In defense of rote memorization.

[ErikJ]

separate article

In Defence of Rote Learning
April 17, 2013
Sitting down to read the Sunday newspapers and looking forward to a respite from my everyday world of learning design, I find myself once again confronted with the use of rote learning as a pejorative term. The unjustified bad press for this type of learning appears to be emanating from Government circles and filtering down into a common misunderstanding of this important type of learning.

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Educators use Bloom’s Taxonomy as a framework for setting learning objectives and assessment questions. While Bloom’s Taxonomy is not a pedagogical instrument per se, it provides educators with a conceptual framework for learning and is used extensively by teachers, lecturers and eLearning designers.


Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain
Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain

The base of the pyramid is where the much maligned rote learning occurs. The Knowledge level is concerned with the most basic form of learning and lowest cognitive skill – the acquisition of factual knowledge. Assessment for this level typically requires students to recall facts and basic concepts in the form in which they were learned. The Holy Grail of education is to reach the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy where students are problem solving and applying critical thinking skills – both defined as key 21st century skills. However, without the rote learning that occurs at the first level, students do not have the fundamental knowledge that is required for understanding, application, analysis, synthesis or evaluation to occur. Bloom’s Taxonomy is designed to build on learning from basic remembering to more complex skills such as critical thinking and evaluation. The stronger the foundation of underpinning knowledge, the easier it is for educators to design learning experiences that move learners up the value chain of learning.

While it’s true that we should aspire to more than the first three levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and put in place 21st century teaching and assessment strategies for the development and assessment of skills at the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy such as problem solving and critical thinking, inappropriate and pejorative use of the term ‘rote learning’ demonstrates a lack of understanding and regard for its underpinning and valuable role in learning.
.................................. http://www.learnovatecentre.org/in-defence-of-rote-learning/

[planetc]

1. And let me just second this message

When I came through school no one feared asking children to memorize some knowledge (the multiplication table), some rules (for grammar), and asking them to use these databases to perform simple tasks. As I recall, the surge in emphasis on not stifling children's creativity came in the 1970s or thereabouts. If we only asked them to memorize, the great question went, how will they ever become creative enough to out-invent the Japanese? No one seems to have pointed out then, or now, that we can do both. We can ask for some memorization and encourage some creativity, and children's heads would not explode? There was a similar argument, beginning in the 1960s, I think, about whether in college, we should teach the great thinkers of the western tradition, from Plato to Spinoza, or "water that body of knowledge down" by teaching the voices of neglected or silenced groups, like women, slaves, and the losing sides in our wars. No one pointed out that we can do both--our college students' heads will not explode.

Knowing the multiplication tables has stood me in good stead all my life; knowing some Latin has informed my knowledge of English and a number of other living languages; reading Toni Morrison takes nothing away from an appreciation of Plato.

We do our children and ourselves a disservice if we assume that all learning must be "fun" and entertaining. The fun may not come until after you know enough to invent something new. No one's work life is 100% fun, and the most creative people know an awful lot about music, programming, numbers, language, how to weld steel, etc., before they can make something genuinely new.

[ErikJ]

4. Yes, memorizing stories and poems were critical before the writing & printing press

for humans to pass down knowledge and arts of the culture. So I think its probably important for child brain development and learning. Learning long poems and stories is probably good exercise for the brain too.

[1monster]

2. Hear! Hear! The proposed models of education today are like building a house without a foundation..

It isn't going to be long before that house is overwhelmed by wind and weather.

[Ka hrnt]

3. I tell my students this every year...

Thinking is the act of making connections between facts; you can't think without facts. I liken to trying to learn to play a son on an instrument without learning where the notes are first.

[panfluteman]

5. Very Good Analogies, Indeed!

A strong mental and cognitive house needs a sturdy foundation of memorized facts. To play a melody, you first need to learn its elements, which are the notes. To these two I would like to make an analogy to sports and physical culture: rote learning and memorization of the basic facts is like basic training or conditioning for the mind, that builds a foundation of good muscular tone and reflexes, good physical performance and resistance - to stand up to the wind and weather, as one of you said, or, "to take a licking and keep on ticking".