Problem-Solving May Be In, But Memorization Still Key To Education

You hear a lot about new goals in education these days. But what ever happened to the standby tool of a few generations ago, memorization?

Is memorization dead in public schools? Teachers hope not.

“We have made it a dirty word,” says Judy Duffert, German teacher at Central Valley High School, who says many students today routinely fail to put in the time needed to memorize the vocabulary.

“They won’t memorize, they can’t memorize,” Duffert says. “These kids have no memory skills.”

Finding information and analyzing it may be the bywords of our age. But memorizing is still one of the building blocks needed for today’s thinkers. It’s just that no one - not textbook publishers, not busy parents, not our hyper-paced society - gives memorization much respect, teachers say.

Ponderosa Elementary teacher Sharon Olson told the parents of her fourth-graders last year that math would “be a breeze for them if they would memorize their math facts and their times tables.”

She suggested a varied approach at home: math games on the computer one night, flash cards another night. She was astounded at the number of parents who apparently ignored her advice.

“It didn’t happen,” Olson said. “Those kids struggled and struggled.”

So, if kids aren’t memorizing German verbs and multiplication tables, why are they memorizing Pikachu and the other Pokemon characters?

“It’s a priority with them. Many things are choices in our lives,” says Carol Spelz, principal at St. Mary’s Catholic School. Students at her school memorize prayers, in addition to the scientific elements, geography facts, history dates and spelling words.

Spelz says she’s not worried about memory skills at her school. She tells of following a kindergartner on her way to class one day as the child recited “The Night Before Christmas.”

“She knew the whole thing. And she’s just an ordinary kindergartner,” Spelz says.

One day this week at Liberty Lake Elementary School, Jill Skipworth’s fifth-graders sprang to their feet as they memorized the names and capitols of the Midwestern states. They clapped, they chanted, they sounded like cheerleaders:

“N-S-N! M-I-M! W-I-M-I! Oooooh-KAY!”

(And for those who never did master the Midwest, here’s a cheat sheet: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska. Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri. Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa. Ohio, and Kansas.)

For the capitols, volunteer Gail Gering coached the kids through a jingle about cousins Mark (for Bismarck) and Pierre who realized they were related to Lincoln, and so on.

The kids had so much fun, they begged to do it again.

But memorizing can’t always be fun. In high school, it takes sheer mental exercise, and some students shy away from the work.

Bob Bohlen, science teacher at West Valley High School, says he sees students who work very hard and do very well; but he sees a startling number of students who put in no effort.

“There’s so much terminology in science, it’s almost like a foreign language. And if you don’t learn the vocabulary…” Bohlen says.

It’s easy to blame television, or working parents, or any one simple cause for the change in attitude toward memorization. But CV’s Judy Duffert says she thinks it’s a whole complex of reasons, including today’s education reform.

“I think you can put a lot of blame on - I’m sorry, but - the teachers and the textbook publishers. We’ve been the recipient of another bandwagon.”