Flies...
When you or I think of flies, I'm fairly sure it's not exactly a great feeling that washes over you. Next to mosquitoes, they're pretty much incessant-bug number one on a long list of pests we'd rather not know. Flies have that scavenger's air about them -what with their being attracted to foul smells, garbage, and rotting meat. Worse, for those of you who are even more in the know about flies, you may also be knowledgeable about the eating habits of flies. That is: eating by spitting a chemical mass onto the food they hope to consume, then sucking up the gooey sludge their vomited concoction has turned it into.
Okay, I believe I done enough to gross you out to this point; and, while fun, it wasn't my aim. I mean, I believe it's fairly clear to all of us that flies have no redeeming qualities, and that they're best found at the end of a working swatter. And yet...
Before learning the and yet, it would be much appreciated if you took 4 minutes to watch this video about training flies.
Did you catch the "and yet"?
If you were paying attention to the video, you now know that something interesting is to be learned from flies. Flies are not too much unlike us. Flies can smell, flies prefer some odors to others, and flies can learn. Maybe not table manners or how to stop their obnoxious, pestering ways, but they can learn.
Flies can learn. I repeat this information because it's about the last thing I'd assume or think of when someone mentions flies. More remarkable is that flies learn best over a period of time, time with breaks set in between.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Kids, you, even I, learn best not by cramming the night before a test, but by trying to understand, memorize, and apply things over days and weeks with those all important breaks in between.
Teachers have know this for a long time. It's why we ask students to fill in multiple study times in their agenda planners. It's why we say at the end of every period the weeks leading up to an exam, "Make sure you study tonight."
The key is to follow through on those marked points of time, the ones that have a break in between them.
Oh, and one side note. Our bees are dying. Hardly news as Sudden Colony Collapse Disorder has been in the news for a few years now. Same with bats. It's a terrible thing as we know many of the foods we buy rely on bees and their ability to pollinate plants to survive. So, here's a thought. Since we know that flies can learn and we know they're attracted to certain smells (regrettable foul smells), can't we create a simple chemical to spray over fields that would attract flies to it? The flies would act as surrogate bees in this way. No? Maybe you just think my idea stinks. Then again, that'd "bee" the whole idea!
Oh, and one side note. Our bees are dying. Hardly news as Sudden Colony Collapse Disorder has been in the news for a few years now. Same with bats. It's a terrible thing as we know many of the foods we buy rely on bees and their ability to pollinate plants to survive. So, here's a thought. Since we know that flies can learn and we know they're attracted to certain smells (regrettable foul smells), can't we create a simple chemical to spray over fields that would attract flies to it? The flies would act as surrogate bees in this way. No? Maybe you just think my idea stinks. Then again, that'd "bee" the whole idea!
An Important Element to Long-Term Learning by Ralph Lagana
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