4 ms·

> While it is possible to overemphasize memorization and rote practice, the pendulum has certainly swung too far the other direction Throughout my grade school

> While it is possible to overemphasize memorization and rote practice, the pendulum has certainly swung too far the other direction Throughout my grade school and high school years (born mid-80s, Canadian), near everything was memorization. Memorize multiplication tables instead of learn to do arbitrary multiplications quickly. Memorize your table of elements instead of emphasis on what it means. Memorize how to find the roots of a quadratic function, the rules for arithmetic with fractions, physics equations... (I'm pretty bad at memorizing, so this doubly infuriated me because I had to look for the underlying relationships to do well). Even after my province introduced a new curriculum which was supposed to stop all that and focus away from memorization. Anecdotally, this is only slowly changing if at all, as new teachers come in and old ones who won't give up on rote memorization retire. I know this is all just anecdotal, but in my (ongoing) university education, I still see a lot of students put their emphasis on memorization, which suggests to me that they were taught that is what it means to 'learn.'

hugh3 15y ago
Memorize multiplication tables instead of learn to do arbitrary multiplications quickly. How can you do arbitrary multiplications quickly without memorizing your times table? You can't quickly compute 47*36 without being able to reel off "six times seven is forty-two, seven times three is twenty-one, four times six is twenty-four, four times three is twelve", can you? I hated learning my times table (in fact I hated mathematics when mathematics was just arithmetic) but a certain amount of memorization is necessary and unavoidable if you're going to be able to do basic mental arithmetic, which remains an important life skill even if you do have a calculator.
- marklubi 15y ago
  > You can't quickly compute 47*36 without being able to reel off "six times seven is forty-two, seven times three is twenty-one, four times six is twenty-four, four times three is twelve", can you? My mental process for solving your example equation was to reduce it to 50x36-3x36 which is IMHO a much simpler process. I don't know where I learned that process (probably from my dad), but simplifying the values to easily calculated approximate values and then adjusting that value for more precision seems to make much more sense than what was taught to me in school. It also caused a lot of frustration between myself and my teachers who demanded that all of the micro steps be written out instead of making what seemed to me as logical jumps. Edit: formatting
- nantes 15y ago
  Completely off-topic, but that sounds very similar to approach taken by RISC CPU's. Be very good at doing smalls things very, very fast and then compose those operations in to higher order operations. Just saying.

hugh3 15y ago

Memorize multiplication tables instead of learn to do arbitrary multiplications quickly. How can you do arbitrary multiplications quickly without memorizing your times table? You can't quickly compute 47*36 without being able to reel off "six times seven is forty-two, seven times three is twenty-one, four times six is twenty-four, four times three is twelve", can you? I hated learning my times table (in fact I hated mathematics when mathematics was just arithmetic) but a certain amount of memorization is necessary and unavoidable if you're going to be able to do basic mental arithmetic, which remains an important life skill even if you do have a calculator.

marklubi 15y ago
> You can't quickly compute 47*36 without being able to reel off "six times seven is forty-two, seven times three is twenty-one, four times six is twenty-four, four times three is twelve", can you? My mental process for solving your example equation was to reduce it to 50x36-3x36 which is IMHO a much simpler process. I don't know where I learned that process (probably from my dad), but simplifying the values to easily calculated approximate values and then adjusting that value for more precision seems to make much more sense than what was taught to me in school. It also caused a lot of frustration between myself and my teachers who demanded that all of the micro steps be written out instead of making what seemed to me as logical jumps. Edit: formatting
nantes 15y ago
Completely off-topic, but that sounds very similar to approach taken by RISC CPU's. Be very good at doing smalls things very, very fast and then compose those operations in to higher order operations. Just saying.