“Is There Something That You’d Like to Share with the Class?"

Those are the age-old words that always seem to come out of a teacher’s mouth at the worst possible moment. No matter how much a student says that, yes, they were listening to every word of the lesson, the teacher still does that believe them. Your doodling in class is their way of proving that your thinking was elsewhere. There are no excuses. Until now.

Recently, a study has been conducted by psychologist, Jackie Andrade to find out who, when listening to speech, remembered more: people who doodled or people who did not. The results were shocking and would satisfy many of the world’s doodlers, fidgeters, and pen-clickers.

Andrade asked 40 business people to listen to the same 2 1/2 minute tape. 20 of the participants were instructed to shade in squares and circles on a piece of paper, which was the psychologist’s sly way of saying, “doodle.” The other 20 were not. The tape was meant to be rather boring and contained 16 specific details, such as names and places, that the 40 people would be asked to remember and recite to Andrade afterwards.

The people who drew while listening to the tape, or the “doodlers,” could recite an average of 7.5 names and places. The people who did not doodle could only remember an average of 5.8, which was 29% less than the doodlers.

There is not a proven scientific explanation for why doodling, fidgeting, or clicking your pen allows a person to remember more details. However, psychologist Andrade has many theories, one of which being that doodling causes a lack of daydreaming. Daydreaming requires much of your brain power and leaves less for listening and memory. Doodling does not demand nearly as much brain power, but enough to occupy your brain and keep you from daydreaming. Doodling, the happy medium, is such a low use of brain power that you can still pay attention to your surroundings.

This means that technically, during class, it may be argued that it be smart for teachers to encourage their students to doodle rather than the alternative: daydreaming. So while you’re sitting in social studies class, and drawing a flower up the side of your paper, know that that flower is helping you learn more.