The Importance of Rote Learning in the Google Era
For most older adults, one of the lasting memories from elementary school is of our teacher using flash cards to teach us some important facts. Whether one was learning to read or remember their basic math facts, flash cards were often the tool to help us remember the information our teacher deemed important and later, to test our recall of those facts.
Such devices carried over to later grades and were used for learning key historical dates and information like the state capitals. In high school I even made my own set of cards for science and mathematics. There were cards to help me remember the periodic table and the key symbols related to that chart as well as the trigonometric functions and other more sophisticated aspects from advanced math.
However, the general consensus today is that such recall may no longer be as important as once thought. In fact, today’s technology has folks insisting that school children “should no longer be forced to memorize facts and figures because such information is readily available on the internet.”
The Google Generation
Murray Wardrop, in “Learning by heart is ‘pointless for Google generation,’” notes that such recall has actually been the definer for academic success in the past. However, Wardrop offers the thoughts of businessman Don Tapscott who insists that “for today’s youngsters, tedious rote learning is pointless because such basic facts are only a mouse click away via Google, Wikipedia and online libraries.”
Tapscott is the author of the best-selling book Wikinomics. He also is a person firmly supporting the net generation phenomena or notion that today’s hard-wired kids demand different teaching methodologies.
Tapscott insists that it is time “to teach children to think creatively so they could learn to interpret and apply the knowledge available online.”
One Truism
While the notion that recall should be obsolete is one that most educators would differ with, there is one component where Tapscott is unequivocally correct. “Teachers are no longer the fountain of knowledge; the internet is.”
The explosion of knowledge available by way of the Internet truly means that no educator could possibly hold all the requisite knowledge in any one field anymore. In fact, once students move beyond the most basic of materials, the idea that children should have subject knowledge experts like science teachers or history teachers may well be one of the major adjustments coming down the educational highway.
Tapscott goes on to state:
“Kids should learn about history to understand the world and why things are the way they are. But they don’t need to know all the dates.
“It is enough that they know about the Battle of Hastings, without having to memorize that it was in 1066. They can look that up and position it in history with a click on Google.”
Out with Facts – In with Learning
Tapscott is focusing his argument on the notion that “the ability to learn new things is more important than ever” because in today’s world everyone must “process new information at lightning speed.”
And in contrast, remembering facts is simply old-fashioned, a concept designed for education back in the industrial age.
Tapscott adds: “This might have been good for the mass production economy, but it doesn’t deliver for the challenges of the digital economy, or for the ‘net gen’ mind.
“Children are going to have to reinvent their knowledge base multiple times. So for them memorizing facts and figures is a waste of time.”
In addition, Tapscott is firmly behind the notion that the brains of today’s net generation youngsters work differently than that of their parents. Today’s net generation kids are “multi-tasking with digital devices” using the “the internet while listening to their MP3 players.”
Therefore, there is little doubt that educators should focus on the development of critical thinking skills.
Not Accepted as a Universal Truth
In contrast, a number of experts insist that for students to climb Bloom’s Taxonomy and develop higher order thinking skills, students mush have some basic knowledge and know some critical facts. Otherwise, there can be no synthesizing of information or true conceptual understanding.
Ofsted,the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills in the UK, seeks to inspect education and training for learners of all ages. The office disagrees with Tapscott.
Wardrop notes that “Ofsted has reported that pupils’ knowledge and understanding of key historical facts is not good enough to enable them to ‘form overviews and demonstrate strong conceptual understanding.’”
The writer also goes on to quote Michael Gove, the Shadow Children, Schools and Families Secretary, who “recently attacked ‘the move away from fact-based learning,’ arguing that ‘knowledge, intellectual capital, is what makes educational progress possible.’”
Education Reform – Too Much All or Nothing
The debate is reminiscent of the one that emerged as whole language reading teaching methodologies were introduced amidst great fanfare. Soon, phonics became a bad word for educators.
Many years later, it is clear that both concepts have relevance, and that when truly examined, they are almost inseparable. Today, neither is the be-all or end-all for teaching children how to read.
The idea that facts will no longer be relevant to the learning process appears to be a similar argument. Technology does offer greater educational opportunities for children and harnessing its enormous potential will demand new teaching methodologies.
Clearly, teachers should emphasize rote learning less and replace the time spent on memorization with a greater focus on the need for higher order thinking skills. But it is not entirely clear that dismissing all forms of rote learning will in fact make students stronger in the long run.
In fact, before castigating rote learning in the same manner that experts once did with phonics, we may want to wait until further brain research is done. Because many an elementary teacher insists that the process of rote learning may well serve as a catalyst to the development of the brain as a whole, leading the way to the possibility of higher order thinking down the road.
Flickr photos courtesy of quaisi, Will Lion and Raymond Brown.
11 comments
There is much to be said for balance in all things.
I am so incredibly tired of this argument that no one needs to memorize anything. Last summer, I wrote a blog post about this subject after reading my step-daughter’s med school blog. Her continued success in her medical school studies is tied to her ability to memorize and regurgitate facts. http://patriciaellencone.blogspot.com/2008/08/sowhat-exactly-is-21st-century-learning.html
Do we really want to create professionals that have to check Google every time they need to make an informed decision? I hardly think so. Memory work has its place in the total fabric of learning just as you have suggested in your blog post.
I agree with some points here, but these movements in education can often be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I teach World History, and I will tell you there is very little focus on dates. But it is still vital for students to have an understanding of time as a frame of reference. In our district, there is a big debate over thematic teaching vs. chronological teaching. The downside of chronological is that it is easy to get bogged down on a timeline. However, the downside of thematic, for example, we taught a Philosophy & Belief Systems unit, students walk away feeling like Muhammad, Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, Confucius etc were all friends.
The internet is great…I love it. I learn more than I thought I could everyday. But the digital divide is real. We can’t stop teaching basic knowledge when there are still large numbers that do not have access.
I’m reminded of Ed Hirsch and Cultural Literacy. He had this list of everything an American needed to know, but I’d add that the ability to use it was also needed. I think Van Merrienboer has it right, with both the knowledge you need and the complex situations you need to be able to apply it. So neither side alone is sufficient. We need to determine the minimal set of knowledge and skills that allow you to continue to develop as knowledge and culture develop. I’d add wisdom in there too.
At last, a fellow educator with a voice of reason! Far too many colleagues are in a determined quest for the ONE best answer to education, when in reality, it’s more like a smorgasbord-it takes all kinds of food to make a feast, and what’s good for one student may not be right for another. Nice article!
I think like with most segements of life, balance is important. In GA we’re implementing new Math standards in 9th Grade. It has become apparent to me that our current students don’t have enough basic math memorized to move forward with meaningful math thought.
In previous years, I taught low-level kids to get through purely process driven math. I believe a calculator was sufficient for these kids. Sadly, the expectation was to get by for these kids.
Now, the expecation is not to just get by and students need a strong background that they can recall easily – there isn’t time to google the times tables in freshman math.
Does anyone know what successful education really is?
I must agree that a balance is what needs to be found here. In response to Patricia Cone’s comment, your daughter’s continued success in medical school based solely on her ability to memorize and regurgitate facts worries me. I would prefer the doctor operating me to have a solid understanding, but also not relying solely on her memorization – facts change, research is updated and nobody can remember everything! She may find that she needs to look at some references occasionally or her learning and growth in experience will end the day she finished medical school.
As our world changes, so too must the education that we provide to our children. Relying solely on rote memorization and standardized exams, the way that NCLB encourages, will leave students with decontextualized knowledge. However, providing them with a basic framework of core concepts (which was E.D. Hirsch’s true objective) and then teaching them how to use those skills will enable them to guide their own learning, creating a situation in which they will be excited about knowledge (because it is what they want to learn) and also flexible enough to adapt as the world changes.
I recently posted a blog entry on an essay I read on Inquiry-based Learning. The essay, entitled Testing the Waters: Three Elements of Classroom Inquiry, and appearing in the Winter 2008 issue of Harvard Educational Review, provides an example of just such an educational experience.
[...] engage with the content and really understand history. (Over at the Open Education blog, they recently discussed this effect rote learning within the “Google generation”.) Even more frustrating are my memories of repeating the same material in sixth through ninth [...]
Is using flash cards like on http://periodictableflashcards.blogspot.com/ a good way to learn? I am having trouble learning several subjects and I am at my wits end!
I don’t think you can truly have the ability to engage in “critical thinking” without a strong foundation of basic facts and cultural learnings that have, yes, been drilled into you at a young age. You can’t “understand” water without knowing that it is two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom. The words we use to communicate – writing – must be drilled into you to overcome illiteracy. Critical thinking and understanding – vague and ill-defined as these terms are in this debate – can only be thought of as the capstone of an education. Today’s educators want the bread without planting the wheat. It’s really pretty foolish.
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