Memorization

[+ Gar1eth]

Recently someone on my Facebook Feed posted something about Common Core. The little bit I've seen I'm not a fan. But on the other hand most of the articles I've seen posted are by haters. So I doubt that's a completely fair assessment. But I also read occasional articles in the NYT, and it seems to me that often educators are really down on rote learning.

 

I understand rote learning may not work for everyone. But I think memorizing in 2nd and third grade the multiplication table up to the 10's or 11's probably was beneficial. I don't know how much I understood it at the time. But I'm thankful I don't really consciously have to think about what 2 x 3 is.

 

On the other hand, last week there was another article talking about how memorizing poems-long an educational staple but most likely phased out finally in the 1970's to 80's-led to better understanding and enjoyment of poetry.

 

I don't remember being made to memorize a lot of poems in school. But my high school senior English teacher made us memorize the 1st 18 lines of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. It's now 38 years later. And I can still recite the majority of it. (Of course I say it to myself occasionally).

 

We were also supposed to memorize the 1st stanza of To A Skylark. I forgot my literature book at school that day. I couldn't find anyone to borrow the book from. And I tried hurriedly to memorize it the following day. Unfortunately my English class was 1st period. And I wasn't able to do it. All I got were the first three lines. Hail to thee blithe spirit. Bird thou never wert. That from heaven or near it.

I think we also had to memorize a few Shakespeare soliloquies-Hamlet and Macbeth But I only know the first few lines of these now.

In third grade in my English book-we didn't have to memorize it. But it stuck in my head. I eat my peas with honey. I've done it all my life. It makes the peas taste funny. But it keeps them on my knife.

One poem I never had to memorize. But it's my favorite poem. The Bells by Edgar Allen Poe.

 

Anyone else still remember any memorizations from school?

 

Gman

[whipped guy]

Organic chemistry was all memorization, but that did not lead to learning. The only compound that I recall is triethylamine and I remember that from the nasty odor. It is a component of decaying fish. YUCK!

 

 

Non memories include:

 

http://11452-presscdn-0-51.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ddva2.png

 

And even better:

 

http://www.goldstandard-mcat.com/organic-chemistry-mechanisms/images/002.png

 

Now they tell me:

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KNq9oXXgjDw/VpezaldVg7I/AAAAAAAABjU/f8vMYCaem9c/s320/com.electrolyticearth.chemistrylab-7%253D500.png

 

Of course now there's an app for your phone!!!!!!!! Who woulda thunk!

 

http://a5.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple5/v4/f1/d1/61/f1d161e7-1257-22c1-5880-dc9bb06da916/screen1136x1136.jpeg

[+ Gar1eth]

Organic chemistry was all memorization, but that did not lead to learning. The only compound that I recall is triethylamine and I remember that from the nasty odor. It is a component of decaying fish. YUCK!

 

 

Non memories include:

 

http://11452-presscdn-0-51.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ddva2.png

 

And even better:

 

http://www.goldstandard-mcat.com/organic-chemistry-mechanisms/images/002.png

 

Now they tell me:

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KNq9oXXgjDw/VpezaldVg7I/AAAAAAAABjU/f8vMYCaem9c/s320/com.electrolyticearth.chemistrylab-7%253D500.png

 

Of course now there's an app for your phone!!!!!!!! Who woulda thunk!

 

http://a5.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple5/v4/f1/d1/61/f1d161e7-1257-22c1-5880-dc9bb06da916/screen1136x1136.jpeg

 

I think for the majority of us that words or numbers like the multiplication tables are easier to memorize than the Fischer projections shown in that app.

 

Gman

[bostonman]

I had a wonderful algebra teacher (also a very hot man) who liked to create fun mnemonic devices. I remember a little responsive chant he'd do with us to remind us how positive/negative signs worked in terms of multiplication/division ("like signs positive! unlike signs negative!"). He also got us to make a game out of memorizing the quadratic equation and saying it really fast, which I can still do, despite the fact that I wouldn't remember how to use the damn equation lol. ("Negative b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4ac, all divided by 2a")

 

I don't specifically remember having to memorize any poetry, except that I do remember some competition linked with my Italian class in high school where we had to memorize and recite a poem in Italian.

 

I do think that learning the basics of multiplication, etc, by rote is very useful. However, I tend to think that it's probably healthier and more rewarding to learn such things by exercises that apply those formulas, rather than by just memorizing a bunch of numbers. I tend to think that most of the stuff we "cram" memorized for tests, etc, all tends to fly out the window soon after. The more you actually repeatedly apply what you're learning I think it sticks with you.

[gallahadesquire]

In High School, we memorized something in English every month. This did include the first 18 lines of the Canterbury Tales (one couplet of which I always omit); the prelude to Evangeline by Longfellow ("This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks ..."); three stanzas of the Star Spangled Banner; our choice of Shakespearean sonnet.

 

In medicine, there are three kinds of knowledge:

1. Stuff that's in books or in reference, and should be there;
   
2. Stuff that you ought to know, or look like a fool; and
   
3. Stuff that, if you don't know it, you'll kill people.
   

I started medical school with the firm intention of learning everything, and memorizing nothing. Well, that worked for the most part.

 

On Old Olympics Towering Tops, a fat-assed German Vaults and Hops.

 

I do believe memorization has its value, especially in the younger set. It develops things like, as gareth pointed out, the multiplication tables. 7x6 is not only 42, but the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

[+ WilliamM]

do think that learning the basics of multiplication, etc, by rote is very useful. However, I tend to think that it's probably healthier and more rewarding to learn such things by exercises that apply those formulas, rather than by just memorizing a bunch of numbers. I tend to think that most of the stuff we "cram" memorized for tests, etc, all tends to fly out the window soon after. The more you actually repeatedly apply what you're learning I think it sticks with you

 

Great topic Gman, as usual.

 

Like your algebra teacher, I had a sixth grade teacher who gave the class a multiplication problem every day and made that problem into a game.

This was well over fifty years ago, and, as a result of those daily games, I still remember many of the students in that sixth grade class. I have a good memory, but not for poetry. So one lesson learned is what may be enjoyable for me (math games) may be like poetry and me for other students who were not as good at math.

 

Note: I reread my master's thesis again today for the first time in many years. It was written on the presidency exactly 50 years for a political science degree. I thought I had written mostly about LBJ who was president at the time. In fact, I only mentioned Johnson a few times. The biggest surprise was my dislike of Eisenhower's presidency. But otherwise my memory was good because I still remember how 20th century preseidents (up to 1967) were linked one to another. So my type of memory is not good for learning poetry, but much better if I get the sequence of events down in order. It was also nice to finally realize the paper was not as awful as I remember.

[gallahadesquire]

Organic chemistry was all memorization, but that did not lead to learning. The only compound that I recall is triethylamine and I remember that from the nasty odor. It is a component of decaying fish. YUCK!

 

 

Non memories include:

 

http://11452-presscdn-0-51.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ddva2.png

 

[/Quote]

 

What in hell IS this? It looks like a steroid nucleus a little bit. Also, a little bit like morphine. The bridged sulphurs (? Bridged disulfides?) I do not recall.

[+ Gar1eth]

In High School, we memorized something in English every month. This did include the first 18 lines of the Canterbury Tales (one couplet of which I always omit); the prelude to Evangeline by Longfellow ("This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks ..."); three stanzas of the Star Spangled Banner; our choice of Shakespearean sonnet.

 

In medicine, there are three kinds of knowledge:

1. Stuff that's in books or in reference, and should be there;
   
2. Stuff that you ought to know, or look like a fool; and
   
3. Stuff that, if you don't know it, you'll kill people.
   

I started medical school with the firm intention of learning everything, and memorizing nothing. Well, that worked for the most part.

 

On Old Olympics Towering Tops, a fat-assed German Vaults and Hops.

 

I do believe memorization has its value, especially in the younger set. It develops things like, as gareth pointed out, the multiplication tables. 7x6 is not only 42, but the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

 

Your post made me think of this cartoon I ran across.

 

 

Gman

[whipped guy]

 

I don't specifically remember having to memorize any poetry, except that I do remember some competition linked with my Italian class in high school where we had to memorize and recite a poem in Italian.

I never recall having to memorize any poetry be it in English or any foreign language class. However, I was told that in Italy everyone knows the opening of Dante's Devine Comedy as it is something that they traditionally memorize at a relatively early age. When I heard about that I made sure that I memorized it as well as such it has become one of my favorite quotes.

 

"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura

chè la diritta via era smarrita.”

 

"Halfway through the journey of our life

I found myself within a dark forest

where the straight path was lost."

 

They also routinely know several other quotes:

 

"Liasciate ogni speranza

voi ch'entrate."

 

"Abandon all hope

ye who enter."

 

If I ever get the dungeon space of my dreams that is what will be posted above the entrance!

 

What in hell IS this? It looks like a steroid nucleus a little bit. Also, a little bit like morphine. The bridged sulphurs (? Bridged disulfides?) I do not recall.

Well when I came across that it looked quite strange to me and that's why I choose it. Thank the gods I no longer need be concerned with such things! In fact when I think back I'm not even sure how I made it through such insanity!

[+ Gar1eth]

I never recall having to memorize any poetry be it in English or any foreign language class. However, I was told that in Italy everyone knows the opening of Dante's Devine Comedy as it is something that they traditionally memorize at a relatively early age. When I heard about that I made sure that I memorized it as well as such it has become one of my favorite quotes.

 

"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura

chè la diritta via era smarrita.”

 

"Halfway through the journey of our life

I found myself within a dark forest

where the straight path was lost."

 

They also routinely know several other quotes:

 

"Liasciate ogni speranza

voi ch'entrate."

 

"Abandon all hope

ye who enter."

 

If I ever get the dungeon space of my dreams that is what will be posted above the entrance!

 

Well when I came across that it looked quite strange to me and that's why I choose it. Thank the gods I no longer need be concerned with such things! In fact when I think back I'm not even sure how I made it through such insanity!

 

I'm surprised you didn't have to memorize any Shakespeare. I think traditionally Latin students memorized the beginning of Caesar's Gallic Wars. I didn't have to. But I know the 1st part of the first sentence. "Gallia est omnis divisa in parte tres quorum incolunt Belgae..."

 

Gman

[+ bigjoey]

Back in the day, we had to memorize many things from poems to math formulas to historical facts. I still retain many of these things and it seems to amaze "younger" people.

 

For example, at work in discussing a new product, the discussion will turn to mark-up and what the retail price will need to be. Having memorized the multiplication and division tables plus the formulas, I usually just spout out the answers while the younger people are pulling out their calculators (often on their phones) and after a short while look at me and say: "You're right." It is a mystery to them how I did it; it is a mystery to me how their education could be so lacking that they did not do it my way.

 

The attitude seems to be that knowing facts is not relevant today because a person can always Google the needed information. Many young people hold that attitude; unfortunately they do not know what they do not know. In an ordinary discussion, many things go over their heads. In a play or musical, many historic references just pass by them. So much of the arts makes reference to past art that to these young people who think they need to know nothing just lose out on the richness of the experience.

 

I think memorization keeps the brain sharp just like exercise keeps muscles toned. Be it poems or math or historical facts or playing cards and recalling what has been played and still remains, it all gives us better brain functioning.

[+ WmClarke]

Anyone else still remember any memorizations from school?

 

First year of French class. During the Ford administration. Starting with chapter two, there were brief dialogues at the start of each chapter. We didn't have to memorize them, but for some reason the very first one has (mostly) stuck with me. It went something like this (probably some spelling errors):

 

Michel! Anne! Vous travaillez?

Er, non. Nous regardons la television. Pourquoi?

Les Duponts arrive dans une heure.

<<can't remember the line here>>

 

Il y a beaucoup a faire.

Mais, Mama, nous manquez toujours la fin!

Allez! Ne discutez pas tous les temps!

Bon! Anne prepare la dessert. Moi, je goute!

 

These were from the ALM textbooks they used across the country. I don't even remember the other dialogues at all--just most of the first one.

 

 

OK--found the missing line via Google:

S'il te plait maman, encore cinq minutes.

Don't know why I can never remember that line.

[whipped guy]

Another thing regarding memorization. I always found it quite easy to memorize music back in the days when I was taking piano lessons. Unfortunately that talent seems to have been lost with age. I was dismayed when I recently tried playing a three movement piece that I could play in my sleep and got lost in the development section of the first movement. I did recover after skipping a few measures. I got a couple of pages into the second movement and then lost it. Regarding, the final movement, I knew the first and last measures more or less.

 

Perhaps that is simething that I need to work on to help prevent further deterioration of brain function. Yet, in the days way back when I never forced myself to memorize anything musical, it just came naturally. I would sit down any it was there. Consequently I'm not sure how I would go about doing it. In any event, it's one if the many challenges of the aging process.

 

Also, regarding the memorization of multiplication tables, I recall my mom constantly quizzing me. Constantly! I was never good with numbers, but it has proven to be a useful tool to this day.

 

Also, is it just me or do kids today have no clue when it comes to numbers, and remember I was never great with numbers! This is specially true at the checkout counter where they look at you as if you have two heads if you give them bills and coins to pay. I'm sick of saying that I want to travel lighter so as not to get pennies in change or some such thing. In that regard I prefer self checkout where my reasoning is never questioned by the machine!!!!

[AdamSmith]

In a semester on Milton with Reynolds Price at Duke, nearing end of term he gave us the choice of either a 10-page term paper, or else memorize Milton's 195-line poem Lycidas and recite it to him (each of us in the classroom in private with him, thank Heaven).

 

I chose the paper, but then as the deadline neared, I switched to the memorization project. It was great: wake up each morning, add another 10 lines or so to the mental store. Discovering that the mind would do this was something.

 

There is a passage that Milton went back later and inserted into that poem that is a recitation of various flower names (being strewn on Lycidas's funeral bier etc.) that Price told us would be peculiarly difficult to get into memory, it being a slightly 'artificial' bolt-on to Milton's first inspiration -- and he was right.

 

Memorization of lyric poetry ought to be mandated by law!

[whipped guy]

I'm surprised you didn't have to memorize any Shakespeare. I think traditionally Latin students memorized the beginning of Caesar's Gallic Wars. I didn't have to. But I know the 1st part of the first sentence. "Gallia est omnis divisa in parte tres quorum incolunt Belgae..."

 

Gman

Well Gaul being divided into three parts was far as I got with memorizing Latin. However, having gone to parochial school many of my brethren who became altar boys had to memorize the entire mass in Latin. I was spared that having been tossed out of "altar boy school". In retrospect it most likely was a "blessing". The gods only know the pervert that I might have turned into if I had been able to survive the entire program!!!

[+ José Soplanucas]

I still remember part of a poem about a Black hero of Argentina's independence wars I had to memorize in my 9th grade:

 

El Negro Falucho

 

Duerme el Callao, Ronco son

hace del mar la resaca

Y en la sombra se destaca

Del Real Felipe el Torreón.

En él esta de facción

Porque alejarse quisieron

Un negro de los que fueron

Con San Martín de los grandes

Que en la Pampa y en los Andes

Batallaron y vencieron.

 

Falucho, erguido y gentil,

Echado al hombro el fusil,

Lentamente se pasea.

Piensa en la patria, en la aldea

Donde dejó al hijo amado,

Donde en su hogar desolado

Triste lo aguarda su esposa

Y en Buenos Aires, la hermosa,

Que es su pasión de soldado.

 

Llegan del fuerte a su oído

Rumor de voces no usadas,

De bayonetas y espadas

Agudo y áspero ruido.

Un Viva España! seguido

De un otro viva a Fernando,

Y está Falucho dudando

Si dan los gritos que escucha

Sus compañeros de lucha

O si está loco o soñando.

 

Those are the verses I had to memorize and I'm surprised I still remember them after all these years.

 

I do think memorization is important and the younger generations are not practicing any, starting by phone numbers.

There are plenty of gurus who are preaching against memorization saying it is not necessary in the internet age. They are lying. No professional can be successful without a big deal of info memorized. They are adovating for the new generations failure

[gallahadesquire]

"Anything you can learn, I can learn better!

I can learn anything better than you!"

 

Regarding Whipped Guys comment:

 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra Chorus, aka the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, decided a number of years ago to memorize all their music, and NOT use scores in concert. For something like a Mass, the words are easy (they tend to be the same). For a requiem mass, perhaps more difficult. For Damnation de Faust by Berlioz, more difficult; and I can't believe they actually did Евге́ний Оне́гин in Russian.

 

They are required to memorize it before the first rehearsal.

 

I will say that, similar to Whipped Guy's experience, by the time we came to performance, you had the piece memorized or, what might be more accurate, learned. I still have odd fragments of Charpentier's Messe de Minuet per Noel.

[+ Charlie]

I have very good memorization facility, so I had no problem with numbers (multiplication tables, phone numbers, etc.), lists (the states and their capitals in alphabetical order, etc.), and poetry, of which I still remember a great deal in various languages. If I read something in prose that I have read before, I recognize it, which was very helpful when trying to catch errors or plagiarism in students' research papers. But the facility does decline with age, which is why the rhymes and proverbs which we learned as children stay with us while the things we learned in graduate school are somewhat iffy. I tried to learn to play the piano when I was in my 40s, and although I had an excellent teacher and practiced every day, I just could not memorize all the scales and keys, much less even short musical works, and gave up in despair.

[+ WilliamM]

I tried to learn to play the piano when I was in my 40s, and although I had an excellent teacher and practiced every day, I just could not memorize all the scales and keys, much less even short musical works, and gave up in despair.

 

This is a really interesting thread.

 

I had a different experience in my 40s. I was promoted to a job in which I had to remember dozens and dozens of names, something that seemed far beyond my ability. It was brutal until I learned to remember first names by associating "Jane" with a woman I already knew named Jane.

 

So now I know how politicians can remember many, many names. Once I had the associations fixed in my memory I could remember the "new" Jane and many other names twenty or more years later.

 

I had the ability to memorize names all my life, I had just never exercised it fully before.

[MikeBiDude]

Gettysburg Address? Anyone? I think it was 5th/6th grade when I memorized it.

[Karl-G]

My mother could still recite the Gettysburg Address at 97 and loved doing so, especially on broad stairs before a public building. She said she learned it in 7th grade.

 

Former Sen. William Proxmire once came into a restaurant in rural Wisconsin where I was dining with friends. He came around from table to table and greeted people and asked them their names. Two years later I was in a restaurant in another rural town in Wisconsin, and Proxmire walked in, greeted people at tables, and when he got to me, he came up to me and greeted me by name. That was impressive.

 

Memorization is what you make of it, IMO. Students who say they can't remember whatever it is they are studying are quite capable of knowing the names of hundreds of professional athletes, which teams they are on, what position they play, statistics on their playing, whether they throw a ball with right or left hand, all the scores of all the games in the NBA, NFL, NHL, American League, National League last weekend and the weekend before that, etc., how long their hair is, what number is on their uniform, etc. The amount of memorization (for useless purposes) of the average American male is astounding. If you WANT to remember it, you can.

[whipped guy]

"Anything you can learn, I can learn better!

I can learn anything better than you!"

 

Regarding Whipped Guys comment:

 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra Chorus, aka the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, decided a number of years ago to memorize all their music, and NOT use scores in concert. For something like a Mass, the words are easy (they tend to be the same). For a requiem mass, perhaps more difficult. For Damnation de Faust by Berlioz, more difficult; and I can't believe they actually did Евге́ний Оне́гин in Russian.

 

They are required to memorize it before the first rehearsal.

 

I will say that, similar to Whipped Guy's experience, by the time we came to performance, you had the piece memorized or, what might be more accurate, learned. I still have odd fragments of Charpentier's Messe de Minuet per Noel.

My only choral experience was in high school, but is is funny how one does remember the text to certain pieces. One such piece is the chorus "The heavens are telling" from Haydn's The Creation aka Die Schöpfung as it was designed to be a bilingual oratorio and was initially published in the two languages. There is a line in the English version that reads, "The wonder of His works displays the firmament". In some recent modern performances that bit of what I guess is poetic license (or incompetence) is changed to the more coherent, "The firmament displays the wonder of His works". When I first heard it sung that way immediately something seemed quite wrong even though the phrase made more sense in the "improved" rewritten version!

[gallahadesquire]

My only choral experience was in high school, but is is funny how one does remember the text to certain pieces. One such piece is the chorus "The heavens are telling" from Haydn's The Creation aka Die Schöpfung as it was designed to be a bilingual oratorio and was initially published in the two languages. There is a line in the English version that reads, "The wonders of His works displays the firmament". In some recent modern performances that bit of what I guess is poetic license (or incompetence) is changed to the more coherent, "The firmament displays the wonders of His works". When I first heard it sung that way immediately something seemed quite wrong even though the phrase made more sense in the "improved" rewritten version!

 

Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes;

und seiner Hände Werk zeigt an das Firmament.

 

The first Enhlish is correct. The modem version doesn't say the same thing.

 

Bring back Süßmeyer!

[+ Charlie]

My only choral experience was in high school, but is is funny how one does remember the text to certain pieces. One such piece is the chorus "The heavens are telling" from Haydn's The Creation aka Die Schöpfung as it was designed to be a bilingual oratorio and was initially published in the two languages. There is a line in the English version that reads, "The wonders of His works displays the firmament". In some recent modern performances that bit of what I guess is poetic license (or incompetence) is changed to the more coherent, "The firmament displays the wonders of His works". When I first heard it sung that way immediately something seemed quite wrong even though the phrase made more sense in the "improved" rewritten version!

If I remember correctly , the line is a direct quote from the King James Bible. The syntactical reversal of subject and verb was not uncommon in very serious early 17th century artsy English, and may be a direct translation of the word order in the language that was being translated (Greek for the New Testament, Hebrew or Aramaic for the Old Testament).

[+ bigjoey]

My mother could still recite the Gettysburg Address at 97 and loved doing so, especially on broad stairs before a public building. She said she learned it in 7th grade.

 

Former Sen. William Proxmire once came into a restaurant in rural Wisconsin where I was dining with friends. He came around from table to table and greeted people and asked them their names. Two years later I was in a restaurant in another rural town in Wisconsin, and Proxmire walked in, greeted people at tables, and when he got to me, he came up to me and greeted me by name. That was impressive.

 

Memorization is what you make of it, IMO. Students who say they can't remember whatever it is they are studying are quite capable of knowing the names of hundreds of professional athletes, which teams they are on, what position they play, statistics on their playing, whether they throw a ball with right or left hand, all the scores of all the games in the NBA, NFL, NHL, American League, National League last weekend and the weekend before that, etc., how long their hair is, what number is on their uniform, etc. The amount of memorization (for useless purposes) of the average American male is astounding. If you WANT to remember it, you can.

 

 

I have been told that Richard Nixon had the same ability and heard from several sources stories like yours about Senator Proxmire where he would remember a person's name several years after meeting them.