I’d like to take a couple of days to celebrate the beginning of yet another school year. Today I think I will speak to memorization.
I can’t stand this whole “memorize the answer” thing. Listen closely people. IT’S NOT AS IMPORTANT TO KNOW THE ANSWER AS TO UNDERSTAND WHY THE ANSWER EXISTS.
Let me explain. If I hold a flash card stating 3×15 and my daughter shouts out “forty five”, and can shout that answer quickly from memory, is that as important as her understanding why
3×15 equals forty five? If she understands why, it will help her to find the answer to 6×15 and so on. To many times though, our public school systems force our teachers to teach to a test and get their students to memorize answers rather than teaching them why the answer exists.
It’s not the fault of the teachers. I believe it is the result of a faulty system where teachers are evaluated by how well students do in timed tests rather than how well their students function in society and understand the world around them.
I think we all know someone who scored well on tests in school but has struggled in problem solving once they made it to the real world. Chances are, they were an answer memorizer.
