Anchor facts
This is how they work
Not all facts are created equal. Some stick immediately because they trigger emotion, surprise, or imagery. Others fade quickly because they feel dull or abstract.
Anchor facts deliberately use memorable information to stabilise the less memorable core facts.
They act like Velcro hooks in the schema: once you’ve remembered the anchor, the less exciting fact attached to it has a much better chance of surviving too.
A simple example
- Core fact: The Nile is a river in Africa.
- Reinforcement fact: The Nile flows through 11 African countries, from Lake Victoria in the south all the way to Egypt in the north.
- Enrichment fact: The Ancient Egyptians used the Nile to transport enormous stone blocks for the pyramids.
- Anchor fact: The Egyptians worshipped the Nile as a god, because its yearly flood decided whether they would feast or starve.
The core fact on its own is fragile. But attach it to this striking, emotional anchor — famine or survival, gods or nature — and suddenly the Nile being in Africa is unforgettable.
Animation: Anchors stabilise
When a vivid anchor is connected to a fragile node, the schema doesn’t just stabilise — it becomes sticky.
The good news
Anchor facts are everywhere. Our minds are naturally drawn to what is funny, shocking, or surprising:
- You remember that Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Senate because of Shakespeare's drama of betrayal — “Et tu, Brute?”
- You remember that NASA lost a $125 million Mars lander because one team used inches while another used centimeters.
- You remember that germs cause diseases because Medieval plague doctors wore funny-looking beak masks, believing bad smells caused illness.
These are not distractions. They are memory’s natural glue.
Why this matters
Traditional schooling often sneers at “fun facts” — they’re dismissed as trivia, not “serious learning.”
But anchors are not optional extras: without them, schemas stay weak and forgettable.
When teachers complain “nothing sticks,” it’s often because learners were never given anchors to hold onto.
The result: knowledge fades, and children feel like they’ve failed.
The Hundred takes the opposite approach.
We deliberately design anchor facts to spark emotion and memorability.
This doesn’t make learning shallow — it makes it durable. Anchors give fragile knowledge the hooks it needs to last.
Schema first. Content second. Anchors are what stop schemas from slipping away.