leap into the diffuse mode to realize that
you need to completely rearrange the pieces to form another square, as shown on the right.2

Exercise 1-6 Feeling the shift while rearranging coins

Like the above exercise with the triangles, this exercise can help children to get a
sense of what it feels like to go from focused to diffuse modes.

What to do

1. Draw the coins as shown at right on the board.

2. Ask the children to team up and see if they can figure out how to
create a new triangle that points down by moving only three
coins. Tell the kids that when they relax their minds, releasing their attention and
focusing on nothing in particular, the solution can most easily come to them. Tell
them not to blurt out the answer if they do get it.

Teacher tip: The answer is to the right, but don’t tell the children the answer
right away! Let them spend a few minutes on it, and then go on to other
activities without giving the answer. Don’t bring the problem up again until the
next day.
You should know that some kids get the solution instantly, while some highly
intelligent professors finally just give up. Everybody’s different, but letting your
mind drift free is key to seeing the solution!3

Notes by Barbara Oakley and ESIC Business & Marketing School.

For more information, see Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without
Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens
Illustration of focused & diffuse modes courtesy Oliver Young.
References
de Bono, Edward. Lateral Thinking. NY: Harper Perennial, 1970.
Oakley, Barbara Ann. A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science. New York,
NY: Penguin-Random House, 2014.
Oakley, Barbara and Terrence Sejnowski with Alistair McConville. Learning How to Learn:
Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School without Spending All Your Time
Studying; a Guide for Kids and Teens New York, NY: Penguin-Random House, 2018.

Learning How to Learn, Video 1

1
Oakley (2014) pp. 35-36.
2
This problem is from A Mind for Numbers, Oakley (2014) page 21, and was originally provided in a
different layout in de Bono (1970).
3
This problem is from Learning How to Learn, Oakley, et al. (2018), page 22.