Ah... ye olde Grind v. Natural debate.
Grind:
You can certainly grind away at it. Study, study, study. Enough will eventually get crammed in there by sheer force of repetition. The only pitfall of this is that you must avoid rote memorization of a disorganized assortment of facts. Keep everything connected and ordered, or you'll just forget it.
Studying backwards. Most lesson plans work by building on previous material. This makes it easier to learn each individual block without overwhelming the student. Studying it starting with the final "big picture" and work to starting principles- this allows you to put each individual lesson into context.
Natural:
It's basically a matter of the skills everyone uses to know all the lyrics of their favorite songs, or recall a nearly encyclopedic collection of sports statistics, or obsess about every trivial detail of TV characters' lives. Pretend calculus is the coolest thing you've ever heard, history is endlessly fascinating, and organic chemistry is truly useful in day to day life.
Learn to route all this boring school crap through the high priority brain wiring devoted to the things you find interesting. Do it long enough and you actually will find the boring school crap interesting... or at least you'll honestly think you do while you're in the class.
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Simple Machines in Higher Dimensions
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