Memory Crafting in Hong Kong

 I will make a little film for the Zodiac.  I have created a really sweet and unthreatening Memory Palace with the 12 animals of the Chiense Zodiac. They work so well together and they even come with their own narrative.  And then when I looked into using the 12 animals to learn 12 special Chinese characters called 'The 12 Earthly Branches' I found out that that was the point all along. They are a mini 'alphabet' used in navigation, dates, and as components of characters. You just plonk them down into a location and hey presto, instant memory palace.  They are really attractive to my students as the Animals are associated with Lunar New Year, and LNY is associated with getting packets of money from all the adults and that's a really positive association! At the same time, I played a game with some classes this week to see if they remembered all the animals and could get them in the right order, and very few kids could. Some had a rhyme they could go through, but the...

 One aspect of training memory that I'm starting to notice consciously is aversion.  A feeling of irritation verging on anger. I notice it in myself and in my kids (the only people I feel qualified to bother and not worry about damaging the relationship).  There is something aversive about training the brain. And maybe even all learning. But certainly the transformation of information/ knowledge from one format to another.  (I think this is constructivist but I can't find a reference).  And even thinking about it.  I started leaning into the feeling. I've been listening to a bunch of Anthony Metevier videos. I get really irritated by those. (Hi Anthony, if you're reading). I don't like the way he repeats so much, nags about rules, and makes a 10 minute idea go for 45 minutes. However he does have a lot of ideas and has read all the books and tried all the things, and is (certainly seems) devoted to finding ways to teach this and share it and make is accessi...

I started a PAO list because yesterday I was writing about hating things, and i have a lot of hostility toward these visual and verbal number systems.  I talked to Chris about it and he was surprisingly hostile because he can just remember numbers without tricks. He learnt the 100 places of pi at school to annoy his teacher. I guess he used the page a a MP.  I will tell him about the bestiary for names.  I talked to Sam and he still hasn't looked at the cospaces for axioms. I might just give him the animal list.  I spent a lot of time deep diving into the lives of psychologists and trying to distinguish people vividly enough to include them.  I also collected links to the theories that are interesting or useful to research: Embodied cognition Karl friston: Unifying inappropriately disparate fields https://youtu.be/HW0JnjgCO3o VCE Psychology Learning activities for Unit 3 https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/curriculum/vce/vce-study-designs/Psychology/Pages/TeachingandLea...

It sounds questionable to use the same location for two things that overlap so closely in usage and appearance but I did it as an experiment.  Also because I created the English one for my students and then didn't know how to test it. So I created a Russian one for myself to see if I can actually store Russian in a way that makes sense, or is useful. I just did a typo and wrote 'story' instead of 'store'. The only thing I have stored so far is a story, the story that links the loci, and the Russian one got so dark. Yrka is the only word I found that starts with that i letter, but it was dark before that. The russian is built on top of the english and either uses the element that is there, elaborates on it or ignores it. The tree becomes Tanya transmogrified, the rat comes to terms with the queen over pie/pi/pirog.    Here are the walk-through stories I wrote for English and Russian. The Russian one I translated with Google and I will later clean it up to be my style...

 A new project that needs some brainstorming.  ... That's as far as I got. I started this post in 2021. Now it's 25 Feb 2025. I've been experimenting with Memory Crafts for 5 years! I read The Memory Code even before that, so it's longer.  I have created a bunch of things in my school, my home and for myself, and now I want to make the project bigger and broader. I am looking for structures through which to share these ideas with other teachers and, if you will, be a doula in the process. Dramaturge is also a term that comes to mind. Someone who partners you in planning, research and design, so the teacher's focus can be on their own students and curriculum and the project doesn't become a drain or a misuse of time.  I need somewhere to blog as a record but no one is actually reading it, so I don't self censor, so blogger, you are back!  I have signed up for co spaces edu as a management and communication tool for my spaces.  I am also frustrated about find...

 Sunday 23  May 2021, Update on projects: It's been another interesting year. Janet has started a fine art degree at Hong Kong Art School. At the beginning of the year we worked on adapting her Bestiary to an Art History timeline. Then we worked on various school projects. Recently we have been reading through the book and reviewing our memory palaces, which still only go up the the first 20 countries. The amount that fits in the house.  Today we tried a new thing.  I bought some nice wooden toy shapes in Muji about a year ago with the intention of carving them into tactile objects.  Recently I've been intending to record the hormone yoga poses I'm learning with my friend Lisa but I haven't done the work to set it up. Then Janet and I together started a different class with Lisa (who is in fact primarily an incredibly talented historical bassoon player, living in Belgium and now teaching on Zoom). She is teaching us Egyptian folk/belly dance and we are absolute ...

Today is Sunday 19th July 2020. We started on 12th July 2020. 9 August,  We are up to 20. We've written them down and Janet is remembering them without looking.  The first 10 locations are in the living room which is a den of criminals who all come out to destroy and battle as soon as everyone leaves the house. There are a few gods who are powerful but not so evil.  11-15 are in Janet's room.  16 - 20 are in Dad's room.  1   China [b] 1,403,583,800 18.0% Heaven fairy visiting her mortal lover.  She doesn't realise that he died thousands of years ago.  Front door 2   India [c] 1,364,844,721 17.5% A book about two Indian lovers, a Bollywood Love Story Movie.  3   United States [d] 329,974,375 4.23% TV Dr Octopus is fighting Kali      4   Indonesia 269,603,400 3.46% Voldemort in the Indonesian Cupboard because the clothes are from Indonesia and Voldemort is hiding there, i...