Rote memorization was a large part of my education and my life as I grew up. The nuns had a way of smacking the hell out of you if you couldn’t remember all 50 states or their capitals. We also got put through the paces on our “times tables” with speed and accuracy showing equal value at that point.
Beyond that, we had to memorize a number of crucial things like our locker combinations and crucial phone numbers for home, grandma’s house and our friends.
(If you don’t believe me, ask anyone over the age of 40 what their home phone number was and they probably still have it committed to memory. Even more, when I was a kid, I would always call my buddy, Mark, who lived across the street to see if he could come out and play. Fast forward to me being in my late 30s and needing to have someone check on my dad. I still remembered that number, so I called his parents’ house at that same land-line number and got the help I needed.)
Today, we lack the need for such things in so many ways. I honestly have no idea what my kid’s phone number is, as my phone tells it to me. I also don’t have email addresses or websites memorized, as they are auto-filled or replaced by apps.
So, is memorization dead, and if so, is that OK? That question took on new meaning when I saw a couple opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal. The first by professor Alex Green, talked about the ways in which AI has robbed his students of the ability of important thinking skills:
these core skills are no mystery. They involve an ability to sift through information and understand who created it, then organize and pull it together with logic, reason and persuasion. When teachers dream of our students’ successes, we want to see these skills help them thrive.
For that to happen, students must gain the ability to synthesize information. They must be able to listen, read, speak and write—so they can express strategic and tactical thinking. When they say AI is eroding their ability to speak and write, this is what they’re losing, often before they’ve ever fully gained it.
As much as I totally feel what this guy is saying, I can understand how students (or AI-proponents who aren’t students) could dismiss this as, “OK, Boomer” level complaints really boil down to a professor feeling less important than usual.
However, the second piece, by WSJ ed board member Allysia Finley, has me a bit more concerned about what AI is doing to younger brains through “cognitive offloading:”
The brain continues to develop and mature into one’s mid-20s, but like a muscle it needs to be exercised, stimulated and challenged to grow stronger. Technology and especially AI can stunt this development by doing the mental work that builds the brain’s version of a computer cloud—a phenomenon called cognitive offloading.
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Why commit information to memory when ChatGPT can provide answers at your fingertips? For one thing, the brain can’t draw connections between ideas that aren’t there. Nothing comes from nothing. Creativity also doesn’t happen unless the brain is engaged. Scientists have found that “Aha!” moments occur spontaneously with a sudden burst of high-frequency electrical activity when the brain connects seemingly unrelated concepts.
With that in mind, I go back to this early question and I wonder what you have to say about it as professors, journalists and generally smart reader-type folks:
Is memorization a necessary skill for college journalism students?
I know this might seem like a click-bait headline or like I have the answer to it, but this is an honest question for my fellow J-folk out there.
The reason I ask is because I heard a number of students grousing in my writing class about a gen ed course they all are taking that requires them to do (what I consider to be) an insane amount of memorization for tests. The exams are between 80 and 120 questions each and are to be completed within two hours. They also allow no aids, such as notes or books.
Since most of my classes are skills-based, I tend to avoid multiple choice questions or exams that go this route. However, since I let the students pick their poison when it comes to in-class exams, we do have a mix of “write this” and “pick this” kinds of questions, including multiple choice. However, I let them have the AP style book and whatever notes and homework I’ve turned back to them. My rationale is that the point of this course is to help you improve your writing/editing/reporting/whatever, so learning from previous successes and failures is par for the course in our field.
However, I have plenty of colleagues who teach large pit classes with more dates and places kinds of stuff who do use the “choose A, B, C or D” kind of questions, some of whom allow notes while others don’t. Is one better than the other? I don’t know. That’s the point of my question here.
Here are a few caveats for the discussion:
- I know some fields need memorization because looking everything up at the time in which the information is needed doesn’t work well. If you’re majoring in a language, fluid speaking, writing and reading are crucial, thus, memorization is at the core of what we do here. Also, when it comes to the medical field, I don’t want to hear my doctor or nurse saying, “I don’t know… Just Google it!”
- I used to be of the “what if you CAN’T look it up” denomination of our field. The idea of quick recall mattered when you didn’t have an AP style book at hand or you couldn’t get to the clip files to look something up. Now, we all carry computers with us that can tell us everything we need. (And if you’re going to make the “What if you don’t have service?” argument, I’d counter with, “You’re probably going to be eaten by the “Hills Have Eyes” people, so not knowing when the Council of Trent happened is probably not a priority.”
- I also used to be of the “You need the basics of our bible” kind of person as well. That meant a lot of AP memorization or at least knowledge of where to go in the book. I still force the kids to read the actual book in early classes so they know where stuff is or what is in there, but now everything is searchable for a reasonable subscription fee on AP. We also have dictionaries online. (It also makes less sense to memorize AP these days, since it seems like AP is changing rules at a maximum volume every year.)
What I’m looking at is the idea of forcing memorization in journalism classes and requiring gen ed classes of our majors that rely on this kind of approach to education. Is this the best path forward for our students? If so, why? If not, what should we do then?
I look forward to your thoughts in the comments or via email.
