Five Reasons Memorization Matters

In ancient times the ability to memorize was a prized skill. Whole cultures were passed down through the centuries by those who remembered the stories, legends, history, and taboos and laws. The advent of the printing press launched a new era of “looking things up.” Today, the Internet and its search engines may seem to be making memorization irrelevant in the modern world. What we don’t remember, we think we can always look up.

Schools have generally abandoned requiring students to memorize poems, famous speeches, multiplication tables, and all sorts of academic material that used to be ingrained in the curriculum. A growing disdain for memorization emerged among the other intellectually damaging effects of post-modernism. Now the emphasis in education is on new math, critical thinking, inquiry learning, “hands-on” activity, and the like. There is nothing wrong with these new emphases, except that they come at the expense of children learning the mental discipline of memorization. Teachers and professors I know agree with me that today’s school children, in general, are more mentally lazy than those in the past. The one inarguable effect of honing memorization skills is that the mentally lazy can’t succeed at it.

Here are five reasons that we should all strive to improve our ability to remember:

1. Memorization is discipline for the mind—much needed in an age when so many minds are lazy, distracted, have little to think about, or think sloppily. Memorization helps train the mind to focus and be industrious.

2. No, you can’t always “Google it.” Sometimes you don’t have access to the Internet. Not everything of importance is on the web (and a great deal of irrelevant trash will accompany any search). Nor is looking up material helpful under such situations as when you learn to use a foreign language, must write or speak extemporaneously, or wish to be an expert.

3. Memorization creates the repertoire of what we think about. Nobody can think in a vacuum of information. To be an expert in any field requires knowledge that you already have.

4. We think with the ideas held in working memory, which can only be accessed at high speed from the brain’s stored memory. Understanding is nourished by the information you hold in working memory as you think. Without such knowledge, we have a mind full of mush.

5. The exercise of the memory develops learning and memory schema that promote improved ability to learn. The more you remember, the more you can learn.

History documents that great minds are filled with knowledge. Jesus had to know scripture in order to show Pharisees what was wrong with their practice of it. Picasso had to know how to paint before he decided what to paint. Einstein had to know the physics literature of his day before he could realize its errors. Warren Buffett makes tons of money because he knows what he is doing.

If you want real educational reform, go back to the fundamentals that worked in the past. What we are doing in education today is not working!

And what are the fundamentals of developing learning and memory skills? 

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School Discipline and Learning Motivation

A major public flap seems to be occurring over the discipline policy of the Noble Street College Prep schools in Chicago. The news report that was called to my attention on this matter began with criticism of the “superficial effort” in reporting the story by the New York Times, Huffington Post, and ABC News. The decline of responsible journalism should come as no surprise to anybody. I won’t get into the journalism, but I would like to reflect on the educational issues involved.

The problem seems to be that Noble school policy is to have a conduct demerit system, use detention for bad student conduct, and impose a $5 fine when detention has to be imposed. A parents group is up in arms over such policy.

First, let me make the point that in learning, motivation is everything. If a student wants to learn, learning happens. If a student does not want to learn, learning will be minimal, no matter the greatness of teaching or enlightenment of educational policy. The old saw fits: “you can lead a mule to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

So, from a learning perspective, the issue is does punishment (negative reinforcement) work? It may or may not, and Noble school’s policy needs to be tested against that criterion. Apparently, Noble school has a permissive enrollment policy that accepts all who apply. It is not like a private prep school where students are screened before admission. Open enrollment will always yield some misfits. Drill sergeants in the military can shape up misfits in a hurry. That may work in a school, but only for some students.

You can train animals with negative reinforcement. But in animals, and people, positive reinforcement is usually more effective. The trick in education is to do things that make students want to learn. And there are numerous ways that good teachers know how to do that.

However, some students are incorrigible, at least at a given moment in their development. There is nothing positive that will reach them. The issue for a school then, especially one such as Noble which is a college prep school where parents volunteer their students for enrollment, is whether a misfit student is interfering with the education of others. No student has a right to interfere with the learning of others. If a misfit does not respond to whatever rules the school has, throw the jerk out. In a charter school, enrollment is not forced. If the parent does not like the rules, they should stop whining and send their child to a regular school. I would add that parents who take their child’s side in such arguments are teaching the child to be a whiner like they are and reinforcing the rebellious nature of such children. If you want to create spoiled brats who grow up to be spoiled adults, this is the way to do it. In case you haven’t noticed, our U.S. population is degenerating into an entitlement society of spoiled adults.