clair073

In ancient times the ability to memorize was a prized skill. Whole cultures were passed down through the centuries by those who remembered the stories, legends, history, and taboos and laws. The advent of the printing press launched a new era of “looking things up.” Today, the Internet and its search engines may seem to be making memorization irrelevant in the modern world. What we don’t remember, we think we can always look up. Schools have generally abandoned requiring students to memorize poems, famous speeches, multiplication tables, and all sorts of academic material that used to be ingrained in the curriculum. A growing disdain for memorization emerged among the other intellectually damaging effects of post-modernism. Now the emphasis in education is on new math, critical thinking, inquiry learning, “hands-on” activity, and the like. There is nothing wrong with these new emphases, except that they come at the expense of children learning the mental discipline of memorization. Tea...

Some people say that we learn best from our mistakes. But all of us know about people who never seem to learn from their mistakes. This failure to learn is most obvious with people who keep making poor decisions and lifestyle choices. The psychological explanations are many and complex. For simplicity, let us restrict explanation to the world of education. Educational philosophy has changed a great deal in the 50 years since I was in school. Back then, for example, I had the highest grades in school, but many of my teachers went out of their way to cut me down a notch or two so I wouldn’t get conceited. Aside from the debatable question of whether that worked, the point is that today, the educational establishment has the opposite philosophy. They tend to tell all kids they are smart. I have seen elementary schools where most students are selected as “Honors Students.” I know college education professors who won’t give anything less than an A.  Why is praise so liberally applied? I...