| I was having a conversation/debate with a friend this past weekend along similar lines: I have an extreme amount of trouble memorizing basic facts, and so I can't recall a lot of historical dates. Things I didn't know which bothered her included the year America signed the declaration of independence and the year we entered World War I. But, I knew how long World War I lasted, and that it coincided with the Spanish flu, and proceeded an economic boom period which ended in the Great Depression and then World War II. I'm quite good at remembering stories, and so I knew the context of these events—just not the specific year they happened. Which I think is fine. Context is what matters. My friend said that for her, knowing the date is what lets her recall the context. Because of what she memorized as a child, she's able to form a timeline of history in her head, and see when things happened and how they coincide. And I will admit that I sometimes have trouble forming a similar timeline, and it's a handicap. But I mostly manage; I have a limited number of hours in my life and I focus my energy where it makes the most sense. I guess what I'm trying to say is that people are different. It may be that most students are like my friend and the children you tutor (which is something I should keep in mind, as I'm actually training to become an elementary school teacher). But it's not necessarily true for everyone. I resent the fact that when I was in high school, I had test questions which asked "what year did Christopher Columbus arrive in America". I studied for hours trying to commit these facts to memory, and I still got the questions wrong. But if the test had asked "how did Christopher Columbus's arrival in America affect the European economy", I could have answered easily. |