I can't take notes!

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During the old school days, every time the teacher asked us to take notes, I had big problems on what notes to take.
What was important and what was not? Should I write down one word or whole sentences? I tried to do it and prentended that I had it under control, but my notes where useless to me, it was just pages with random words not making sense at all. Luckily, I managed to stay clear of classmates request to copy from my notes. That would have been embarrasing.

Even today, I don't take notes when in a meeting, because I am too distracted by the whole process.

Anyone else struggle with this?

I honestly don't know how anyone manages to take notes but then again understanding verbal instructions is a challenge for people with autism. In math 11 in high school I could not take notes and listen at the same time. I stopped taking notes completely and concentrated on listening and understanding. Even then I still did not follow the teacher most of the time and was the only one in the classroom raising my hand asking questions. This went on and on and I raised my hand many times each class until the teacher said I was slowing down the lecture. So I stopped putting up my hand and when I did not understand something I just gave up listening all together because I felt there was no point. The ratio of me understanding to new material coming out of his mouth was much to high. This was in Math 11 principles. I soon dropped out of math and took math 11 essentials instead where I barely passed.

Listening and writing notes does not work well for me. I had to forgo notes in chemistry also and I asked the teacher if it was okay for him to just print out notes for me. I have to wonder why don't all classes just do this? Allow the students to focus on what is being said. I know autism plays a factor in this but you have to agree the average person would take more in if they just focused on listening.

Last edited by Dreycrux on 31 Jan 2013, 9:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Haha i certainly remember this, my idea of taking notes, was to write EVERYTHING down. i didn have time for that nor was that the "CORRECT" way.

no wonder i didn get much out of school. Im amazed that some people can actually learn, when you consider just how mediocre schools are, 25-30 kids and 2 sometimes only 1 teacher,

My wife is the queen of note taking. When she studied at the university, she came homeevery day with notebooks filled with understandable notes. I could easily have used these and passed the exam!
She tells me she could not learn stuff without taking notes, so I guess we all are very different and learn in different ways.

I can't pinpoint one specific way that I learn or remember stuff. Either it sticks in my brain or its gone. Not the best thing when my main interest among other things is history. I mix the dates and names and have not found a way to remember those. Perhaps I should start taking notes?

It is actually quite amazing we did learn anything. That must be perhaps the least effective way to put information into a childs brain:
"Lets put 20 to 25 of your noisy kind in one room with only one adult and start learning a second language!"
I guess the teachers are some sort of wizards.

Wow, good for her. Yes our brains work in different ways. I am obviously a highly visual / spatial learner. Explains my fascination with objects.

I went through school and college without ever taking notes. No one ever believed that I learned better that way, but I did, and I got by fine without them. The few times I tried to take notes it actually messed up my grades.

I used to doodle in my notebook so I looked attentive. Of course, I actually was listening and I remember what I hear (except when I try to write while listening, i.e. take notes! How do people even do that?)

I am terrible at it. I've also had quite a few jobs as an admin assistant, and I have to run and hide if they are looking for someone to take meeting minutes!

I think the main problem is deciding what is worth noting, and then how to note it. It is similar to writing a literature review - what is useful information and what isn't? How do I put this in my own words?

Also, I tend to listen to what is said, think "yeah that makes sense, I understand that", and don't think I need to bother to write it down. Then I forget what was said 10 minutes later.

I have problems with the whole idear of attending class to listen to someone talk for an hour to learn things. It seems like this would be best way to not learn things.

I also have a very hard time taking notes. That's why I was in a Job Preparation programme instead of studying for a career.

I can't listen and take notes at the same time either. Any time I tried to take notes It was just useless scribble, so I didn't even bother.

I am not the worlds' greatest note- taker, myself!

I can not take notes if my life depended on it. I tend to doodle. Or design stuff instead. The only way I learn is by doing and watching.

See I'm good at the task of note taking, I write everything I can down however when I look back at the notes I can't decipher what the bits of information meant, essentially I forgot almost all the audio. I find taking notes helpful for remembering, if I just sat at listened to the lecture, I'd remember even less. However, I've had other people look at my notes and decipher it. So I started recording the lectures, it helps a lot. It was sorta the magic bullet I discovered this past yr. I wish I had known before. What would happen was, I would go to lecture, remember very little later, have to relearn, and not want to read the textbook because its too wordy. Now I record the lectures, review, scam the text (not read most of it), look at the pictures.

Note taking in the traditional sense is lost on me. Even when I forced myself to take notes - looking back on them provided a hefty dose of confusion. I do however doodle while listening - and later when I look at the doodles I can remember what was being talked about in like a key point way.

Oh I so hated school for the constant reprimands and expectations I always failed to meet.

If you are a visual learner, explain to the teacher that you are no good at listening and note taking at the same time, and have the teacher or someone else give you printed notes to learn from. If you are good at audio learning, just record the notes during class while you listen, so you can go over the recording later. There are many small, inexpensive recorders out there that are often used for this purpose. Doctors use them, as do many other professionals, so take advantage of this system.

I am decades past school, but yes, I remember that I was terrible at taking notes. I can't see how anyone can concentrate on the discussion while also trying to figure out what parts of the discussion are note worthy, and then try to write those parts down, without losing track of what's being said, as the discussion continues. The speaker will not stop speaking, just so you can get it all down. People speak faster than they can write, so you can never possibly keep up. It's dumb. They should just always hand out printed notes for people to take home for study, and just use the discussion to give people a chance to ask relevant questions.