Dec
18
Memorization
-by Mimi Rothschild
Is it better to memorize information, or to have lots of hands-on learning so the information is fully understood?
The answer is a definite “It depends.”
Human brains were designed by God to understand fully. We’re not as good at memorizing things as we are at learning them – that is, at getting complete understanding so that it stays in our minds in our own words. Memorizing things is a harder task for the human brain than learning things.
We have more control over information we’ve learned through full understanding than we do over information we’ve learned by rote. You can prove this to yourself – quick! What’s the eighteenth letter of the alphabet? You probably had to start at A and count your way through till you got to the eighteenth letter. That’s because you memorized the alphabet by rote. You don’t have this problem with information you’ve learned thoroughly, be it the geography of your state or the systems of the human body.
We’re also more likely to “forget” things we’ve memorized – that is, to be unable to call them to mind – when we’re stressed. For example, during a test or a really difficult task, it can be hard to bring memorized facts to mind.
So most of the time we’re better off learning fully than learning by rote.
However, there are times when memorization is a better tool.
First, there are things we need to learn that can’t be understood fully because they are arbitrary. That is, there isn’t any good reason for November to have 30 days and December to have 31. It’s just the way it is. We want our children to know the number of days in each month, so they’ll just have to memorize it. That’s true for the alphabet, too.
There are also things we want to have command of quickly. The multiplication tables, for example, are not arbitrary. We could calculate the product of two numbers every time we needed to know that information if we wanted to. But it’s faster to memorize the multiplication tables once than it is to calculate them over and over.
Finally, there are things we want to be able to remember exactly, not in our own words. Scripture, for example, is worth memorizing. When we memorize the Word of God, we can call on it during times of worry, fear, or temptation. In fact, God commanded us to memorize his words: “…these words, which I command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).
Deuteronomy gives us a great starting point for how we can memorize information, or teach things to our children by rote: repetition. While kids often remember things they’ve learned fully from one hands-on lesson, they rarely can memorize a Bible verse or a set of math facts in one try. Usually, you need to set aside fifteen minutes or so every day for drill until the lesson is memorized.
What’s the best method for memorizing information? The simple answer is this: whatever your students will do, and pay attention to, for those fifteen minutes a day. Flashcards, drills, games like Concentration, singing songs with the information or the Bible verse in them – all of these approaches will work, if your students can pay attention.
The “pay attention” part is essential, though. A famous experiment found that people who used a telephone dozens of times each day couldn’t accurately draw the dial of the telephone with the numbers in the right places. Your students may not be old enough to have seen a telephone dial, but they probably can’t accurately draw the keypad of a modern phone, either. Neither can you, most likely. After all, you don’t have the intention of memorizing the placement of those numbers and letters when you look at it.
So, when your students need to memorize information, be sure they approach it with the intention of learning it by heart. Then build time for concentrated practice into the day every day until it’s completely learned.
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Mimi Rothschild is the Founder of LearningByGrace.org the nation’s leading provider of online PreK-12 online Christian educational programs for homeschoolers.