A common practice of any intelligent student since time immemorial has been to memorize dates, facts, words, poems, quotes, passages, and even whole books.
But in the age of what some philosophers are calling “collective stupidity,” we think we know better than to have our children waste their time memorizing facts or anything else.
Sadly, we are the fools. We are quick to adopt ideas without thinking about the long-term impact they will have.
The long-term impact of not using our memories is weaker minds, dwindling focus, less innovating thinking, and more dementia.
None of which is good and all of which is bad.
The original meaning of “rote,” which comes from Middle English, meant “repetition.”
When you commit things to memory you do it by repeating them over and over again until the long-term memory invites them in. And after that, you need to review them now and then so they aren’t forgotten.
But there’s another term that used to be used which is more meaningful, soulful, and even graceful.
The term is “learn by heart.”
The once common idiom derives from Ancient Greece because the Ancient Greeks and everyone since then—until modern times—believed that the intelligence and memory were housed in the heart, hence the idiom.
Learning by heart is something children love to do.
It means we make what it is we memorize a part of ourselves. It’s no longer a thing outside of us; it’s now a thing within us. It’s now in our hearts.
“‘Learning by heart,’ which speaks to the soul, has been replaced by ‘rote-learning’ and ‘learning by rote,’ which are off-putting terms that have the effect of making memorizing into a matter of using the brain as a piece of machinery.”
Mauritania is one of the few countries left where scholars still learn entire books on a variety of subjects, including grammar, logic, and rhetoric, by heart.
We aren’t talking about a few math facts or parts of speech; we are talking about entire books! Until a particular book is studied, until the contents live on a shelf in the student’s heart, a Mauritanian is not considered an expert of his subject.
How’s that for raising the standards of education!
Furthermore, Mauritanians are known for the brilliance of their memories because the simple act of memorizing will develop your memory.
Your children need to develop their memories! You want your children to commit to memory material that will be useful to them later.
Whether you want to debate the difference between rote learning and learning by heart, I’d like you to consider this: it’s easy to condemn rote learning as passé, but it isn’t easy to condemn learning by heart for the same reason.
As Mr. Gwynne said, learning by heart speaks to the soul while rote learning speaks to a piece of machinery of which we are not.
“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”
While learning for understanding and truth is crucial, and is the very point to learning, learning by heart has its role too.
We don’t need to forsake the practice of learning by heart in favor of understanding or exploration, as some people might argue. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.
Our children can do both, and they should do both.
Some researchers like Jo Boaler of Stanford University argue that math facts shouldn’t be memorized when children are young because the focus should be on conceptual learning.
She has it backwards. Conceptual learning comes later; it is facts children love to memorize when they are young. As Dorothy Sayers said the memorizing of the multiplication tables need to be done when young or “it will never be done with pleasure.”
Furthermore, Plato would not agree with Ms. Boaler, and nor would neuroscientist, Dr. Kawashima, who both said that doing mental math operations kept the brain sharp.
Dr. Kawashima has show in his research that doing simple math problems every day protects us from dementia, which tells us that Plato was right.
Jo Boaler’s position, with all due respect, teaches us one thing very well: we should listen to researchers less and stop abandoning educational methods that have always worked.
If you study Latin using the traditional—and more effective method—you will find yourself memorizing noun declensions in their various cases and verb conjugations in their various forms before you learn how to intelligibly translate sentences from English into Latin.
Yet, when it comes time to construct your first sentence, and every sentence afterward, how much easier it becomes when you’ve committed the declensions and the conjugations to memory!
This is one simple example of how memory work can make everything else so much easier.
When you ask a child to memorize a poem, you are not just asking him to memorize a poem but to make that poem a part of himself.
In memorizing the poem, whether he fully understands it or not, the language will show up when the child–and later the adult–speaks or writes, and it will only make him that much better when he does.
As he grows older, he’ll slowly begin to grasp the meanings until one day the poem has not only been learned by heart but the heart has understood the poem.
Committing worthwhile material to memory will only expand your child’s memory. The more material your children commits to memory, the more his memory develops, and the easier it becomes to memorize anything.
And don’t forget that a strong memory is a key component of a strong intellect!
Let me ask you a question: with Alzheimer’s and early onset dementia on the rise, does it not behoove us to do what we can to protect our memories? And don’t we keep our memories functional by using them?
Children love to memorize anything whether it makes sense to them or not. It’s what Dorothy Sayers labeled the “Poll-Parrot” stage of learning. They’re designed this way because it’s what they need.
Learning everything they can learn by heart is good for them. And it might even protect them against dementia when they’re older!
Why not take advantage of their natural inclination and let them memorize as many facts and poems as they can? You have a window of time to get them into the habit of memorizing; so use it wisely and ignore the “rote” memorization critics.
Because they haven’t understood the power or impact of learning by heart.
If you liked this, you might enjoy my free download 7 Steps to Raising Children Who Love to Read.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson teaches parents everything they need to know to raise decent, well-educated children.
