Where is the Line?
What, if anything, needs to be memorized is a question asked in teachers’ rooms all the time (usually after an anecdote about a student not knowing a particular province or state capital). Most of the time the villain in this scenario is held to be the internet/smart phones/Google. In Technopoly by Neil Postman (1992), Plato’s Judgement of Thamus is presented as evidence that written text itself may be to blame for this loss of memory amongst our citizens. Clearly people were pre-occupied about the loss of memory (at the individual and societal level) long before smart phones. Has the debate changed significantly? Should we care more now that a seemingly limitless quantity of printed material is accessible with a device smaller than most small paperbacks?
If we consider the situation where no one would commit anything to memory and people were to rely on the electronic storage of information for all recall, it is easy to see that the work world would be less efficient. Looking things up in books would be slower still but either way the continuous research of facts would be time-consuming and cost prohibitive. On the other hand, memorizing every possible detail related to any profession would likewise make the training too expensive. A middle ground must be found. Perhaps in a literate society with instant access to information, the things one needs to recall–whether for economic, survival or social reasons–will be memorized out of necessity and the rest will be looked up. The facts and skills people use daily at school and later in life at work will be memorized. People will remember to look both ways before they cross the street or they won’t need to remember it the next time, and if you care enough about someone you might even memorize that person’s phone number!
If memorizing essentials becomes the norm, then, “what to look for,” and, “where to look for it,” should become the primary concerns. In the Cambridge forum broadcast, O’Donell addresses this content-versus-skills question with a very balanced approach: in the internet era, people do still need a core of knowledge but they also need a core of skills to navigate the world of knowledge out there (Engell & O’Donnell, 1999). By this rationale, high school teachers like myself will have to identify the primary content that learners will need to know (not simply cram in for a test and then forget), have the learners use that information often so it is internalized in memory, all while coaching learners on how and where to access any additional information to perform a variety of tasks using information technology. Of course, the core content and core search skills should be subject, grade level and learning community-specific. The search skills also cannot be considered static because the information search and storage technology continue to change very rapidly. Teachers will need to keep pace with the learners to ensure they both know how and where to look.
References
Engell J. & O’Donnell J. (1999). From Papyrus to Cyberspace. [Audio File]. Cambridge Forums.
Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly. New York: Knopf.
This is a really helpful post. I think you’re correct that the middle ground needs to be identified. Of course, as with all ‘middle grounds’ the middle is often in the eye of the beholder. Or, maybe more precisely, the middle is determined by the need to the discipline. I think this is fine.
There is always a core body of knowledge the must be memorized and there will always be areas where people need to know where to find information. If I’m not mistaken, this is the main idea behind connectivism. We must teach students the core that they need to know, but give them the tools to be able to find information on their own. In this view, it’s more important to know ‘where’ to find information rather than to ‘know’ the information.
And, of course, this is a bit of a crutch. And all crutches will make us weak in some way, if we keep using them for longer than necessary.
I believe that the traditional method of teaching which involves rote memorization is slowly heading out to exception as we come to realize that if facts can be easily retrieved, why spend countless hours memorizing, testing, and soon after forgetting them. The smartphone is becoming ever more present in the pocket of more and more people. The smartphone is essentially a computer, a computer with access to the internet.
I like to think about how we adapt the human body with technology such as hearing aids, artificial robotic limbs, and now even digital sensors to the brain for people who suffer from complete blindness. Having a tool in our pocket that can retrieve this information is also an adaption to our brain. This add-on is changing the way we think, memorize, and retrieve information. Because we can lookup a fact and retrieve information through text, it’s also changing the way we communicate amongst each other. Has our brain evolved to this adaptation?
With inventions such as Google Glass, and future iterations that could possibly conduct facial recognition, relay information regarding individuals such as fact checking information we may forget about a person, name, age, relationships without having to remember it ourselves, we are essentially now storing information to the cloud. If this beneficial to our brain to free it up to do other work, or making it lazy? It’s pretty hard to see the full picture of how all this technology will change how we communicate and interact using our own memory, but it’s pretty easy to see how technology has changed our brain, either an evolution, an increase in efficiency, or a reliance on outside sources to complete tasks we could do before.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I personally had previously been involved in two political campaigns before, during an Legislative council election debate in 2012, candidates were each asked a question regarding the economic, geographic and social developments at a “point” on the Southeastern part of China (randomly chosen by the host) on a map, the purpose of this part was to test the richness and depth of the candidates’ knowledge about local landscape. One of the opponents was caught by some audience using a personal smartphone to look information up while another candidate was answering the question. At that time, I determined that the candidate was incompetent in both moral and capability considerations. In retrospect, however, I somehow changed my perspective. Certainly, this candidate should be held blamed for the violation of rules. However, I now believe that elected officials are being chosen because of their “knowledge and experience.” We elect them to make important decisions for their unique set of information/experience that cannot be “looked up.” In addition to those memorizable knowledge, what really matters is not just their character, but also their outstanding analytical skills and good judgment to help his constituents to improve their well-being and living. These abilities and skills cannot be “memorized”. An interesting and sensible response to a question frequently asked, “why should we read and study when most of them are lost over time?” goes like this: For a lot of food that we have eaten as we grew up, we cannot now remember all of them, all we know is that some of them has become a part of our bodies.”