Well, I immediately think of Albert Einstein saying, “Never memorize what you can look up in books.” There must be some ideal medium inbetween…

I remember in (I think) “Little Town on the Prairie” when they had the school “Bee”.  And Laura was doing problems, in her head, like 782,964 divided by 2,689.  And she could do it!!

My kids are in K and 2nd grade at home.  We use a classical approach to learning that encourages memorization.  Their first week of school they have both learned a short poem.  I think it is a great way to learning.  Maybe if I had gotten in the habit of memorizing more I wouldn’t be so forgetful now!

Looking back on my own education, I am thankful for the poetry I was required to memorize. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it STUCK! Same with Bible verses in college—I can still recite those that I memorized over 20 years ago.

I like the classical approach to education, and that’s what we (loosely) try to follow here. We have a fairly decent amount of poetry memorization in our weekly schooling, and hopefully it will stick with my kids as well.

I remember my brother, now age 48, memorized the preamble of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address *and* all the presidents in order when he was only in the 2nd grade. Four years later, I had the same teacher, and it was her last year before retiring. So she’d been born before 1910 and was quite old school until her last class. She only made us memorize the presidents and the Declaration of Independence, neither of which I can recite from memory today. (Mike still can!) God bless Mrs. Klopenstein!

I learned the preamble to the Constitution from Schoolhouse Rock. That I can still recite for you. Set to music, I could memorize anything. I also learned the times-tables and parts of speech from Schoolhouse Rock.

I was raised atheist and I remember in _On_The_Banks_of_Plum_Creek_, Laura was insulted when the new Sunday School teacher her gave her the shortest verse in the Bible to memorize, and Laura already knew much longer passages. But in the book, Laura Ingalls Wilder never wrote out the verse, so I had no idea what it was! It really bothered me that she thought even babies should know it and I was a big girl of seven or eight and I had no idea that what it was or how to find out.

When my friends started turning into evangelical Christians during high school, I went along to Bible study simply to find out what the shortest verse in the Bible was. I think I was 17 before it finally came up—“Jesus wept.” What a relief after 10 years of wondering!

I believe memorization is an excellent way to train your mind to retain information.  While a child might not be able to fully understand what he is memorizing, it fills his brain with information to ponder later when he reaches that stage of development. 
Not to mention, its really cool to be able to recall quotes from books or poems years later! 

Jen in OK

When we homeschooled, I always set the kids some memory work. They laugh about it now—“remember when Mom had us memorize ‘The Raven’?” (That’s a lot of memorization, but I did it right along with them.)

I think it is so important for kids to have scripture in their heads, so it can become a part of them. And I think the best way for them to become good writers is to have heads full of good writing.

I hope to include some memorization when we start homeschooling with more structure. (My oldest is just 4 so homeschooling right now is really just reading a lot together.) I figure he can handle it if he’s already memorized just about every Veggie video, even the Jonah movie.

Seriously, every line.

That’s why I’ve decided to add Bible verse memorization this fall. He’s alreade memorizing the verses at the end of each show, so I’d like to put it more in context.

My mom and I were just talking about this the other day--in reference to CCD.  We think kids were better off memorizing the Catechism than what passes for catechizing today.  I wish I had committed the Catechism to memory at some point in my 12 year Catholic education.  I couldn’t recite one article of it today. 

I DEFINITELY think memorization has a bad reputation and it really is a problem.  As a college professor of acting, the number one problem my students had was memorizing texts, which for an actor, is probably the number one skill he should master.

I used to be infuriated with them until I realized it is only partially their own fault.  Memorization is a muscle and if it isn’t used it doesn’t develop.  They NEVER have to use it! 

The term “rote memorization” always comes up with contempt and disdain in faculty development.  Now THAT is what infuriates me.  “Rote memorization” is nothing more than learning. 

Not to mention that if a student truly memorizes something (even *gasp* “rotely")--they carry it with them for life.  So if they aren’t ready for the lesson when they receive it, they can draw upon it again and again and learn from it in years to come.  I have letters from former students that testify to this.

My students memorize poetry - as soon as they have one down, we start on the next one.  But this post inspired me, and we’re definitely going to start memorizing the Psalms, too.  Of course, I memorize along with them.

As for math in the Little House books, I didn’t take the episode of her doing long division to mean that she didn’t do harder math, but that she could do long division in her head without being able to write it down.  That is, she knew the arithmetic backwards and forwards and upside down.  So the question is, more complicated concepts and more of them, or fewer and simpler concepts and learn them inside-out and right-side in and every way in between?  Developmentally, I think, though I’m just a beginning M.Ed student so I might learn something later that totally proves me wrong, it’s better for the child’s brain to have fewer concepts more thoroughly.  And when I think about me going to the grocery store and not being able to add my bill up precisely, but having to kind of round and guess and come up with something that’s within $5 of what the bill will be, I do wish that I had spent more time drilling arithmetic.  Not to the exclusion of learning some more advanced concepts, I don’t think, because I also loved the logic of math once we got in to geometry and trig and calculus, but maybe concurrently with it.  Trig and calculus serve you well if you’re going to take math in college, but if you’re not, what serves you the best is to get good at doing the math you’ll find in the world, in your head.

I memorized all through school (from something about Daniel Drew in grade school to sonnets for my PhD orals) and my son started memorizing a poem a week in second grade. So there are pockets of the US where memorization lives on.

Speaking of gaps in Laura’s education, remember the first time she had to write a composition? I think she chose “Ambition”—and wasn’t that in one of the last books? Like, after “The Long Winter”?