Saturday, June 28, 2008

Why I Ask My Students to Memorize?

I am really blessed to have met a professor who taught me the value of accuracy and deep understanding. In fact, it was her methods and techniques that partly form the foundation of my teaching techniques. I recall her saying "It is better to ask your students to memorize good poetry or verse because that will open the flood gates of possibilities.They may dislike it at first but it's up to you to deliver the needed push so that they fall off the cliff toward greater and more profound learning based on solid facts."

Memorization in present day educational setting has somewhat received a rather negative reputation. Memorization is frowned upon not only by students but by a considerable number of teachers, as well. If you ask students to memorize a poem or some lines of verse, the next thing you here is an uproar of complaints. And I do not blame them for doing that because it is, so to speak, "normal" these days for they live in an age of disillusioned love for liberty and have-it-your-way mentality. They should not be blamed for feeling that way likewise because memorizing is such a tedious task and human nature (particularly that of today's)tells you that most people just don't have that much liking for tasks like that. "The easier to accomplish something the better" is a conviction that has reached dogmatic proportions.

But, memorization if treated as the end all and be all of learning is not good. My belief is that memorization or remembering is the starting point of any other kinds of learning. The bone of my contention is this: How would you be able to apply, analyze, synthesize or even evaluate things without having solid data on which these thinking skills will be based on, in the first place? It is really impossible to gain "any" higher form of thinking without accomplishing the basic step--remembering raw data, that is.

Now, I'd like to enumerate what research and authorities have to say about memorization and remembering.

I
"The memorization and recitation of the classic utterances of poets and statesmen form part of a tradition of learning that stretches back to classical antiquity, when the Greeks discovered that words and sounds—and the rhythmic patterns by which they were bound together in poetry—awakened the mind and shaped character. They made poetry the foundation of their pedagogy. Athenian schoolboys learned by heart the poetry of Homer, through which they gained mastery of their language and their culture. They memorized as well, in versified form, the civic pronouncements of Solon, the founder of the Athenian political tradition."
--In Defense of Memorization,Michael Knox Beran

II
"Just like learning to walk before you can run, learning multiplication and memorizing the times tables are building blocks for other math topics taught in school - higher learning such as division, long multiplication, fractions and algebra."
--The Importance Of Memorizing The Times Tables
Susan Jarema

III
"The most important quality of being a good scholar is a trained and retentive memory."
--Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the
Christian Faith, Marvin R. Wilson

IV
"First, at the base of the pyramid (Bloom's Taxonomy) is memorization. Every student must memorize in order to have a firm foundation. The base of the pyramid has the widest expanse which indicates the importance of memorization."
--The Need for Memorization, Drill, and
Excellence, Donna Garner

V
"Psalm 119:11 says, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You”. The Word of God is precious book to the Christian; it is our guide and manual for daily living. Because it is so valuable to us as Christians, the psalmist stresses the importance of memorizing it."
--Milford Bible Church

VI
"Why, then, do so many middle-class Americans now act as if education is nothing more than a 'game'? . . . Along with any serious commitment to subjects like English and History, the idea of education as a way to sharpen mental discipline, to cultivate higher cultural interests, or to teach civic principles has simply disappeared."
--Ready Or Not: What Happens When We Treat
Children as Small Adults,Kay Hymowitz

VII
"To learn "by rote," according to Webster's dictionary, is to learn "by memory alone, without understanding or thought." ...Plant precepts in small children's heads, and you'll shape their thinking and their actions as they grow.

But not all memorization is learning by rote. To commit something to memory isn't necessarily to learn it "without understanding or thought."
--The Difference Between Thinking and Knowing
(Memorization doesn't deserve its bad
name),Claudia Winkler


The space for this post is not enough to lay down all proofs and arguments in favor of memorization. What has been presented here is just a short list--a very small tip of an iceberg, indeed.

Memorization or remembering is not just like mushrooms that emerged from nowhere. Rather, it emerged from a long line of tradition the effectiveness of which has been tested throughout the ages. And thus, the derogatory notion about it is totally uncalled for and unfounded.

Like the Molave

Not yet, Rizal. Sleep not in peace;
There are a thousand waters to be spanned;
There are a thousand mountains to be crossed;
There are a thousand crossed to be borne.
Our shoulders are not strong; our sinews are
Grown flaccid with dependence, smug with ease
Under another's wing.
Rest not in peace;
Not yet Rizal, not yet. The land had need
Of young blood and what younger than your own.
Forever spilled in the great name of freedom,
Forever oblate on the altar of the free?
Not yet alone, Rizal. O souls.
And spirits of the martyred brave, arise!
Arise and sour the land! Shed once again
Your willing lood! Infuse the vibrant red
Into our thin anemic veins; until
We pick up your Promethean tools and, strong,
Out of the depthless matrix of your faith
In us, and on the silent cliffs of freedom,
We carve for all time your marmoreal dream!
Until your people, seeing, are become
Like the molave, firm, resilent, staunch,
Rising on the hillside, unafraid,
Strong in his own fiber; yes, like the molave!

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Mark Antony's Speech

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Caesar ... The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it ...
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral ...
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man….
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

Brutus' Defense

Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my
cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me
for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that
you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and
awake your senses, that you may the better judge.
If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of
Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar
was no less than his. If then that friend demand
why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer:
--Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved
Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and
die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live
all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him;
as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was
valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I
slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his
fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his
ambition. Who is here so base that would be a
bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If
any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so
vile that will not love his country? If any, speak;
for him have I offended. I pause for a reply...
Then none have I offended. I have done no more to
Caesar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of
his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not
extenuated, wherein he was worthy, nor his offences
enforced, for which he suffered death.
Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony: who,
though he had no hand in his death, shall receive
the benefit of his dying, a place in the
commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this
I depart,--that, as I slew my best lover for the
good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself,
when it shall please my country to need my death.