Having been exposed to both schools of thought, in the public school system, I think memorization serves people better, throughout their lives. The old dinosaurs were just beginning to retire, when I entered highschool, and I believe my education suffered, for that reason. My vocabulary, my ability to calculate in my head, and my grammar are all slightly below the level of my older siblings.

I do have more of a knack for slinging BS, about subjects I don't really understand. I guess that comes from being told to focus on creativity.

In other news, liberals like to keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

The only way I could ever have gotten through 3 years of calculus was through repetition and memorization.

Only then did it begin to make sense.

Having large parts of the periodic table memorized, was surprisingly enough, somewhat handy in chemistry class.

How, in the blue blazes, does one even begin to learn math or any science without memorization?

Science is (was) a ceaseless objective effort to find the truth.

Post modern politics are fanatically agenda driven and overtly corrupt. PM politics have coopted science (as it has the media) as an agenda rubber stamp and politicized it.

Progressivist authoritarian politics and truth cannot coexist, they are incompatible - THAT is the lesson of Climategate.

Take back our schools.

Give our kids a chance with REAL education.

Who is she? She's wonderful. And she's right. Governments always throw taxpayer money at the problems that they won't actually use forehead-smackingly obvious common sense to solve.

Anyone who's spent five minutes in Academia at a post-grad level - or earlier, even - knows that it's all politics. Personal politics, and the straightforward kind. Apparently even in the real sciences, and not just let's-pretend fields like Sociology.

And I never liked that Zimbardo. He looks like a villain in a Space Opera, and the famous Stanford Prison Experiment was obviously as sadistic as it was scientifically worthless; Oakley's right, no hypothesis, and no "evidence" that wasn't so subjective as to be totally worthless.

Developing memory is essential for early school aged children.

Beginning in grade 2, we were required to memorize and recite a poem weekly. Not only did this improve memory, it made public speaking and presentations less intimidating in the future.

Granted, it was a private school, and we did get sent to the corner or otherwise disciplined when we misbehaved (rarely though, because there were consequences). And my self esteem is just fine, thanks for asking.

When I was in university, I got 28% on a statistics mid term, which I sort of studied for.

I asked a friend in postgrad program for help. He said to do every problem in my textbook at least twice, then I would start to recognize patterns and what the question actually was.

So I did. I got over 90% on the next mid term.

Math and science are a language that enables us to understand the world around us, and must be practiced, and yes, memorized at first.

For science and math, consistent application of positive effort leads to superior results. Trying to creatively find solutions (iow, deak the actual hard work) never gets you over the learning hump, IMO.

Laboring in "the trenches" of first-year university classes has taught me the following: (1) Students arrive in university armed with the attitude, inculcated by their grade-school babysitters ...oops, I mean, educators, that if they find a subject difficult, the fault MAY NOT lie with them: it must lie either with the material or the instructor. For, were the fault to lie with them, that would mean they were not the equal of their classmates, and that thought is VERBOTEN---it is a cultural crime, since it would diminish their self-esteem; (2) That second only to promoting bulletproof high self-esteem, the purpose of education is to allow students to EXPRESS THEMSELVES (never mind that they have nothing to express). They therefore have no time for study of what others have had to say about, say, arithmetic, history, biology and so on, almost all of whom were dead white males anyway, and therefore cultural criminals of one sort or another; (3) That they are customers, and they pay their professors to service them. Therefore, their professors cannot do enough for them, and surely dare not demand anything of them. And if a professor should be so backward as to dare try, students have been taught how to respond: class nullification---they simply shut down, refuse to work or respond. They know they can get away with it, since they know that professors how been cowed by their administrators to pass students even though they deserve to fail.

Recipe for disaster.

I have two daughters enrolled in the Kumon math program. It's really just drill - they get a little instruction each week, but then they get sheets to bring home, and they spend 20-30 minutes a day doing problems over and over. Both get great marks in math, even though they hardly ever seem to crack a book. (My eldest is in Grade 10 and is already doing calculus and differential equations.)

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell postulated that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice for someone to become an expert at anything - playing hockey or the piano, or computer programming. You need to perfect the basic skills first through repetition and drill before you can riff like Glenn Gould. Why these "educators" suggest that math is somehow different is beyond me.

But, as always, I have a theory. Most of the time at public school, I was bored to tears, and so were most of my friends. I'm rarely surprised when I read about some home-schooled kid who's ready to enter university at 13; I think many could learn much more quickly if they were trained properly. But if kids were leaving public school after, say, Grade 8, then how many public school teachers would lose their jobs? A quarter to a third? So it's in the teachers' interests to keep kids in school longer, rather than have them graduate quickly.

Marshall Macluhan speculated back in the 60's that the big increase in public education coincided with the industrial revolution. The new factories needed workers who could do some basic arithmetic, and read a little bit, but even more important to Macluhan was they needed workers who would show up for a bell, do as they were told, eat lunch at a bell, take a break at a bell, and go home on a bell. Anyone who's worked in farming knows that it doesn't work that way on the farm; you don't stop milking at 10:15, you stop when all the cows are milked.

So ironically, while these educators claim they are instilling creativity, their meta-goal, whether they know it or not, is to drum creativity and independence out of kids, and turn out docile little workers. Even more ironic, we now live in a world where Canada's standard of living depends more and more on our ability to create and innovate, not perform the same task for hours at a time. I believe I read somewhere that China now graduates more new engineers each year than there all in the whole of Canada. If our standard of living slips slowly over the next few decades, it is the education establishment we'll have to thank.

Shamrock, that is exactly how I taught myself first year calculus. Every question in the book we were covering and I did every assignment at least twice. Only then could I see the pattern in the question/expression being dealt with.

Once the procedure was second nature, only then could the tools that calculus brings to the table be used for crazy stuff. Like solving problems....

I remember teaching math during my elementary placement at teachers college.Instead of just showing them the formulas for finding circumference, area of a circle, etc., they had to find their way there with confusing and time wasting exercises so they would "understand" rather than memorize. Most were hopelessly confused by the artsy and creative introduction and would have found it much less painful just to memorize the damn formulas. Others knew intuitively that this was math class and all this nonsense was not important - they waited for the real lesson.
In the end it was memorization, after repairing the confusion caused by the modern approach.
Those who have an affinity for the subject invariably "understand" on their own and don't need the sugarcoating, those who don't can achieve competence quickly with a little effort.
OTOH, I learned some algebra which had puzzled me since high school.

Yes, yes, yes! Math education in schools today is terrible, and is driven entirely by the latest fad of the day.

I can see it in how my kids learn, and I can see it in the kids that enter university, so ill-prepared that they cannot even do simple arithmetic. 2/3 + 3/6 = 5/9 for these kids.

Today's youngsters are supposed to "discover" math instead of learn it. It is all such garbage it makes me want to scream.

Education goes through one fad after another, driven by liberal educators, and 99% of the fads turn out to an utter waste of time.

Whole word reading etc. all fall into the same bucket of stupid ideas dreamed up by educators that don't have a clue.

I sometimes think the real purpose is to dumb education down so as to ensure that hard work and a bit of brains no longer puts you ahead of others - a socialist dream.

“We hear about success stories with practice and repetition-based programs like Kumon Mathematics. But I’ll be frank with you—you’ll never get anything like that funded. We don’t believe in it.”

And therein lies the problem with lefties in general, whether talking about education reform, AGW, etc. Facts be damned. Only what they Feel and Believe is the Truth matters.

It doesn't matter if your answer is "right", as long as you feel good about it...

KevinB @11:32 - "...while these educators claim they are instilling creativity, their meta-goal, whether they know it or not, is to drum creativity and independence out of kids, and turn out docile little workers."

Jayzuz, that means Pink Floyd was right.

Gotta tell ya... this is one of the main reasons I spend multiple thousands in after tax dollars to send my kid to private school.

Posted by: nick at December 10, 2009 11:16 AM

It's a frightening scenario that you describe. I guess the good side is that you know it's out of whack.

Pat

The modern liberal demands that there be no discrimination. None whatsoever.

No students left behind - even if they are slack-ass, class disrupting saboteurs.

It is politically incorrect to fail a student. According to fasicist liberals that would be judgmental.

Dumb-down the curriculum. Fill it with arts-quality material. The arts-quality "educators" with their "earned" BA will be happy to dumb-down the curriculum - comes naturally. The easy way out. No departmentals. No way to rate their product.

Folks, those of us in the education bus. that still have our heads screwed on---yes, there are a few of us, still,---have watched in horror as our betters---the nameless, faceless, statist bureaucrats that run our governments, ministries of education, our universities and our faculties of education---have labored to subvert one our most important institutions: education. Because it goes on largely behind closed doors (Just try to get inside your child's classroom!) the revolution has occurred without much notice. But make no mistake: its a cultural revolution, and its raging right under our noses. Its a revolution run in the name of equality. Equality is the new goal of education. And when they say 'equality', they mean it with a vengeance: equality in every respect; not just equal distribution (and re-distribution, if necessary) of wealth: that was the goal of those Marxist pikers. Now the goal is radical equality in every respect: equality of power, respect, esteem, truth, knowledge (knowledges!)---all the social goods. So, grading is out; criticism is out; right and wrong, out ("Johnny, you say 2+2=5. Isn't that special. Now, WE say 2+2=4. Its not that you are wrong, just different, and we LOVE difference. But we'd all be happier if you said 2+2=4 too. Then we'd all agree. And there's nothing more important than agreement!"); objective truth, you must be kidding! Objectivity is an impossible and evil myth promoted by the powerful to serve their own interests, and preserve their margins of power and wealth. The citadel of western civilization is being taken from within. Your children's teachers and professors are among those let loose from inside the Trojan Horse that is modern, radical, liberal democracy. Its cultural suicide.

That's why I sent my children to Montessori schools. The math program at Montessori is excellent. Lots of repetition but its fun because it's tactile. (use of 1cm squares, beads on string signifying 1, 10, 100s etc).

Plus my youngest is taking Kumon. He loves it. His older sister took summmer school so she would still be ahead of him, LOL.

Canada, especially Alberta used to do relatively well at the international standardized school competitions. Is this still true?

I am also a teacher in our much celebrated (by themselves) public school system. I cannot believe the blind adherence to the theory of the day, particularly among younger teachers. The mantra that understanding always precedes practice is false; often the light bulb (incandescent, that is) only comes on after a certain amount of repetition of predictable patterns. I was specifically instructed in a university class on teaching Math that the maximum number of repetitions for any concept was five times. Anything after that was deemed "meaningless number crunching." Try telling a professional athlete to only throw five passes at a practice, or a symphony musician to run a difficult excerpt five times, and see what kind of response you get. There is a reason that the coaches and band directors are the ones the kids often see as still striving for excellence. When your team always loses, or your performances suck, it is hard to make excuses or pretend that you were teaching for different outcomes.

Pat, @12:21: It is frightening. And not just because these kids grow up to vote! Just imagine! Lots of us see and fight it wherever we can. And the kids, bless their hearts, KNOW they've been weaned on BS: you can see the shock of recognition on their faces when one of their teachers, no less, points it out to them. Some, the better ones, are as outraged as the rest of us.

Gotta tell ya... this is one of the main reasons I spend multiple thousands in after tax dollars to send my kid to private school.
Posted by: Mark Peters at December 10, 2009 12:04 PM

I'm with you, Mark. My wife and I are the proud parents of three toddler boys, the first of whom we enrolled in the local private Christian school just this year. The other two will follow in the coming years.

Nick you more or less nailed it.

A long time ago I was involved with artillery just before the whiz-bang electronical stuff arrived.
We basically laid the guns using a methodolgy barely evolved from the time of Napolean.
I was very suspicious of the robustness/reliability of this new gear. I frequently shut the electric stuff off and insisted the lads do it the hard way. I wasn't running a popularity contest so stuck with that....
Then following Desert Storm I received correspondence from those same personal praising me for my foresight.
Apparently, during one of the few tense encounters, which were resolved by timely and accurate fires.....the damn black boxes went south with the first data entry. The lads apparently shrugged and did what we called a Napolean (the old way).....and promptly assisted the Republican Guard to meet their virgins.
As a result the training regime has adapted to both systems and it was discovered that the performance of the modern system was enhanced by the operator's grasp of the old systems.

We still dig holes the same old way.

Nobody ever occupied ground with a plane, a missile, a helicopter, a tank or a gun.....it's boots on the ground.

The education system lacks the boots on the ground approach and fails as a result.

Apropos the collapse of education, Andrew Breitbart announces several new members of the Big series, including Big Education:

http://www.mediaite.com/online/andrew-breitbart-launching-new-sites/

WARNING!!

Pay no attention to what this woman has to say. She is not a climatologist. What does she know?

How does working on Russian trawlers, teaching Chinese, working from grunt to Captain in the US Army, radio communications in the Antarctic and a Phd in engineering qualify her to criticize the warmists?

Seriously, Barbara Oakley's CV would make Sarah Palin jealous, maybe even Kate McMillan, just a little bit.

Want some more on her views on education? Go to her blog and read her essay on why journalists are democrats.

without a good memory, one will fail in school and life

if one has ONLY a good memory, one will fail in life

I'm making a list, checking it twice,
Going to find out who get whacked and who has been nice,
Population Control is coming to town.

In the Spirit of the Season. Ho Ho BANG!

Re: Previous Post
OOps wrong thread.. please not not kill me!

I can attest to this. I believe part of the impetus is the educational theoreticians were poor at memorization themselves. Plus, it is not very esteem-y.

Intellectual snobbery has prevented the investigation into and the discussion of some of the key issues of all time. Copenhagen may be the largest gathering of scientific and political eagles and they may have to discuss the effect of sweaty participants on the climate - see Samandimp.wordpress.com.

All great issues have their funny side - especially academic issues. Take it from a former perpetual student!

My daughter received a Math and Science Certificate from the International Baccalaureate (sp?) program which is as the name says - international and which is also based on memorization but also was aimed at the "smart kids". She told me that it was great not having to wait for the slow students to catch up to the program. As a result, even though she took a gap year between high school and university, she is writing her finals for her first semester at UBC, Bachelor of Science. She was automatically accepted and received two major scholarships because of the IB program. This program started in 1980, I graduated high school in 1970. I wish it had been around in the 60's - I was bored to death with the lack of interest/stupidity of my fellow students.

@nick at December 10, 2009 11:16 AM

"Standing on the shoulders of morons", perhaps.

@BJG at December 10, 2009 5:05 PM

RE: Barbara Oakley

Go to her blog and read her essay on why journalists are democrats.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/scalliwag/200908/why-most-journalists-are-democrats-view-the-soviet-socialist-trenches

I think that link has been posted here before but it's worth re-reading.

This is a good thumbnail sketch of why we homeschool. Faster, cheaper, better, easier. Public education doesn't have to be this bad, but right now it mostly is, and so we've opted out.

Our kids are about two to three years ahead in reading. Their math is only about par, so we've been experimenting with different programs over the months and years. This year we discovered The Well-Trained Mind, which seems to suit our kids best. It focuses on memorization at a particular point in their development, making the case that it's impossible to think creatively without a solid grasp of fundamentals, and that those fundamentals are easiest to learn within a certain age range. In later years the questions become less about memorization and more about the process of breaking down and solving a problem.

This shouldn't be controversial, but it is, and so we do what works and leave the bloviating to the teachers' union representatives.

Three cheers for homeschooling! My husband and I pulled our son out of public school this year when we realized that he was unable to do simple addition problems (4+3) in his head without using his fingers. We are using Saxon Math which is an old school repetition and drill program and the change in him has been nothing less than astonishing after only 3 months. Parents - even if you can't homeschool your kids and I realize that it is just not possible for everyone, get a proper math program and do it with them at home. It only takes about 45 minutes a day.

Much the same has happened in the UK's "edjoocayshun" system.
Children are no longer taught, but are such keen little things, that they'll just find it out for themselves.
I can still remember my teacher at 4th year infant school getting us to chant "To find the product we times" over & over again.
We learnt our times tables by reciting them, en mass in class.
Our Government has debased the examination system, substituting course work for examinations. Course work that the children who's parents care about their eduction help them with, or use the wonders of the internet, those who's parents couldn't give a flying fig about their childrens' education don't.
Children aren't taught to read properly, it might stunt their enjoyment of books, phonetics has only recently been reintroduced, to replace the "real books" method.
Thus the cycle of ignorance and under achievement perpetuates.