I'm curious if there's anybody here who's like this. Either doing it without writing things down, or doing it minimally. I don't know why but I find it very difficult to do, and it stops me from actually learning/studying. I feel like it slows me down, significantly. It also feels like a chore. I feel like part of this may be because I'm in information security? Like, there's a lot of reading and researching going on, then immediate practicing and applying. Even when I have to take tests. I just read and listen or whatever else and that's it. Maybe in other fields, taking notes is a big thing, or maybe it's just me. I also have other interests, but yet still, I simply can't bring myself to write things down. I just prefer to absorb everything, in whatever pace I like, sometimes it's slow, sometimes it's fast. If I ever decide that I'm going to take notes while learning/studying, I'd stare at my notebook/software for a very long time. I'd sit with one chapter/slide for quite awhile. At the same time, I truly admire people who take notes and write stuff. I do wish I was like them sometimes. Is anybody out here the same? Even though I really want to hear from people who are similar, everyone else can join the discussion too. What do you do? How do you do it? What is your preference? Do you think there's a "better" way to do things? Could taking notes be "superior" to the opposite?

OK, so I have a very nerdy, mildly ADHD 9 year old boy who has been fascinated with WW2 for ages. All this started with him getting obsessed with the Titanic when he was about 4, which then led us to look at some old Nat Geo magazines about Robert Ballard's oceanographic expeditions which then led him to get fascinated with the German battleship Bismarck and Operation Rheinubung. The drama of big gun battleships got him in the feels and in the five years since then he has been deeply into naval stuff, particularly WW2 naval combat ever since. Musically this got him into Sabaton and their WW1/2 related metal songs. He actually sat down and watched the 1960s black and white Sink the Bismarck on YouTube, along with stuff like Midway (the version from a few years back). He thinks aircraft carriers are cool and ate up both Top Gun movies and is now getting into submarines (loved The Hunt for Red October) but wistfully repeatedly tries to reason me into agreeing that navies should have stuck with big gun battleships.

However, this has manifested as a deep fascination with Germany in general- he knows the basics about fascism, the Holocaust and Wehrmacht atrocities (but still can't quite get why it happened) but to a small boy I understand the OMG WUNDERWAFFEN attraction. Coincidentally his best friend is an ethnically German girl which further gets him a bit confused because he can't quite grok the difference between "my friend is German, I think German engineering is cool" and "but we still condemn fascism".
To be clear- he understands why racism and prejudice are wrong. As an ethnic minority in our country I suspect he'll come into contact with racial prejudice sooner rather than later so hopefully life experience will lead him away from the alt-right bits of history nerdery.

We're in Singapore, which means there's very little consciousness of the Holocaust in public education- our history syllabus (fairly enough) deals with the Pacific War and its effects on postwar decolonisation when it touches on WW2 whereas the European theatre is just vague background.

I don't know where I'm going with this, really- I like that my son is a history buff, and I don't want to cut him off from intellectual interests he's passionate about but on the other hand I'm wondering how I can let him enjoy this while contextualising it from a progressive perspective.

I think many of us are students, or just like self-learning some topics for themselves, perhaps their work requires studying — I think it might be interesting to collect a few tips we have experience with on how to do it efficiently.

I would start with probably one of the best tools in this category that I think are still underutilized by many: spaced-repetition software. Perhaps more people might be familiar with the concept from language learning with word cards, but the base idea is that reinforcing some knowledge at increasing intervals will effectively make you remember it ’forever’. A final selling point on this topic: it only requires 10 minutes out of your entire life to remember a fact for basically forever with instant recall - that’s a very good use of one’s time in my opinion. For more information on it here is a great article.
(It’s talking about Anki, a notable spaced repetition program that is free and open-source (the ios client is paid though, as this is the only income source of the maintainer, but you could just use the web interface as well. Not affiliated))

For anyone who's caring for school-age children, I want to let you know that nearly every single online education platform/tool is currently offering up their normally premium paid services for free on account of school closures. While some will offer these directly to parents/students, most of them require a teacher to sign up and then have the student account exist underneath them.

If there is a resource that you or your children would like to access, please email your child's teacher and ask if they'll sign up for it. It'll likely take only two minutes on their end (and they'll be happy to do it! trust me!), but it'll open up a ton of resources for you and your child.

Ok I'll start:

Brazil: here the schools are split between the fundamental level, which is 1-9th grade, which is then subdivided onto fundamental I and II, which range from 1-5th (ages 6-11) and 6-9th grades (ages 11-15) respectively. Then we have 'medium' level ("Ensino Médio") which goes from 10th-12th grade, and then we have a national test called ENEM, where everyone takes a test to be able to enroll in the many colleges/universities which accept it, where you then reach 'superior' class and take technical courses and the like.

Class goes from 7-12:20 Am for fundamental II and 1-5:20 pm for fundamental I. This is because each day is divided into six periods of 50 minutes (+a 20 minute break, like in most places) for the sake of making subject distribution easier.

There are 8 subjects in fundamental class, Portuguese (grammar), math, geography, history, science, physical education, English (still mostly grammar) and arts. (Unsurprisingly it's more about culture & music than how to draw)
In 'medium' class, 3 more subjects are added, which are biology, physics and chemistry.

Funding for education is reserved for the states to decide, although it usually goes from 15-25% of total tax revenue.