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by theshadow
4948 days ago
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I don't see this as a problem at all. I don't know if remembering the entire body of knowledge by heart is even possible for the average human being. I like to compare learning in University and schools similar to how memory works in computers. When you are taking a course it is similar to transferring data over a slow 28 kbps modem onto the computer, the process is slow and frustrating however as the course goes on and you understand the material better it starts to percolate up to faster caches. When you write a final exam the material is in the L1 cache, you can instantaneously rattle off answers to complex problems like it's no one's business, there's a question on Red-Black Tree deletion- no problem, question about quick select - too easy! 5 years go by and you've not touched the subject in any meaningful way so of-course if someone asks you to write a Red-Black Tree or implement Quick Select you probably will not be able to do it from the top of your head. There's a cache miss as the material is no longer in the L1 cache, you have to go down to perhaps the harddrive, which involves dusting off that copy of CLRS and reviewing what all the cases of a Red-Black tree insertion and deletion are and within a couple of hours you'll be able to start implementing it. Sure it's not the same as writing the answer in 15 minutes on the exam but it's significantly faster than learning the material for the first time which would the equivalent of getting data over a network. This process works well enough, there's little that you've learned a long time ago that you can't pick up again in a relatively short amount of time. This property of brain to forget less use facts to make room for what you use more often has been acquired over a very long period of evolution. I don't know what schools can do to make sure that the students NEVER FORGET what they learn in a class. And imo to expect that is completely unreasonable. |
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It's possible, if you practice.
I don't know what schools can do to make sure that the students NEVER FORGET what they learn in a class. And imo to expect that is completely unreasonable.
You can't do this, but adults could take some time out of their days to practice what they learned. That way, they will keep retaining what they learned over decades, and the amount of practices should keep going down.
This process works well enough, there's little that you've learned a long time ago that you can't pick up again in a relatively short amount of time.
Those residual knowledge help make practicing and maintenance of our existing knowledge much easier. We could take advantage of it.
Anyway, if you want to retain everything you learned, you should take a look into spaced repetition which is a learning technique that help make knowledge maintenance an efficient process.
All that is left is our educational system to recognize that knowledge maintenance is important.