> This doesn't necessarily make sense. Memorization is a first step to learning, nothing more. I don't believe you can learn the higher level concepts of any su

> This doesn't necessarily make sense. Memorization is a first step to learning, nothing more. I don't believe you can learn the higher level concepts of any subject without memorizing the details of its primitives at some stage of your study. I vehemently disagree, maybe because I understood the original statement differently. In classes, I've watched students diligently write down everything on the blackboard and yet find themselves incapable of answering the simplest question on something just explained (but not written down). They spend all of their mental capacity putting ideas down on paper in front of them, rather than putting those ideas in their brain and playing with them, as they should. They can regurgitate what was just said, sure, but give them new data and ask them to apply a concept just explained with different data, and they're lost. That's the difference between memorization and learning. Memorization is something you can do at home with a textbook. In fact, textbooks have already "memorized" facts for you, why are you doing it at all? When you come to class, you shouldn't be worried about that. Personally, I'd much rather be in a position to explain (for example) a formula I can't write down exactly, and say what it does and means, and why, than have a thousand formulas memorized which I don't understand. > I think note-taking still has its place. For me its ultimately production. When I need to get my thinking clear on a given subject or problem, I fire up a terminal, write down what I know, what the problem is, and what I need to know to solve it. Heh, I do the same thing. cat > /dev/null seems to be my brain's swap space.