‘Use the mind as an analytical tool’

Henry Toi from Singapore became a Buzan Mind Map trainer after completing an instructor course in Australia in 2000. In 2003, he founded the Buzan Asia Centre in Singapore, which has opened seven branches in Asia, including one in India, in Pune.

Toi became a master trainer in 2005 and is one of the four master trainers and Buzan licensed instructors in the world. He now has 10 years of experience in Buzan learning techniques.

On a recent visit to the city, Toi led a four-day Buzan Licensed Instructor (BLI) certificate course, the second such Indian BLI intake programme. In a talk with DNA, Toi stressed on the need to change the way the world learns and people apply their minds.

Why is it essential for the brain to be trained, to improve and accelerate our learning and thinking skills?
Many things that people do need to be changed. In today’s education system, students are a frustrated lot and show no interest in studies. Parents are unsure about how to motivate children to study while teachers are bothered about how to make students understand what they are teaching.

All of us face many problems in life, which can be easily worked out if we know how the brain works. It is necessary to understand how the brain functions and the way we think, so that it eventually helps in improving our thinking process.

The benefits of training your memory using the Mind Map technique is based on neuroscience and basic research. Though the basic principle of learning and thinking is the same, the delivery method is different, which allows you to improve and accelerate your learning and thinking skills.

Is there a need to change the way students learn? Why? 
In our present education system, topics are taught to students in different modular forms; information is delivered to them in bits and pieces. It will only make sense to students if they are able to join these pieces together as an efficient whole.

The content and curriculum that are researched and set for different subjects are perfect. However, it is the delivery of the content that is wrong. When students receive this content, they must know how to see it as a connected whole, otherwise it becomes boring, linear and unconnected to them. They should understand that they are not dependent on the teacher, but independent of him/her. Training memory and imagination helps students to see things together, thereby improving their studying skills remarkably.  

What do we need to make a difference in the world of learning and teaching?         
We need a comprehensive approach to studying and the process of teaching the content. It has to be visually stimulating, brain friendly, productive and more interactive. After interactions, I realised that university professors are not able to comprehend how to connect with the students using innovative teaching methods. Bringing about a change in the education system is a slow and hard process. This does not hold true for people in business as they are ready to accept any change that leads to profit and success.  

How can students benefit by learning to use memory techniques?
Whatever you learn in school anyway becomes obsolete after 10 years. While choosing the right career or education path, students must expand their thoughts for better understanding of what they must and must not do. The mind can be used as an analytical tool by students to help reduce studying. For example, by being able to summarise around 25 pages of content and reducing it to one page, the stress among students can be reduced considerably. If they can increase their retention power by 30% to 40% by unlocking the secrets in an organised way, they will be
able to effectively enhance their performance.