mickeyd
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
At age 63, I have been away from school for many years. I recall when my kids were in school they were not required to memorize anything. I once questioned this, but was advised by an educator that there was not enough time to devote to this process as they had so many other mandated things to get done. They also questioned the academic reason for memorizing anything. I dropped the subject, as I am but an uninformed oaf!
This weekend I was watching C-Span and Bill Bennett (former Sec of Education) was speaking from the Reagan Library and he noted that he still recalls passages that he was required to memorize as a student many years ago and President Reagan also did when he was alive. This made me search my mind for recollections of things that I had memorized as a student. An incomplete list follows:
Gettysburg Address
Preamble to the US Constitution
Shakespeare (M of V, Hamlet, Macbeth)
Julius Caesar ("All Gaul is divided into three parts...")
Cremation of Sam McGee (poem by R.W.Service)
Lochinvar (Poem)
I can still recite many parts of these passages, but I am not sure what benefit academically it gave me as a student. Does anyone know of any benefits that I may have come to me because I was required to do this or is it just a quaint old educational activity?
This weekend I was watching C-Span and Bill Bennett (former Sec of Education) was speaking from the Reagan Library and he noted that he still recalls passages that he was required to memorize as a student many years ago and President Reagan also did when he was alive. This made me search my mind for recollections of things that I had memorized as a student. An incomplete list follows:
Gettysburg Address
Preamble to the US Constitution
Shakespeare (M of V, Hamlet, Macbeth)
Julius Caesar ("All Gaul is divided into three parts...")
Cremation of Sam McGee (poem by R.W.Service)
Lochinvar (Poem)
I can still recite many parts of these passages, but I am not sure what benefit academically it gave me as a student. Does anyone know of any benefits that I may have come to me because I was required to do this or is it just a quaint old educational activity?
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