The Power of Remind
Once upon a time, as a very novice teacher, I hesitated to repeat myself. After all, weren’t my students paying me to provide them with brand new information, things they DIDN’T already know? If all I was doing was reminding them of something I’d already told them, was I really teaching?
Two decades and much teaching experience later, I know better. And if you’ve ever taught, or learned, anything, you probably know better, too. Repetition is the bread and butter of learning. It’s all well and good to hear something new, but if you are unable to retain it, apply it, and/or integrate it within your existing knowledge frameworks, you might as well not have heard it at all.
Repetition is how we bridge the distance from hearing to doing. (Especially spaced, richly contextualized, participatory repetition, but that’s another blog post.) Needing repetition is not a failure. It doesn’t mean you’re slow.
When it comes to learning, reminders are a feature, not a bug.
As a teacher, I do need to remind myself of this from time (SEE WHAT I DID THERE!!).
I suspect you might, too, because often, when I remind a student of something they already know, I see that student wince. And I sympathize! There’s a societal stigma around reminders. It lurks in common phrases like“don’t make me repeat myself,” “you should have listened the first time,” and “you don’t need to tell me twice.” Quick learning is lionized; benefiting from repetition is not.
But repetition is immensely powerful, and many, many individuals and organizations know and take full advantage of this. Think about any kind of religious service, in which you are constantly and creatively reminded of things you’ve already heard. Think about advertising campaigns, with their repeated, tailored reminders. Think about successful classroom management, with its many repeated routines.
The best teachers you’ve had repeated themselves. And as we become teachers, whether we are teaching ourselves or teaching others, it behooves us to remember just how essential repetition can be.
It is OK to say the same thing twice. It is OK to hear the same thing twice. It is OK to take the time to remind ourselves of what we already know.