Chapter 9 - True learning: the fun-fast way

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True learning: the fun-fast way	339

What's held up the big breakthroughs?

  Given the proven results of the new techniques, in many ways they have been slow to spread. This is probably as much a result of the "cold war" atmosphere of the 1960s and 70s as it is of any conservatism in the educational establishment. Early incorrect reports of "sleep learning" in the then Communist bloc countries also conjured up illusions of "brainwashing".
  Lozanov's accelerated learning techniques made their biggest early impact in foreign-language training for adults. The reasons were simple:
  1. His first published international results were in this field.
  2. Probably more than in any other subject, the spectacular results were easy to assess. People with no knowledge of another language were obviously learning much faster and more effectively.
  Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder publicized some of these feats early in the 1970s with their book Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain. And their use of the word "psychic" probably turned-off as many people as it inspired. Soon afterwards, Lyall Watson answered much of the scepticism with Supernature. In it he mounted fact after fact to prove that what many people regard as "supernatural" is really "supernature;" that we all have hidden reserves of talent.33
  In North America, some of the first interest came from Canada, with its concentration on bilingual education. Dr. Jane Bancroft, Associate Professor of French at the University of Toronto, brought Lozanov to Canada in 1971. And a year later Dr. Donald Schuster, Professor of Psychology at Iowa State University, and a colleague, Ray Benitez-Bordon of Des Moines, began some of the first United States experiments. By 1975 Benitez-Bordon was reporting classes learning more than a full year's Spanish in 10 days - with four hours' study a day.34
  But many of the early American results did not live up to the pre-publicity, largely because of misunderstanding over the role of music in the process. Many early enthusiasts thought any relaxing music would do. And the cause of good learning was not helped by many early spurious claims of spectacular results.
  Fortunately the early development of the techniques coincided with some major breakthroughs in brain-research, as we've covered earlier.
  They have also been accompanied by other research into the vital importance of individual learning styles.

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