The Power of Mindful Learning

Ellen J. Langer

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Excerpt from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, copyright © 1943 and renewed 1971 by Harcourt Brace and Company is
reprinted with the kind permission of Harcourt Brace and Company.

Excerpt adapted from Series 7 exam is reprinted with the kind permission of Todd Rosenfeld.

Excerpt from "Primer Class" in Elizabeth Bishop The Collected Prose
copyright © 1984 by Alice Methfessel is reprinted with the kind permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.

Lines from Robert Frost "Two Tramps in Mud Time" in The Poetry of
Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem, copyright © 1936
by Robert Frost, © 1964 by Leslie Ballatine Frost, and © 1969 by
Henry Holt and Company are reprinted with the kind permission of
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Lines from "Psalms" by Luis Llorens Torres quoted in The Whole
World Book of Quotations copyright © by Ross Petras and Kathryn
Petras are reprinted with the kind permission of Addison-Wesley
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Excerpts from "The Three Languages," "Hansel and Gretel," "The
Four Artful Brothers," and "The Old Man and His Grandson" in The
Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes
and copyright © 1987 by Jack Zipes, are reprinted with the kind permission of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell
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Excerpts from "The Lost Horse" and "The King's Favorite" in Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies, translated by Moss Roberts, and copyright © 1979 by Moss Roberts are reprinted with the kind permission
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"The Power ofMindful Learning argues that traditional methods
of learning can produce mindless behavior because they tend to
get people to `overlearn' a fact or a task and suggest that there is
only one way to do it. She argues that it is important to teach
skills and facts conditionally, setting the stage for doubt and an
awareness that different situations may call for different
approaches or answers.... Landmark studies make the point scientifically."

-The New York Times

"Like Freud, Piaget, Werner, and Vygotsky, Langer is well on
her way to constructing a grand theory of human functioning
with important implications for such diverse areas as education and learning, development and aging, group relations, and
psycho- and neuro-pathology.... Never before has social psychology provided more subtle insights into neuropsychology
and related fields than in Langer's provocative work .... Her
seemingly simple experimental manipulations point out profound truths about the human condition and how we as people can develop."