[jf22]

I don't like the comparisons to other schools or cultures where memorization is the priority.

What kids do with what they learn in school matter more than whether or not they memorized a calc function.

Besides, who cares if you know cal functions in a post-phone, post-AI world. You look that shit up now.

[nosianu]

At the early stages memorization is essential for some subjects. I still benefit greatly - like many - from very early having to memorize the complete lower multiplication table (12x14, 15x15 and all that, the 20-square). I actually need that in daily life all the time (and I'm old and skeptical about teaching too much stuff that just drowns kids and prevents deeper understanding because they are always chasing the next subject with little time to let anything sink in deeper). What is sine, tangent, cosine. At least a few digits of pi. Language and grammar too.

Lots and lots of stuff that just has to be memorized. It becomes easier the more experiences one gets over time using those, merely memorizing the words alone ofc. is useless and also very inefficient, without other knowledge to create a network the brain will throw pure sentence-memorization out. So you still start the lessons with some memorization, then deepen it by using it in class. But in the end you will still remember those many little "facts".

[jf22]

I didn't say all memorization was bad, just that we should understand we are comparing cultures that treat rote memorization differently.

[yoyohello13]

I wish this narrative that memorization is bad would die. Yes, understanding concepts is also important, but memorization is incredibly useful for learning and applying knowledge. The faster you can recall "trivia" the better you are able to make connections.

I say this as someone you drank the "no memorization" koolaid. Now I always start new things with memorization first and I learn so much faster.

[dotnet00]

Yep, the most obvious example (besides language) would be of math. Despite what kids (and unfortunately, some adults) say, it's worth memorizing the tables from 1->10 despite the ubiquity of calculators because the process of memorizing them helps with seeing the patterns that provide a deeper understanding, and it's much faster than pulling out a calculator and plugging the numbers in.

There are some subjects where the emphasis on memorization that some places have is detrimental, but that doesn't make memorization bad in general.

[yepitwas]

Doing math without memorizing some basic arithmetic facts is like reading without knowing what the hundred most common words in the English language mean, and having to look them up every time you encounter one. Sure I guess you can do that, but… you definitely shouldn’t.

[rixed]

This contradicts my own experience.

As a kid, and probably still now, I was very reluctant to memorise things, for some reason I never understood but that may be connected with distrust of authority. I still remember how long and hard I fought my parents and grandparents who tried to make sure I would eventually memorise multiplication tables. Instead, I had to develop many tricks to be able to retrieve the proper results without memorisation, effectively discovering patterns to retrieve quickly all the tables from very few memorised numbers. Years later, I remember having done a similar thing in history classes, refusing to learn any dates, so instead finding tricks to tell which events must have occurred before or after another, thus again getting more engaged with the material as a result.

Sure, some material do require pure memorisation, like language learning (that I still hate with a passion), but overall I believe memorisation gets the bad rep it deserves.

[desolate_muffin]

Why think when your phone or the AI can do it for you? I imagine there are a few people in this forum who might have some thoughts about that.

[jf22]

Recalling math trivia is not thinking... that's why it's called memorization...

[blululu]

I find this attitude to be really frustrating. Based on my experiences teaching math a student is not going to learn how to do the impressive things that you might call thinking if they don't have a solid foundation in how to do the basics. Imagine saying that learning the alphabet or spelling rules is just rote memorization and therefore not worth doing. If a person needs to spend all of their brain power thinking through elementary operations then they will have very little left over for the things that we might call thinking. I have seen too many kids who struggle with Algebra not because they can't understand the concepts but because they cannot do basic things like multiply 3x4 without needing to add 3 to 3 to 3 to 3.

[jf22]

I didn't say learning the basics was a bad thing...

I said memorization wasn't important...

I find it frustrating people argue against points that were never made.

[ThrowMeAway1618]

That's a great question! Let me go ask Claude and get back to you..