C. Lewis Kausel

Thank you very much for your answer. I rather see the decline of an ability that was previously more important, namely not only to acquire the basics of culture through reading, but also - in the mastery of poems, for example - to present them at the appropriate opportunity. Children can learn a lot by heart. Soloists who play piano pieces or violin sonatas as soloists have to memorize them in the concert hall today. Because these artists usually began learning pieces by heart as children and then playing them, their ability remains intact, but of course it wears off later.

I'm not sure I would value memorization as much as it used to be valued, decades ago, as a teaching method. Once upon a time, it was the main technique used for teaching. Rote memorization. It can't be right.

On the other hand, though, excellent students seem to be students who have really good memory. That seems to be one common denominator. But I would not necessarily conclude that forcing rote memorization would consequently create a great student. The only thing I would conclude is that to be a great student, a good memory is necessary, but not sufficient.

For example, even the worst of students are fantastic at memorizing what interests them. Students who are disinterested in their course work seem to master the sports statistics of their favorite sports, with hardly any effort. And yet, that alone does not make them good students. My conclusion being, motivation is the catalyst that engages memory.

So perhaps, motivate students (explaining why what they are being taught matters), and they will better retain the material. I have to believe the focus needs to be to teach critical thinking skills. Another point is that different students respond differently to different teaching techniques. For me, for instance, I don't like tricks. Don't make me memorize tricks. I learn much better when the logic is explained. Then it becomes easy to retain.

Children already have memorized all pop songs of their choice, names of soccer players or hockey players, why not multiplication tables, or something useful.

It is up to their parents or teachers, whoever spends time with them (if there is anyone else besides Facebook).

Education system then and now are just like poles apart.

a class... a teacher...one subject at a time... home work.... class work... oral written exams... quiz... group activities... sports period, arts period

including stitching we learnt

we celebrated all ...teachers day....children's day ...independence day...republic day...with total dedication and involvement...

you name it we had all of them...to test our abilities in all the aspects of life

now education is a means earn a degree first job next

no teaching is required they don't need any explanations/recitations...

for today's generation everything is available on internet.

Asoori Latha

I think it should not be the goal of the parents' generation to leave children to themselves with smartphones and computers, devices that they, each for himself, use every day for many hours anyway. Of course you can tell them: Help yourself, it's all on the Internet. I think they should also be responsible in the morning to make their bed, tidy up their room, prepare their own or for family) breakfast every now and then and learn self-responsibility in a social environment. You don't experience this with a smartphone, 90% of the time there is dedicated to touching the screen or pressing keys - lost life. You don't learn to write an essay on the question of "What is just?" with a smartphone (but you can of copy such a text from the internet and present others as own work), nor do you learn there to discuss with others math equations or differential calculus.But you learn how to create a shitstorm against others best! I would like to think that the most important experience for children today is good social experience, and in order to be able to make it today, children have to learn not to use the smartphone for some time of the day.

Albert Manfredi

Thank you for this important contribution. In the 19th century, however, the memorization method was very dominant; in the 20th century, it was mainly the representatives of the so-called New Education who opposed it. But your contribution is also very stimulating. I believe that memorization is an essential means of preserving valuable cultural assets, as long as they can be reproduced through language and memory. Especially if you live in a minority in which your own culture is either suppressed by the majority or viewed with a certain contempt - I have experienced something like this in real socialism - then memorizing is a good method of preserving something that can also be used as an intelligent spiritual weapon. I once enjoyed memorizing the first sentences of selected constitutions, including the Constitution of the Soviet Union. I found that interesting, some I can still do today, the texts are all accessible on the net, that was for not so. But there are other reasons for learning by heart from a private point of view. I always found it nice to be able to play a piece of music - no matter which instrument - by heart, you don't need notes, you just play when an instrument is at hand. Sometimes it also makes sense for adults to know a good humorous text by heart, because it often fits well into situations in which people otherwise feel left alone or helpless. So I would consider wit and irony to be an important motive in addition to criticism.

Michael Issigonis

Of course, you're right. But you can learn the interest in reproducing memorized texts in other areas that are culturally more valuable, I suppose.

Hein

To all, but in particular for younger mothers and fathers

I have to mention two more aspects that were important for memorizing certain texts in my own socialization.

At the age of three to four, when it was wartime, I learned a little story by heart, which began stereotypically with the words: "And there the mother packed her suitcases...". - It was a little story that happened one weekend, that I should wait for my mother at the station, but she didn't come (Finally she did), that we had been looking for a seat on the train, but it was all so crowded that other people had to be crowded as well. And then the mother had the idea to just sit on the suitcase. We drove to acquaintances where we spent the whole winter a short time later because of the war. But there was a big bang in the story, at night, that was the snow that slipped from the roof and caused a lot of noise, then there was also something in the story that there was something to eat for dinner that I absolutely didn't like as a little child: fried potatoes with jelly. And so on. I had a role, always a visit came to us, I was asked to tell "my story". Then, of course, I did. It brought some social recognition.

There is another situation where telling by heart plays a role: When you have pre-school children, you like telling them stories. You can read these stories aloud, but it is much more impressive to tell them, for example well-known classic fairy tales: In the German language, fairy tales always begin: "Once upon a time..." and they always end "...and if they didn't die, then they still live today". In this way, rituals and emotional relationships are strengthened that can be lost very early in today's media world.