In Defense of Memorization

When Winston Churchill was at Harrow School he memorized all 70 stanzas of the poem “Horatius at the Bridge.” Highlands Latin School in Kentucky now gives students “The Winston Churchill Award” for anyone that can do the same. But memorization is a sin in modern education, I hear you say. Why on earth would well-meaning teachers be encouraging memorization? With the world of information at their fingertips, students don’t need to memorize anything anymore because they can look it up. They need conceptual understanding and critical thinking instead, right? I disagree.

The dictionary definition of memorization is “to commit something to memory.” It’s the process of remembering something. My fundamental mission as a teacher is to teach kids cool stuff that one day they can use. How can they use what I teach them if they don’t remember it? In this way, memorization, or the act of remembering, is a fundamental outcome of good teaching.

However, maybe when I hear people celebrating the death of memorization in IB Psychology, perhaps they’re not referring to the process of committing things to memory. Let’s hope not. I assume they’re using memorization synonymously with rote learning. Rote learning is repetitive rehearsal without focus on comprehension, understanding or application.  Discouraging rote learning is a more understandable position. However, rote learning still has its place in my classroom.

My teaching is based on the simple metaphor of building blocks. These are individual units of information that form the foundation of all understanding, application, and critical thinking. This transcends all levels and subjects. A kid can’t spell “c.a.t” if they don’t know the individual sounds and shapes of those letters – they’re the building blocks. A kid can’t explain Wordsworth’s imagery in “Daffodils” if they don’t know what imagery is. A student can’t explain why rumination causes depression if they don’t know what these things are. I could go on.

You might think, well they could ask questions and find out for themselves. No, they can’t. You can’t ask a question about something you know nothing about. How can a kid ask how to spell cat if they don’t know what a cat is? Or why people get depression if they’ve never heard of it? I’ll rant about the relative merits of inquiry-based learning in another post.

Rote learning can help with the acquisition of these fundamental building blocks. The repetition creates fluidity and fluency. It commits to memory building blocks of information that reduce cognitive load to allow more cognitive effort in the more advanced tasks of application and then critical thinking. Rote learning is an issue if the end goal is only the regurgitation of what is rote learned. If, however, the end goal is applying building blocks of knowledge to solve some bigger problem or question then it absolutely has its place.

A common quip in IB Psych circles is “regurgitation is not a command term.” It’s not. But “describe” is. Year after year examiner reports lament student answers have “too much description.” If describing something is assessment objective level 1 – knowledge and understanding, does that mean too much descriptions means students are showing too much knowledge and understanding? Of course not. The reports shouldn’t focus on too much description, rather they should focus on the lack of explanation instead. This is my point about memorization – if it helps kids get to the first stage of explaining something, then great. It’s only if it’s the end goal or the strategy used for all levels of learning when it becomes a problem.

In IB Psychology, the topics are the most important building blocks. Key terms like neuroplasticity, neurotransmission, and even research considerations like different methods, triangulation and researcher bias are essential. Just like rote learning phonics to develop literacy, there is a place for rote learning definitions of key terms to form the foundation of psychological literacy.

Rote learning also builds confidence. I heard Adam Grant say recently “Experts need criticism, novices need praise.” This is true for students. Providing opportunities for rote learning basic facts, like key terms, allows students to experience success through simple hard work. Give them some flashcards, some time, teach them how to practice, and then give them an easy quiz early in the course. Boost their confidence with rote learning the basics and praise them for accuracy.

Many kids comprehend key terms without rote learning. Great. However, many can’t. This is where flashcards and rote learning information has its place. Similarly, you can’t think critically about something you know nothing about. However they get there, whether rote learned or not, having the building blocks is essential for application and critical thinking. This is easily provable – sit in on a lesson in a subject you know nothing about. Practice some introspection and see which comes first – comprehension or application.

Teachers cause learning. A kid walks into my class and doesn’t know what the prefrontal cortex is. By the end of three lessons on the criminal brain, 14/15 know how and why a smaller PFC is a risk for violent crime. That 15^th kid has only just comprehended the idea that there are different parts of the brain and the PFC is “the brain’s brakes.” To get that took a lot of work and rote learning with flashcards because this kid struggles. We all have these kids in our class. If they leave a lesson knowing something they didn’t know before, even if they’re not up with their peers, it’s not a failure – it’s a success. The goal of teaching is not to get all kids to the same place – it’s to cause learning.

I have a hunch our discouragement of rote learning and remembering in primary schools might be having long-lasting neurological effects on kids. The hippocampus is the brain’s memory center, helping transfer short-term to long-term memory. We know that neuroplasticity means the brain will develop and adapt at experience. Therefore, it’s logical to hypothesize that continually practicing rote learning will lead to greater hippocampal development and thus an improved ability to learn later in life. No emphasis on committing information to long-term memory through repetition could have, I believe, detrimental effects on hippocampal development and thus life-long learning skills. Interestingly, one study of 55-70 year olds found that six weeks of rote learning improved memory and hippocampal function (Roche et al. 2008).

This makes me wonder if any primary schools still have kids copy off the board. I don’t see value in this by high school, but I think it has some value in the earlier stages of literacy. Through imitation and replication kids learn sentence structure and style. Heck, even the great writers copied their heroes if not through reading their stories then through direct replication, like Hunter S. Thompson who hand typed The Great Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms. Is Churchill’s memorization of an epic poem why he became a great orator? Causation, correlation. But it surely didn’t hurt.

Kids go to school to learn things they otherwise wouldn’t learn. It’s my job to teach them that stuff. That’ why my classroom is an unashamedly teacher-driven, student-focused place where memorization absolutely has its place.