Memorization

Education, as it stands today in the United States, seems to have shifted to more than just memorization.  In our school district we utilize the Common Core method along with other learning tools that focus on the why’s and how’s of subjects and not just the answer.  Our kids are asked to learn and understand how you solve problems and how you search for the answers, not just memorizing facts and figures.  It is a bit controversial, but for the most part I do like the focus on the process rather than just finding the “right” answer.

However, I do think that there are certain things worth memorizing, especially in elementary school and early education.  I have tried to explain to my kids that it may be boring, but if we can learn to memorize our letters, sight words, grammar rules, math facts, definitions, etc, it will make more complex topics easier to learn.  There isn’t nearly as much of a focus on testing the kids as I remember there being when I was a kid.  We had a lot of timed tests when I was in school that focused on the “right” answer, definition, and testing that you read and could regurgitate it.  I think the sweet spot may be somewhere in the middle.  If there are 4 steps to get to the right answer and memorization can get you to step 2, to me, that’s worth the effort.  We can spend our time and attention on the more complicated steps 3 and 4.  But this could all be a function of “this is how I learned it when I was a kid” and thinking it makes more sense this way.