Ellen J. Langer Book the Power of Mindful Learning Essay

Cover Letter: This paper is about elaborating the concept of memorization based on Ellen J. Langer book The Power of Mindful Learning. I wrote this paper in first person point of view since it was based on my personal experience. It was hard however to maintain a formal tone when writing in first person and it might still be evident in this essay itself. I think that the essay itself is still choppy and I should put more time in making more flow and connections between the paragraphs and different points. It is also relatively short for the essay requirement. If I had to do it again I would definitely revise it more than once and probably ask someone else to proof read it. I learned to cite personal experience and information from the†¦show more content†¦Besides, I am better when it comes to solving math problems. I would rather keep my math skills than trade it off with her â€Å"photographic† memory. However during one of my conversation with her, I found something rather odd. She doesn’t seem to memorize the date of my birthday even though it was just three weeks ago. Considering her skills, I would assume that she remembers the birthdate of everyone in our class. This leads me to think that most of her mind is programmed to absorb and exude information at a really fast rate. Through the book Power of Mindful Learning, the author Ellen J. Langer challenges traditional methods of learning and proposes new ways to better learn a subject. Through her concept of mindful learning, Langer enlightens the readers of ways to digest new information and learning new skills by being open to novelty, having alertness to distinction, sensitivity to different contexts, awareness of multiple perspectives, and orientation in the present. In the fourth chapter of the book Langer goes through some limitations of repetition in memorization known as rote memory and gives out interesting examples of how rote memory tactics can create the appearance of knowledge gained at first however could potentially disabled the learner when greater perspective is needed to create personal connections and make relevance. She describes memorization as ...a strategy to taking in material that has no