Isaac has spent the entire quarter in school memorizing all the US states and capitals. In a few weeks, given a black sheet of paper, he will be able to write from memory all 50 states and capitals (spelled, for the most part, correctly).
My question is, what has been sacrificed in order to commit this to memory. The ongoing assignment has taken the place of regular spelling and vocabulary study.
This reminds me of Seth Godin's frequent references to the lizard brain. The lizard brain tells us to go slow and be cautious. It tells us to memorize because every single other child is told to memorize this set of data.
However, what problems does this help us solve? How does it spark creativity and revolutionary thinking patterns?
Friday, March 05, 2010
Education: Lizard Brain Memorizes States and Capitals
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
In my humble but age-experienced opinion, I feel that there are some boring things that have to be memorized in life--multiplication tables, states and capitals, appropriate behavior in certain situations--not everything can be left to each and every person's own creative or revolutionary interpretation for a given problem or situation. We could have a mess. Mom
Hmmmmm, I guess some things do have to be memorized, but not sure how long something like that stays in memory. I guess if he remembers even most of the states / capitals he'll be doing better than me. I never can remember all of the capitals. Then again, all I have to do is peak over at the handy map on my wall to remind me. Michael can still easily sing the "Fifty nifty United States" song, thus remembers at least what all the states are. Multiplication facts are different in my mind, though. More advanced math becomes brutal if you don't have your basic math facts memorized. Christian has begun this year to get into math that would take him most of the morning to do if he didn't have the basics committed to memory. I expect him to be able to whiz through the basics so he can spend more time thinking about the complicated parts. Maybe knowing the basics well allows for more creative or revolutionary thinking.
Love, Nancy
Post a Comment