Exam fever is in the air again, and whether your kids are studying hard or hardly, here’s something to think about. Cent per cent marks or as close as you can dream of, usually hinge on one study essential: memory. And Sishya school teacher Ruchi Mohunta promises a surefire way to fast track the process for just about any kind of student. “It’s called mind mapping,” she says. “I discovered it about three years ago when I was doing a search online for tools that improve memory with kids.”
Since then Ruchi has gone on to become a certified instructor of mind mapping, courtesy the Think Buzan Centre in Dubai, and has helped over a 100 students pick up the skill with just a few sessions under her guidance. With the increase in demand from parents and several of her own students at school, Ruchi recently set up an exclusive centre to enhance memory power for those who seek it.
The best part of the bargain? “All the sessions are done with the students’ own study material,” the 36-year-old shares. So there’s no question of going home and trying it later.
The most commonly requested mind maps so far have been for Social Science, History, Geography and Biology. Although Ruchi promises, the tool is quite workable for just about any subject. But, she insists, “As long as you don’t tell your child to copy it down.”
Based on the concept of association, the map involves a central word or image that spreads out into a number of branches. Each branch consists of a single word and is drawn in a different colour. The branches may have sub-branches which begin to fan out into a tree with more words, and so on.
“A mind map drawn for a chapter gives you 20 per cent recall on the spot,” this teacher tells us.
The reason being she adds, “The maps are drawn based on individual memory association and no people’s association of a concept or word are the same.”
As for the branches and colours, Ruchi explains they enable the brain to think laterally and sync the left side of the brain (logical thinking) with the right (creativity).
So whether your child is struggling with the anatomy of an amoeba or 10th grade physics really doesn’t matter. Mind over matter they say? When one is dealing with an intimidating exam schedule, perhaps modify that adage to memory over (let’s be honest) mortal fear.
Ruchi Mohunta’s learning center, Nutshell Kids is located at Kilpauk and is open to kids aged nine and above. Contact 7667565161.