Doodling

When I was in sixth grade, my art teacher told me that the people who doodle during class actually retain much more information than the people who get bored and daydream. So I took this piece of information and put it to good use, and I've perfected some doodles that I learned over the years. 

It started out by watching ViHart on YouTube. She works at KhanAcademy and makes videos about mathy stuff. Recently, I learned a lot about the Fibonacci sequence in nature from her videos. She also creates videos about doodling in math class. She shows some awesome doodles that she does and tells you how to do them. They look pretty awesome. 

Over the break, my parents gave me a book that taught me how to draw really cute doodles. So I've been practicing in my math class. When Mr. Hallas, my teacher, was talking about e and compounding interest, I doodled until he was done talking. He then told us to work on our homework, and was going around the classroom when he saw my doodles. He looked at them and said he was impressed. I told him that people who doodle retain more information, and he nodded. He then said that he loved people who doodle. 

That was the first time I had heard that from anybody (excluding my art teacher, of corse). 

So I was curious. I went on the internet and looked up some articles about doodling, and it turns out that my art teacher was right. Apparently, when the mind gets bored, it actually creates a bunch of stuff to think about. Like, for example; I hope it'll snow today, then we could have a snow day tomorrow, and then I could just sleep in, and then I could knit and crochet-but what should I knit and crochet? You can pretty much go anywhere with that. So daydreaming will actually require a bunch of brain power and energy. However, if you doodle, you are still using your brain and keeping it awake, but not using it so much that you go off and daydream. Since you're not using all that energy you could be using, then you retain the information that was given to you during that boring meeting or class. 

I'm not kidding. I read this stuff on TIME and The Guardian. So next time you're in a boring class-just doodle! You'll remember a lot more than if you start thinking about that snow day that we need to have. I was just glad that a teacher knows that and doesn't mind.