Rote Learning

Some people claim that rote learning is memorizing without comprehension, and therefore, useless. But is it?

Let’s consider some facts: The original meaning of “rote,” which comes from Middle English, means “repetition.”

When you commit things to memory you do it by repeating them over and over again until the long-term memory invites them in. And even after that, you need to review them now and then to maintain your recall.  

But there’s a more interesting term that was commonly used before rote learning was condemned to archaic pedagogical practices.

The term is “learn by heart.”

The once common idiom derives from Ancient Greece because the Ancient Greeks and everyone since then, until modern times, believed that the intelligence and memory were housed in the heart, hence the idiom.

But what does it mean to learn something by heart?

It means we make it a part of ourselves. It’s no longer a thing outside of us; it’s now a thing within us. It’s now in our hearts.

Mauritania is one of the few countries left where scholars still learn by heart entire books on a variety of subjects including grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

We aren’t talking about a few math facts or parts of speech; we are talking about entire books! Until a particular book is studied, until the contents live on a shelf in the student’s heart, a Mauritanian is not considered an expert of his subject.

How’s that for raising the standards of education?!

Furthermore, Mauritanians are known for the brilliance of their memories because the simple act of memorizing will develop your memory. Any above-average intelligent person will have a strong memory.

And they say rote learning is bad!

Your children need to develop their memories. You want your children to commit to memory material that will become useful to them later.

We can do both and we should do both.

Take learning a foreign language as an example. One of the arguments against the practice of learning by heart is that you don’t learn a foreign language by memorizing it’s parts, you learn it by speaking the language.

While this is certainly true, the objection makes a greater argument for learning a language while living in the country where the language is spoken rather than an argument against memorizing the parts that make up the language.

Speaking a language does not make you literate in a language. It just makes you able to converse in the colloquial tongue. To have an intelligent understanding of any language you need to have a thorough understanding of its grammatical structure.

All Americans grow up speaking English, but the number of Americans who can read and write intelligently, persuasively, and eloquently has dwindled significantly.

Some researchers like Jo Boaler of Stanford University argue that math facts shouldn’t be memorized when children are young but the focus should be on conceptual learning.

Jo Boaler’s position teaches us only one thing: we should listen to researchers less and to our common sense more.

Is math not the most precise of subjects? And if you understand a particular math concept perfectly but make an error in the addition or multiplication part of the problem, is not your answer wrong?

How much greater, then, are your chances of finding the correct answer when you have your math facts at your fingertips.  And what do children love to do most?

Memorize!

So why should they not learn the math facts when it will serve them well, and they love to memorize anything when they are young?

Try studying Latin. If you study Latin using the traditional method, you will find yourself memorizing noun declensions and verb conjugations before you learn how to translate a sentence from English into Latin.

Yet, when it comes time to construct your first sentence, and every sentence afterward, how much easier it becomes when you’ve committed the declensions and the conjugations to memory.

When you ask a child to memorize a poem, you are asking the child to learn the poem by heart so the poem becomes a part of the child.

In memorizing the poem, whether he fully understands it or not, the language will emerge when the child–and later the adult–speaks or writes, and it will only make him that much better when he does.

As he grows older, he’ll slowly begin to grasp the meanings until one day the poem has not only been learned by heart, but the heart has understood the poem.

What is so bad about that?!

Committing worthwhile material to memory will develop your child’s memory. The more material your children commits to memory, the stronger his memory will become.

And don’t forget that a strong memory is a key component of a strong intellect!

Let me ask you a question: with Alzheimer’s and early onset dementia on the rise, does it not behoove us to do what we can to protect our memories? And don’t we keep our memories functional by using them?

Children love to memorize anything whether it makes sense to them or not. It’s what Dorothy Sayers labeled the “Poll-Parrot” stage of learning. They’re designed this way because it’s what they need.

Learning everything they can learn by heart is good for them. And it might even protect them against dementia when they’re older!

Why not take advantage of their natural inclination and let them memorize as many math facts and poems as they can?

And there is plenty or room for math facts and poetry too!

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.

As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Elizabeth has 21+ years of experience working in education.

She has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.

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