Entertainment or Education?
BY ANNA KORSUNSKA (COMD/III)
annak@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
"Every person's memory is his private literature."
Aldous Huxley
I recently had a bit of a strange experience. I started taking Spanish classes this summer, but I could not take the exam at the end because I went on vacation. Two weeks later I went to take the exam, and looking at the exam paper, my mind was completely blank. I could not remember anything. I studied!
Maybe not too much, because everything was still pretty fresh in my memory. Or at least I thought it was. Even more strange, I started remembering French, which I had taken for about 5 years, but it has been two years since then!
Has something like this ever happened to you before? It was a first for me. And it really got me thinking. Yes, I knew about short-term and long-term memory, but I have never met face to face with this phenomenon before.
Let me first explain a bit. Memory works in two different ways: short-term and long-term. The difference is the length of time the information is stored. Info in short short-term memory is available for a limited period of time, but long-term data storage is almost unlimited.
So, when do we use which memory type, and is it possible to use them consciously?
It seems to me that the entire system of education, not just in Turkey but in the world, is based on short-term memory. Students are given a chaotic soup of information, from which it is hoped that they retain maybe 20 percent at most.
There is a bit of logic behind this system, I suppose, to expose the students to a maximum variety of different subjects. They learn a little bit of everything, and later in life they can choose a specialty, already knowing a bit about many subjects. But does that work? I went to a private high school in Ukraine. We had advanced physics, chemistry, law, economics, maths. I graduated with excellence. Now, I sometimes hesitate when counting change when buying things.
There is a difference between giving students a large variety of information, and pushing them to a point of exhaustion. After a while, if there is too much, instead of learning a bit of everything, you learn nothing at all. If there is too much, the memory gets tired and confused.
It seems that teachers don't understand this. Give students 30 pages to read, or give them a summary, and if they want more details, then give them a book? In a perfect world they would read. But we have to be realistic and practical. People simply do not need to know the detailed and inner workings of every subject. They need practical knowledge. And when they choose what they want to do in life, then they can go into details. But, then it will be voluntary.
I think that the difference between which kind of memory is in play isn't only in repetition. It has to do with interest. If you like a subject, if it is important to you or if it is fun, you are much more likely to remember.
I had a math teacher in sixth grade who was the best teacher I ever had. He once made us all close our eyes, while he went out and came back with a guitar, pretending to be our teacher's twin brother, and played/sang us a song in which some of the lyrics were math formulas we had to memorize. About 8 years later, I still remember the melody and lyrics to the song. Enough said.
What do you think?
Editors Note: Bilkent News encourages responses to this opinion piece. We hope to attract answers especially from faculty members, psychologists, and neuroscientists. Please format your answers as letters to the editor and email them no later than Saturday, October 16 to bilnews@bilkent.edu.tr