2 ms·

I see from your profile that you too take care of your kids all day long. I've found that my son doesn't want to do the same thing for very long. So we read bo

I see from your profile that you too take care of your kids all day long. I've found that my son doesn't want to do the same thing for very long. So we read books, we play with toys, we take walks, etc. etc. This is one of a variety of activities that is done for only a few minutes each day. In other words, I don't understand the presumption that books and flash cards are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, I think that they are complementary. I look for things that are educational that hold my sons interest for some amount of time. This activity is one of those things. If kids don't like it, by all means they shouldn't use it. It is meant to be fun.

tokenadult 17y ago
My concern about flashcards is that they are a very nonholistic way to present isolated facts. In my childhood experience, it was the DUMB kids in class who used flashcards a lot, while the smart kids did without them entirely. (I vividly recall an incident in fourth grade when some of my classmates were flipping through a set of geography flashcards, which was just old enough to show some African countries as still colonies of European countries, even though by that year those countries were independent. I knew the countries were independent because I read books and the daily newspaper.)
- dmoho 17y ago
  I find that when I am learning something new, memorizing some facts is an important part of the process, kind of like establishing a set of axioms before using them to prove something. As I build more expertise, I can revisit those memorized facts later with greater understanding instead of simply being able to recite them. I find flash cards to be useful for that purpose. You definitely have a point: you can't exclusively use flash cards to develop a good understanding of any subject. However, I think that they are one of many useful techniques that you can use for studying and question whether using flash cards automatically means that you are a "DUMB" kid. It's great that you were able to learn outside of the classroom by reading books and newspapers on your own, but I don't think that incident means that flash cards are in ineffective technique. Relying on outdated flash cards to teach the children geography means that the teachers were not up to date on current events and that the school did not update their learning materials frequently enough.

tokenadult 17y ago

My concern about flashcards is that they are a very nonholistic way to present isolated facts. In my childhood experience, it was the DUMB kids in class who used flashcards a lot, while the smart kids did without them entirely. (I vividly recall an incident in fourth grade when some of my classmates were flipping through a set of geography flashcards, which was just old enough to show some African countries as still colonies of European countries, even though by that year those countries were independent. I knew the countries were independent because I read books and the daily newspaper.)

dmoho 17y ago
I find that when I am learning something new, memorizing some facts is an important part of the process, kind of like establishing a set of axioms before using them to prove something. As I build more expertise, I can revisit those memorized facts later with greater understanding instead of simply being able to recite them. I find flash cards to be useful for that purpose. You definitely have a point: you can't exclusively use flash cards to develop a good understanding of any subject. However, I think that they are one of many useful techniques that you can use for studying and question whether using flash cards automatically means that you are a "DUMB" kid. It's great that you were able to learn outside of the classroom by reading books and newspapers on your own, but I don't think that incident means that flash cards are in ineffective technique. Relying on outdated flash cards to teach the children geography means that the teachers were not up to date on current events and that the school did not update their learning materials frequently enough.